Ask an Expert: How can we know our customers better and understand what they consider before making a purchase?

This is an excellent and frequently asked question. Your customers/clients may include dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of unique individuals or other businesses. Beyond direct feedback, how do we get to know our customers better in order to meet their needs with digital content?

Persona development is a great first step. You may start with just three or four buyer personas and build out more as you gather additional data. These profiles help identify who the buyer is, what is important to them, why they are considering your product or service, which questions they need answered in order to influence their decision, and ultimately, what problem your company will solve for them.

We shared sample B2B buyer personas this month at Online Marketing Blog, including the Methodical, Spontaneous, and Humanistic customers. Building out these personas requires insights from your own company data, including site analytics, social sentiment analysis and analytics, purchase or shopping cart information, survey data and more. If you can get your hands on it, it can be used to shed light on your customers and how you can better suit their needs.

Buyer personas should be revisited every few months to make updates based on any new data or insights at your disposal. Once you understand what your buyers need and how they digest data, you are in a much better position to build your content to address those specific needs. Each content piece you add to your editorial plan already has a very specific audience in mind; you can stop trying to please everyone or win the popularity contest and connect with the people who truly matter to your business.

If you’re ready to improve your relationship with your customers through a holistic marketing strategy that better addresses their individual needs, contact us to get started.