10 Ways to Get Into Your Customers' Heads

Exceptional knowledge creates exceptional business. How exceptional? Let's look at a real case study of what happens when you can read the minds of your customers - let's talk about Steve Jobs.

Jobs knew his clients well. He is able to meet their needs, their needs, their expectations, and their obedience. But he didn't always have this strange ability to read the minds of his clients. For 30 years, he lost the mark. Apple II, Macintosh, and PowerMac suffered a low market share during the 1990s.

Then he came up with the idea of creating a familiar product with a simple design, which would lead to a deeper understanding of what people really wanted. And this changed Apple's course. The company's fortune changed after a series of inventions: the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

By 2012, Apple had become the world's largest publicly-traded company. Its $ 626 billion market cap exceeds that of Google and Microsoft. Jobs found what people wanted and gave it to them.

Creating a deep buyer personality is what marketers usually try to get into the minds of customers. It is a blend of many true customer attributes. Sellers give a binary, customer, a vision, a name, an image, and a set of clear features and demographics.

Unfortunately, there is one major weakness of the buyer personality: they are completely made up. Although they are well researched, there is no guarantee that your combined target will have your particular target buyer completely. So while they are a great start to understanding customers, there are plenty of other ways to get into the customer’s mind.

Here are ten more ways to get into the minds of customers. Use them to complement or replace traditional buyer personalities:

1. Review your data.

Your company may have plenty of customer data in different databases. Analyzing your data will yield a wealth of insights into buyer behavior. What exactly can you learn?

• Where and when customers buy.
• How long it takes them to buy.
• How much they buy over time.
• How satisfied they feel about their purchases.

2. Interview customer-service reps.

You can better understand customers by interviewing people who talk to them every day. Here are some sample questions to ask your customer-service representatives:

• What expectations and disappointments have customers expressed?
• What improvements do users want?
• What value do customers expect to find, and what price are they willing to pay for it?

3. Innovate to explore deeper needs

Users only know what they can get. According to Henry Ford, who is usually misinterpreted, but still appropriate, "If I ask people what they want, they'll say 'fast horses.'

Steve Jobs used innovation to examine the deeper desire behind customer desires - his customers didn't know they wanted to see an iPhone. Observing customer responses to your company's innovations reveal their hidden desires, giving you a full understanding of their psychology.

4. Build rapport through emails.

Email marketing, when done correctly, can create relationships between marketers and customers. A heartfelt welcome email sets a friendly tone. Follow up with valuable content in subsequent emails will set it up. Be a salesman and become a mentor. As a result, you get honest feedback. They share their true goals and desires, fears, and frustrations.

5. Become a good listener.

No matter what kind of business you run, there are many relationships that you can communicate directly with buyers through social media channels, blogs, and live events. During these interactions, open your ears. Buyers will tell you what they like or dislike.

6. Speak your customer’s language.

You earn their trust when your customers speak in the language they use to talk to each other. Once you gain their trust, it's easy to survey what's on their mind.

Trying to reach photographers? Look around the EyeEM's community to see how they talk to each other. Selling a product to horse lovers? Consider your new home a horse forum away from home. Want to understand health-conscious consumers? See posts and comments left by more than 250,000 followers on the Healthy Living Magazine Facebook page.

Each subculture has its own language. By learning yours, you become part of the group.

7. Do research online.

You can use the Internet to listen to customer conversations. Use Twitter Search to listen to conversations about your business or competitors. Ask questions on questionnaire sites such as social media, forums, and quora.

Visit other people's social media profiles to assess purchasing interests. Join ongoing conversations in blog comments sections. Research what keywords people are using to find items in your niche. Use Google trends to identify popular ones.

Basically, do whatever your target customers have to do to get their heads inside to go online.

8. Survey your customers.

According to ProApinion, customer surveys are particularly useful because “businesses, governments, public bodies, and similar organizations are interested in the views and mindset of the people who use their products and services. The more they learn about their customer's and citizens' perspectives, the easier it is for them to improve and adapt what they supply. "

Surveys are easy to set up and they are valuable tools. Add one to your market-research concerts today.

9. Think Like Your Customers.

Marketers are not considered customers - even if they become customers. They are more technologically sophisticated, psychologically savvy and analytical than the average customer, giving them a distorted view of how their customers think. Their buyer personality is also a reflection of their own way of thinking.

By engaging anonymously in customer forums, you can better understand what real customers think - and how you think they don't.

10. Talk to other vendors.

By loving collaboration over competition, it is possible to share marketing experiences about customer behavior and increase your two perceptions about your market.

When you stop to think about it, there are many ways to get to know your customers.

Think of customers like the friends you'd like to influence by remembering the following knowledge from Dale Carnegie: "You can make more friends in two months by trying to get other people interested in you than in two years."

Another tip to better understand your buyers? Share by leaving a comment below.