They say that knowledge is the most direct way to practice. Also in business. Knowing your potential customers allows you to attract them and turn them into promoters of your brand. But you need more than initiative. More than just a dream. You need to put into practice some techniques to get to know them and empathise with them. Only then will you be able to generate sales with an audience that really needs your products or services.
how can you get to know your customers?
One of the essential keys for today's businesses to survive and be more competitive is to know your customers. Think for example of a small neighbourhood shoe shop and a big shoe shop located in a shopping centre. They do not target the same type of customer even if they are in the same sector.
While the first one focuses on a type of public with lower purchasing power, the other one targets a type of audience that looks for other alternatives and that, in short, behaves differently. However, what can you do to distinguish between them?
First of all, to find out who your potential customer is, you must identify your target market and check what characteristics they have in common. You don't have to have a single market, as there are companies that have different types of potential customers. This is where the creation of your buyer persona becomes important. In other words, the fictitious creation of the profile of your potential customer.
Only in this way will you be able to target those who really need your products or services, and only in this way will you also be able to get to know your customers. Ask yourself what traits they share, how they behave, how they seek solutions to their problems, etc. In short, do a market study and segment it to find out who you are targeting.
Within this buyer persona we find different variables that address demographics (age, sex, marital status, etc.), geography (place of residence), psychographics (personality traits) and behaviour (consumer habits).
why is it important to know your customers?
Knowing your potential customers is almost synonymous with creating your buyer persona. And I say 'almost' because the buyer persona can also be a consequence of this knowledge. In any case, we want to tell you why it is important to know them:
- To have a clear idea of who our ideal customer is so that marketing actions are more effective at each stage of the buying cycle.
- Itimproves communication with the customer, as the more we know about them, the better we can focus on them.
- It allows us to define new lines of business if we observe the presence of another type of market in our audience.
- It makes it possible to achieve our objectives and increase sales.
Nobody doubts the importance of potential customers in our business. They are the key to success. Knowing them, segmenting them and empathising with them will ensure that we can always anticipate their needs.
The art of selling
Some marketers say that selling is an art. Traditionally, this concept has gone through different stages. First, it was understood as a way of giving. Then, some consumers assimilated it to deceptive strategies, as a kind of betrayal. And, finally, nowadays it seems to be a way of persuading. In any case, the act of selling is to give something to someone in exchange for a certain amount of money.
It is surprising that an action as simple as this can become an art, isn't it? It has done so thanks to strategies such as Inbound Marketing.
Don't look to sell more, start by selling better.
