The to know one's own customers comprehensively, pays off for all companies. An effective target group and persona analysis is not only the basis for a lasting customer loyaltybut is also available for Customer acquisition and to align its own marketing and sales activities are particularly important. In seven simple steps get to know your customers better and assess their needs.
Get to know customers better: define the target group
If you want to get to know your customers better, the first thing to do is to get to know them better in the first place. Customer group and thus define the target group.
Since it is not possible to get to know each customer individually and to understand their needs, we Well structured target groups and Customer Personas represents the most efficient solution in this area.
The target group is usually represented by both demographics and socioeconomic characteristics. Important characteristics here include age, gender, place of residence, but also factors such as income, marital status or the education and profession of the persons.
The better you can narrow down the target group, the more effectively and efficiently you can get to know your customers in the further course.
The evaluation of buying behavior within the target group
After the target group has been narrowed down according to socio-demographic data, it is now a question of the Behavior of the target group evaluate. It must be the intrinsic motivation of the target group can be found, which influences the direct purchasing behavior. Important factors here include the Consumer awareness, certain Brand preferences, the still existing Needs of the target group and their general Life and financial situation.
All this data not only helps to be more precisely informed about one's own customers, but is also the Basic prerequisite for effective marketing and thus more effective addressing of their own target group.
Get in touch with customers as a company
Often, only marketing and sales are in any contact with customers at all. If you want to get to know your customers better, the easiest way is often the direct request. You will be surprised how many customers are willing to participate in qualitative surveys and leave their feedback. Often enough simple questionnaires, which directly online or if required also in the Store can be filled in to get a first and qualitative feedback from your customers.
However, this is not a one-time event. Because through the digital world User behavior changes often much faster than many years ago. The analysis of the target group is therefore a dynamic process, which is always changing and thus must be carried out continuously.
If you want to get to know your customers better, you should implement these feedback solutions permanently and provide the manpower to evaluate them.
Rely consistently on digital solutions
The required manpower is always a problem and especially for small and still young companies hardly manageable. However, this is where the Digitization and the Automation clearly in the hands. So, if possible, try to digitize the constant questioning of customers.
This facilitates the Evaluation of the data is enormous, since the input of the customers by means of AI can be evaluated very easily and prepared for direct use. Thus, if possible, you have daily updated data of the customers and you can use this to Data basis act.
Use social media consistently and effectively
No matter if Facebook or Twitter, social media can increase your reach enormously. This is important if your surveys and your questionnaires are to not only reach your own customersbut also want to address those parts of the target group that are not yet in contact with your company. Another advantage of this is that through such surveys and questionnaires you can create a significantly larger number of participants can be achieved and thus the error tolerance decreases significantly and statistical errors can be avoided.
In any case, make sure that the questionnaires are not only short and crisp but the questions are also as close as possible to the answer specifically let. This prevents participants from dropping out or losing interest in the middle of the survey.
Validate the results
Even though questionnaires are a good way to get to know your own customers better, you should not be satisfied with this data. This is because prefabricated answers once again significantly limit the possibilities of presentation and can thus reduce the Distort result. So you can send to selected participants again Validation questionnaires which allow free-text responses. In this way, very personal preferences and impressions can be gained more effectively.
However, the required evaluation here cannot be done by a system. Here, you have to read the answers and, if possible, also provide feedback to the users and customers. Therefore, such validation questionnaires are always to be used only on a small scale in order to concretize certain questions.
Create specific user profiles from the responses
Now it is a matter of effectively use the data obtained. So create within the target group specific user profiles of individual small groups and use them as customer personas. In this way you can Tailor all marketing and sales interactions to the different user profiles and thus significantly closer to the needs of customers. A Higher efficiency and thus also a higher propensity to buy with customers will be the result.
