What do your customers want? Here are 3 tips on how to think like your audience

Jan 11

One comment I get often from clients who are new to marketing, regardless of whether they want to be an influencer or attract more customers to their business, is that they have no idea how to reach their customers. If that’s you, don’t worry, this is a common roadblock many business owners struggle with. Without knowing how to communicate with customers or followers about yourself or your products, the chances of them seeing, loving and championing what you do is very very slim.

Here are three ways to read your customer’s minds and overcome the “I don’t know what to say” roadblock.

1. Create an ideal customer profile

A profile is an outline of an individual. It serves as a brief description of who they are and what their interests are. The reason you want to do this is that it instantly clarifies who it is you speaking to and forces you to be very specific and intentional about exactly what you communicate and how you communicate it. For example, who is easier to sell a car to?

A: customer who just walked into the store

B: customer b who just walked into the store pushing a stroller with a baby in it and another toddler holding on to the side handle whose wife is walking behind him sporting a baby bump?

See how instantly the additional details surrounding customer B painted a very clear image of who they were? So are you going to offer a 2 door corvette to customer B? Of course not because chances are they would be more interested in a family vehicle.

Building out details around who exactly your customer is helps you figure out how to approach them more tactfully.

2. Tip 2: Get specific

You want to get into the minds of your ideal customers or followers meaning you want what you say to sound like it is coming from one of their besties and not a stranger trying to get them to do something. Being able to answer questions like:

What kind of music do they listen to?
What types of magazines do they read?
What are their hobbies?
What are their challenges?

will help you align your communications efforts with what they already need.

What would they be doing with their free time? Are they more likely to find the hottest party to go to on a Friday night or take a relaxing soak in the tub with a copy of Becoming by Michelle Obama?

This might seem a bit stalkerish but the truth is your customers and followers are 3-dimensional individuals with likes and interests and hobbies and preferences that make them who they are. If you are able to understand more about them, the easier it will be to relate to them and warm-up that sales lead or conversion. Use this information to reverse engineer your communications messaging.

3. Narrow down their issue and provide a solution.

By now we should have a pretty detailed, in-depth understanding of who you are targeting. That means in addition to what they binge-watch on Netflix, you should also know what their challenges are. Is it building up their self-esteem? Is it wanting to look bougie on a budget? Is it that they can’t find a work uniform that expresses their style? Once you know what their challenge is, you can position your product or service as a solution to their challenge. That’s it. That’s’ what sales are about but this way it doesn’t feel icky or salesely. You’re really providing a common good here. A community service if you will so think of it that way. Don’t you feel that sense of pride and confidence rising up inside you already?

Well there you have it. 3 quick tips on getting into the mind of your target audience in order to communicate more effectively about your offers. Let me know if you’ve tried any of these approaches and how they’ve worked for you.

Till next time, keep rising,

Rhoda