A business thrives on its customers. The old saying ‘customer is king’ holds true to this date. Creating products for the wrong audience and marketing it to the wrong subset of customers could bring disaster to your business. The best way to avoid this unpleasant circumstance is to understand your customers better.
It can cost a business 6x to find new customers than to retain their old customers. With the right marketing messages, you can reduce these costs, keep existing customers loyal to your business and ensure that your brand continues dominating the market. Here are five steps to help you understand your audience better.
Step 1- Identifying the demographic
You first need to understand who your customers are or who your potential customers could be. A market research firm like MPP Global can help you in defining your target audience. The age, gender, location, income and preferences of your audience could be researched through social media, website analytics and surveys.
Step 2- Identifying the psychographic
Now you need to find why your customers would like to engage with your brand. You have to find out attitudes, values and behavioral patterns of your customers. Their lifestyle and personality, coupled with their demographic data will help you in defining what your customers really want. You can tweak an existing product/service to their requirement after knowing the psychographic.
Step 3- Developing a brand
Developing a brand that resonates with your audience is essential for business success. You need to work on two different aspects of the company’s image- the graphic identity and the brand identity. The graphic identity defines your logo, designs, and colors that can instantly be recognized as your company. The cursive fonts and red color of Coca-Cola define its brand while blue, white and red colors and a youthful, fun font defines the Pepsi brand.
For creating and reinforcing your company’s brand identity, you should define its core values, objectives and mission. Research shows that 52% people who visit your website want to read the ‘About Us’ page. They want to know what you stand for and if your goals objectives match with their values.
Step 4- Identifying communication platforms
While Facebook offers the largest blend of demographics for marketers, B2B communications flow better on sites like LinkedIn. 75% mobile users search for products and services on their mobiles first. This will provide better returns to mobile-first or mobile-only advertising and marketing strategies. Affiliate marketing is also on the rise, providing a 10% annual growth rate. Find out which communication platform your audience is most likely to use and target them there.
Step 5- Nurture your brand
As you start sending your marketing and brand messages to your audience, ensure that you interact with them regularly. Analyze user habits, find out what your customers want and keep engaging with them via comments, posts, and DMs. Tweak your strategies with time while maintaining a consistent brand image.
Get a concise look at brand creation and audience identification with our handy infographic below. Follow it, print it or save it to reevaluate your brand communication and create a successful business too.
