If you want to build a successful business, you need to know your customers. And to know your customers, you have to understand where to go and how to listen. Otherwise, you’ll miss out on massive opportunities.
Get to Know Your Customers
The majority of brands have no idea who their customers are, what they want, or what their journey looks like. These same companies go on to invest thousands of dollars into focused marketing campaigns and promotions designed to generate revenue.
In fact, one study found that 80 percent of brands don’t have sufficient data to launch effective marketing campaigns. This either prevents them from launching the campaign in the first place, or causes them to invest money into a campaign that has very little chance of ever succeeding.
Want to dramatically improve your ability to reach customers with the right messaging at the right time? The following tips will help you get to know your customers better:
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Become a Magnet for Data Collection
Don’t underestimate the value of having access to the right data. Open your eyes to all of the data sources that are around you and take full advantage of collecting the best nuggets.
Whether it’s on social media, Google Analytics, email, or some other avenue, don’t let opportunities to understand your customers go to waste. If you don’t understand how a certain platform works, put in the time to research it. As you know, we live in an age of information where you can find answers to any question with just a few clicks of your mouse. Be informed!
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Build a Google Data Studio Dashboard
There’s no doubt that Google Analytics is one of the most powerful data collection platforms around. The biggest issue is learning how to make sense of the thousands of data points collected inside. One solution is to build a Google Data Studio dashboard.
Google Data Studio essentially allows you to build your own highly-customized and accessible dashboard that puts the most important metrics and data points at your fingertips for easy consumption. Think of it as your way to customize your view of the data that’s pouring in so that you understand who your customers are.
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Use Social Listening
Social media is, first and foremost, a channel for engaging customers. But it’s also a tool for listening to your target audience and understanding who they are. If you’re only using it for the first purpose, it’s time to broaden your horizons and invest in social listening.
Social listening lets you collect data, identify opportunities, and observe what’s happening on social media (within your target audience). And much like with Google Analytics, there are ways to build social listening dashboards to collect insights on things like brand mentions, brand sentiment, and interactions with your brand profiles on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
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Proactively Seek Out Feedback
Sometimes the best strategy is to ask your customers for feedback. And as long as you tee it up in the appropriate way, you’ll be surprised to learn that many are totally fine giving you their honest opinions.
Surveys are the best way to gather feedback at scale. The key is to (a) incentivize customers to take action and (b) remove as much friction as possible. If you can find a way to embed surveys directly into your emails, do it. Better yet, use social media to run polls and directly collect data.
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Turn to Sales and Customer Service
You may not realize it, but you have a wealth of data waiting for you if you just know where to look. Depending on how your team is set up and what your processes look like, your sales and customer service departments are ideal places to pull data from.
Train your sales agents and customer service staff to ask questions that pull out valuable insights. Then compile these insights into reports that give you an idea of customer sentiment, expectations, and opportunities.
Craft More Powerful Experiences
The more you know about your customers, the better equipped you’ll be to serve them in the highest capacity possible. Thankfully, there’s ample data and cost-effective resources that make it possible for any brand (small or large) to uncover the insights needed to develop more impactful campaigns. Now is the time to buckle down and get started!
Interesting related article: “What is Customer-Centric?”