Understanding your customer now, is more important than ever before. Now is an opportunity to get to know your ideal customer intimately. ‘Who they are’ simply won’t cut it. You need to go deeper, where do they spend their time, what do they like to read, how has the pandemic affected their day to day, which channels are they interested in as a result, which problems are they trying to solve? Knowing your target buyer intimately changes everything.
Think about how you feel on a typical Monday morning driving to work. Maybe you’ve just dropped the kids to school, maybe you pumped out a 6am workout, however you started your day, that version of yourself and the thoughts you have, are very different to the Thursday afternoon version of you. The priorities and focuses in each instance are not the same as the other. You would therefore not approach your communication style or output in the same way in each instance. Now think about the post-COVID version of this situation. Have your clients been working from home? Were they made redundant, have they been home schooling? Your communication messages and output channels need to be specific – in order to cut through and really resonate with your prospects.
If your main concern is fighting the competition you’re already on the back foot. In order to position yourself as a market leader and industry trendsetter, you must give away some value for the bigger strategy at play. This means freely giving something which educates and truly adds value to your prospects business – a valuable piece of content. This will not only set you apart from the rest, but it will also position you as a leader and a source of intel. This is also the very first exchange of value your prospect makes with your business so make it count.
Where many businesses fail, is by approaching their online prospects with a one-size fits all approach. Successfully capturing a lead or converting a sale involves a carefully planned architecture which considers what we’ve just touched on in points 1 – 3 plus a lot more! Sending all your prospects to a home page and hoping they ‘Sign Up’ or find their way to your purchase page doesn’t work and relies on the idea that your contacts have made a decision about you and are ready to hand over their cash, which is not usually not the case.. ever.
Be agile with your marketing and advertising spend. Once you’ve nailed points 1-4 – then, you must be available and consistent with your online presence. Now, more than ever, consumers need to see and feel someone leading the way. Understand and anticipate what each of your segments need and activate purpose-led marketing messages leveraged with the right technology through the right channels at the right time – always with a focus on helping your clients.
