Running a business can be very fulfilling. On one end, you’re making money doing something you love. On the other, you get to positively impact other people’s lives with your products and services.
Sure, it feels good to make money with your business. But it feels even better to know you’re making a difference to others by providing them with convenience and value.
Identifying Customer Needs
Good business owners are desperate to find a way to serve others, as they should be. When you focus on serving first, the money will come. So how do you find out what your target audience wants so you can better market to them and serve value? Here are 3 ways to achieve this.
1. Survey Them
One of the easiest ways to find out what your audience wants is to survey them. It’s best to start by surveying the people on your email list. Ask them why they joined your list and how your business can help them overcome an obstacle or meet a goal.
When building your email list, it’s important to be as specific as possible when it comes to setting expectations. You want people to know what they’re getting when they join your list and how you can help. It makes no sense to have a huge list of subscribers filled with people who aren’t your target audience and aren’t interested in your help.
By being specific, setting expectations from the start, and surveying your audience as soon as they sign up, you’ll learn more about their current situation and how you can help them. You can create free surveys using Typeform or SurveyMonkey and even offer a giveaway item as an incentive.
Analyze the survey results once people start taking it and pay attention to common answers, themes, or questions so you can use those topics to create content, products, services, etc.
2. Do a Discovery Call
If you’re looking for more in-depth feedback and ideas from your target audience, you should consider doing one-on-one discovery calls with a few people. This short call will only take a few minutes but it will allow you to ask several questions and get valuable feedback from people in your target audience. Think of it as your own mini focus group.
Think of it as your own focus group I did this last year and set up calls with around 15 email subscribers. I asked them about their biggest obstacles were along with how my business could help.
Their response allowed me to come up with more tools and resources to use in my business.
3. Use Social Media
It’s likely that your target audience is using social media in some capacity. It’s easy to find out more about them and what their interests are by using these platforms.
You can use your Facebook page to get insights on followers and your audience by using several of their analytics features. If you sign up for a Twitter ads account, you can use the follower’s dashboard to connect to your target audience.
Don’t forget about social media groups and public conversations. You can join Facebook groups that your target audience are in and ask them questions or simply take notes on their own questions.
I actually host a free Facebook group for my followers and it’s a great way to find out what my target audience wants.
Summary
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to determining what your target audience wants so you can market better to them. Simply start by narrowing down who your ideal customer/client is and asking them.
Being straightforward will eliminate a lot of guesswork and trial and error. Plus, it will help you improve your reach when it comes to serving others and building a business you can be proud of.
Republished by permission. Original here
Image: Due.com
This article, “Apply These 3 Simple Techniques to Identify Your Customer’s Needs” was first published on Small Business Trends
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