Target Audience Intelligence Roadmap
To blow your market’s minds you must first get into their minds! Build your own business GPS to get into their heads and then blow your market’s mind using four vital knowledge points. I’ll discuss these four points as we go. Before jumping in let’s establish the ‘Why’ this is even important for busy executives, operations, marketing, and salespeople. The reason is that knowing the minutia for every aspect of your target audiences provides the three vastly powerful results you want for your business.
- Raise revenues substantially
- Drive profit margins way up
- Beat competition more often
Understanding your target audiences is something you may be overestimating your abilities. If not, then great. Rather you think you know almost everything about your audience or feel you know way too little, this read will give you perspective an initiative to increase the power of your customer intelligence gathering and build what C-Level Global implements using Renaissance Methodology, and calls the Wow-Customer-Centric-Experience.
Understanding your target audiences by category. Before digging in, lets breakdown the target audiences into these groups that relate to B2B or B2C; Current customers, past customers, prospects (never been a customer), and channel partners too. Consider the actual buyers or referral partners, meaning the people who make the decision. Also, consider the key influencers.
Market intelligence reverse engineers the customer experience! Now, let’s dive into knowing your target audiences. Survey data direct from the target audience is more precious than gold. Consider this your market intelligence. It serves as your GPS to build your Wow-Customer-Centric-Experience. Direct feedback allows you to analyze your marketing strategy and sales effectiveness so you can find out if you are on track or not, and dig into if you are giving the market what they actually want. For example, are you focused on the “best service,” when the market cares more about, “fast turnaround times,” or are you pushing price when quality or customer support is valued more than price sensitivity. There are many other complicated details to attain here but this sets you on the right path. C-Level Global can help guide you if need be.
Showing your market you care! You or your team too often view taking the time to ask for feedback as a hassle. The attitude of negativity often prevents your business from building the right system; “I hate surveys and don’t want to or don’t have time to answer those things so why would our audience,” and “it’s a waste of our time to try and will burden our customers and us.” Off the cuff, these remarks sound plausible. However, it is a big mistake to allow this to stop your market feedback initiative. Without it the Wow-Customer-Centric-Experience won’t manifest. Thus, your profits won’t rise as they should.
Take the time to ask the right questions and you will be happy you did. Sure, most people won’t respond. That is okay. You just need sample data from a portion of the market.
The two pillars of your business GPS, Demographics and Psychographics!
- Demographics reveal who your customers are and details about them. This gives you the profile for your ideal buyer. Use this to categorize the different types of buyers so you can tailor your offering better. This allows you to breakdown how to reverse engineer your offering so your cost to acquire customers goes down while your close rate goes up.
- Psychographics reveal details on why the market buys. The motives behind their decisions require the right types of questions to get past surface-level rhetoric. Digging deep reveals how to customize your marketing and sales to gain more of their time, interest, and also have them be proactive in seeking you out.
Warning, you may think you know what you actually don’t know! It is easy to discount this data and see it as useless by thinking something like, “for my special niche business this is a waste of time.” Well, that kind of thinking is BS. Combined, Demographics, and Psychographics make up the operating system for your GPS to business success.
Now let’s look at two other data scenarios. One, the customers you lose. Two, the customers you won. Win/Loss Analysis is seldom gathered or used well. Often the data, if gathered, is not plugged into business strategy/tactics/operations so it’s dead data. It’s like setting your GPS but then turning off the system and venturing off on the trip going the way you “think you know will get you there.”
The two intelligence methods that fine-tune your business success GPS!
- Win/Loss Analysis gathered after the buyer decides either in favor of or against you is how your business GPS optimizes its operations and go-to-market approach. Discover why the market chooses you or not and drill down into every iota possible. Compare and contrast this data with the Demographics and profiles you attained. Knowing what went right and wrong allows you to win more.
- Customer’s Perspective, meaning gaining insight into customer’s minds after they receive/use the products or services you deliver. This is equally as important as Win/Loss Analysis. Compare and contrast this data with the Psychographics and profiles you attained. Asking for feedback on the details of how they rate you and why is the other way to calibrate your operations and go-to-market approach so you fine-tune the business GPS.
Timing for collecting market data matters! Ask for data as soon as possible after a buying decision is made for or against you, and after delivery or use of your product or service. The faster the better so the information is more accurate and you can get more details while it’s fresh on people’s minds. When relevant, provide an incentive in exchange for the data you seek. For example. A gift, future discount, free report, chance to win a prize, etc. Think carefully about how to ask, the copywriting for it, and automate as much of this process as possible. Assess and adjust this system monthly or quarterly.
Implementing a powerful feedback system isn’t easy! Building the system to acquire useful feedback and incorporating it into your business is easier said than done. Getting buy-in to do this is the first step. Rather you’re the leader who can snap your fingers and say “do it,” or part of the team responsible for managing or executing this effort, buy-in is necessary across both sides. Next, develop the budget, assign the resources, and design the system to write, send, acquire, evaluate, and incorporate the intelligence gathered. Having executive participation is key as this data is vital to executive strategy, budgeting for future needs, and operational improvements. Also, have champions from all departments involved to create the task force to improve the fact-gathering and execution of the knowledge gained. Be ready for internal pushback and ready to hear some painful feedback that can create strife. It’s easy to hear all the glowing reviews and kudos but you can learn just as much and maybe more from the negative feedback.
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