Is Your Customer the Elephant in the Room?

Let’s play a game….get out a piece of paper and write down the names of three people closest to you.

Maybe your mom, maybe your husband or maybe your best friend. Now pretend that you need to buy each of those people a gift, what would you give them?

Go ahead….I’ll wait

Picking out a gift can be a very difficult task (people get stressed out over the holidays for a reason after all). You have to ask yourself many important questions about the gift recipient in order to make sure you make the right choice.

What do they need?

What do they like?

Will they get real value out of it?

In order to give a really good gift, you truly have to know and understand the recipient or else you can be assured that your gift will be greeted with a polite thank you and then quickly re-gifted to another person or thrown in the closet black-hole.

Now let’s play the same game…this time with your target customer? What do they want? What do they need? Do you know? Too many entrepreneurs let their ideas lead their business, instead of their customers; a fatal mistake that limits both your business’s opportunities and growth.

Never take your eye off the customer (prize)-from inception through execution-

Every business should be built around the consumer, not the other way around. Too often we see entrepreneurs creating businesses based on assumptions without actually understanding the ins and outs of their market..

Imagine playing darts with your eyes closed or shooting a basketbalel with a blindfold on. In both cases, being prevented from seeing your target would make it nearly impossible to hit it. The same is, and will always remain true for your business, as well.

Today’s marketplace provides consumers the ability to pick and choose exactly what they want. There are so many options, so trying to convince them that your product is what they need is like pushing a boulder up a steep hill. Instead, meet them where they are and give them what they want.

By learning who your customers are; by finding out their real needs; and by offering them tailored products and services that work for them, you have created an offering that is a must have vs. a nice to have.

The Customer in Business Marketing:

Your customer is now bombarded with gazillions of messages daily, how do you get yours to be heard? Well, by understanding where they are and how to best engage them. Knowing your market is not only a necessity in the formative stages, but of course in the actual execution of your marketing.

Without being armed with the right information about the way your customer lives, the choices they make, who and what they trust, you will end up wasting precious marketing dollars with a haphazard marketing strategy. Just because one tactic works for one business, doesn’t mean it will work for all. Although simple in concept, the lure of ‘lazy marketing’ is strong, especially for business owners who don’t have the funds or time to devote to a well laid out, focused strategy.

So, save yourself and your customer the pain and be a smart and strategic planner from go!

Laura Petrolino is Managing Director of Flying Pig Communications, a communications and business consulting firm which focuses on the needs of startups, small business and non-profits. She also serves as Chief Communications Officer at Ignite Venture Partners, which brings together consulting, capital, and concept incubation to build value in businesses of all sizes and stages, and across industries. Find her on twitter @lkpetrolino and @365startups