One of the easiest ways to improve your marketing is to simply spend some time attempting to answer questions from the perspective of your customers. These basic “Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?” questions can provide you with new ideas that can drive subtle changes in your marketing and innovative breakthroughs in your business.
Do you know what they do for fun? Do you know who they associate with? Where do they live? What are the messages they are likely to hear daily? What questions are they being asked? What demands are being made on their time? What are they seeing as they go through the day? What motivates them to take action? What do they say publicly and how does that differ from what they think privately? How do they feel about life? What excites them? What keeps them awake at night? Why would they or should they care about your business?
This is an exercise in empathy – a characteristic that is unique to human beings. The ability to think and feel beyond yourself is essential to developing great marketing. By simply taking the time to answer these questions, you can use empathy to develop new concepts that resonate with the people you want to serve and help to create the future of your business.
In less than 2 minutes you can improve your business by just asking and answering these questions. If you want to go further, ask your team to answer them and compare and contrast your responses. Want to know more? Explore social media and external sources of information to evaluate your assumptions. Really want to know the answers to these questions? Directly ask some of your customers to answer them directly. All of this can teach you more about the present state of your brand, the mindset of your customers, and the future of your business.
How much time are you spending asking and answering questions about the people you serve?
