Marketing and advertising are extremely important for pretty much any business’ success. We are operating in an increasingly saturated consumer market and you really have to shout loud to be heard and noticed amongst the crowd. However, nowadays, it seems like most businesses are merely speaking at their customers rather than to their customers.
Sure, getting your message out there is important. You want people to notice your products and you want to show off their unique qualities. You also want to stand out from the crowd. But at the same time, you need to open up an engaged dialogue with your customers. There’s no point in funneling all of your efforts into telling people how good your products are when they don’t agree. Engaging with your customers and potential customers could actually offer some beneficial information that genuinely would make your product as brilliant as you say it is. So, how can you open up the doors and get started with this? Here are a couple of strategies you can try that will open the communication lines for your customers and clients.
Direct Communication
The first thing you should do is to make sure your customers have access to some type of direct line of communication. If you run an eCommerce store, this is absolutely essential. You are going to have to provide customers with a means of getting in touch. Even if you run a brick and mortar store and customers could come in to speak to you, you should still have alternative options that make things easier for them and offers them a choice on how to communicate. Make sure you have a working phone with a live answering service. You should also ensure you either have an email address customers can use or a message form on your webpage. It’s also a good idea to ensure your business has social media pages. Most social media pages have messaging features integrated into them that your customers will be able to use.
Market Research
You need to make sure customers can get in touch with you if they have questions or complaints but how about getting feedback from them? Knowing what customers think in regards to your products, your services, or other aspects of your business’ operation is important. It opens up opportunities to improve upon what you are currently offering and hopefully result in increased profits and customer satisfaction. How do you do this? Through market research.
Market research allows you to directly ask your customers or potential customers for their opinions. You can get to know and understand your target demographic. You can request that they fill out surveys or even interview them. If you aren’t going to use your staff to conduct the research, be sure to use a market research agency with good reviews! You want to make sure all of the work is carried out professionally and in alignment with your brand reputation.
As you can see, it’s extremely important to maintain communication with your customers and clients. Try implementing the above steps into your business and become a business who speaks to their customers rather than at them. If you do, you will gain a lot of insight into your business. This valuable insight will help to boost brand loyalty, sales, and overall profit. Now that sounds like a win to me! Until next time, here’s to your success…
Carolyn R. Owens has over 25 years of proven experience and serves as a Career Strategist, Executive and Leadership Coach. She is the President of Infinity Coaching, Inc. where she can help you up-level your skills, so you can up-level your income, career, business or life. Infinity Coaching, Inc. provides coaching, organizational training, personality assessments, and a signature program, the Infinity Coaching Inner Circle. Carolyn is certified to give both The Energy Leadership Index Assessment and Myers Briggs Type Indicator Assessment. You can find out more about both assessments and other products and services at https://infinitycoaching.net.
