Just as a house built on sand won’t stand the test of time, marketing conducted without insights from your customers won’t be nearly as impactful to your business’s brand perception, sales pipeline and, well, your bottom line.
In this discussion with Content Director Toby Wall and Senior Writer Mary Tomlinson, these two veterans share why customer research is critical to your marketing endeavors and the risks of not engaging with your buyers. (Can you imagine designing a new website without understanding your unique value proposition in the eyes of your customers?)
They also share time-tested tips on how to actually conduct research such as:
- Starting the conversation in their world. Diving right into your product features and benefits is a good way to alienate the interviewee and make the interview about you — which isn’t your goal.
- Routinely testing your assumptions. It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong, but what does matter is you get to find out why.
- Getting to the emotional crux of pain points. At the center of every business problem is a frustrated individual who wants something better for their company. This is your chance to hear those nuggets of insight.
You’ll walk away prepared to have meaningful conversations with your customers — and ready to build the foundation of your marketing plan.
