Tweak Your Biz » Marketing » Do I Know You?

Do I Know You?

by margaretdurand on March 2nd, 2010
6 Comments



I received a funny email this morning and after my tea-spluttering fit of giggles I decided to forward it. As always I brought up my forwarding list and selected those who I thought would also find the email funny (as opposed to offensive, annoying or stupid!). Most of us do this exercise every time we forward a joke-we make decisions based on the content and context of the material and the audience it’s going to. Somehow the thought of sending something saucy to Dad or a controversial viewpoint to a colleague is enough to make us stop and think about where our email is going. We take this care with our personal communication but do we give our marketing communications the same attention?

In order to communicate effectively with our target market, we need to know them. Too often we make marketing decisions based on what’s important to us rather than what’s important to our customers. For example many promotions are based on excess stock or a need to increase sales of a particular product or service. If we’re offering customers something based on what we value instead of what they value it’s no surprise that we won’t get a good return. Infact there’s no better way to alienate a customer than to demonstrate that you’re not paying attention to their needs. How do you meet your customers’ needs? It’s pretty simple; you need to know them to make your communication relevant. There are 10 things that you absolutely must know about your customers-know these things and it will intelligently inform your communications leading to better ROI everytime.

1. Who are they?
2. What do they do?
3. Why do they buy?
4. When do they buy?
5. How do they make buying decisions?
6. What is important to them?
7. What do they expect from you?
8. How much money do they have?
9. What do they think of you?
10. What are they interested in?

Of course to find this information you need to ask for it. Ask your database for reports, ask your customers to answer questions and always ask yourself is what I’m saying relevant to who I’m speaking to?



Category: Branding, market research, Marketing Strategy

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The Author:

Passion for Creative is a full service marketing agency based in Wateford. We provide a full range of services, from graphic design to training, from copywriting to advertising, from strategy to mentoring, and from from web design to branding. We help businesses to get more customers and to make the most of the customers that they have. Dare to be different and do it with Passion http://www.passionforcreative.com

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  • http://www.channelship.ie/ Fred

    Good post Margaret! Welcome to Bloggertone! Those questions are really important, how ever I would add an extra one called “Where do they hang out online?” Huge opportunity there :)

  • http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

    Hi Margaret, Welcome to Bloggertone, It’s great to have you on board. I love the simplicity and effectiveness of your open questions. “Too often we make marketing decisions based on what’s important to us rather than what’s important to our customers” That’s a great point and could equally be applied to many other business disciplines.

  • http://www.m4bmarketing.com Susan Oakes

    Hi Margaret,

    I like your last words about making sure what you are saying is relevant to who you are speaking to. This subject is a favourite of mine and the questions you mentioned are really important. If you know how your customers think, feel and behave, building relationships and achieving success is so much easier.

  • http://blog.myprojecttracker.com Barney Austen

    Hello Margaret and welcome to Bloggertoner world :) . What an excellent, yet straightforward list of questions to get the brain in gear. Thankyou.

  • Anonymous

    Thanks for the feedback guys, and the warm welcome :-)

  • Anonymous

    Nice thoughts Margaret. It’s good to remember to get back to the basics of what we are doing sometimes, isn’t it!

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