10 Ways to Conduct Continuous Market Research by Connecting with Your Market.
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Oct 8, 2008
10 ways to conduct continuous market research by better connecting with your market and improving your relationship marketing:
1. Start by building a relationship with a group of people you are interested in. If they are going to become your loyal fans, your audience needs to love you. However, you need to also love them. If you don’t they will know it.
2. Don’t just talk. Listen. Find out what they want. (Products are easier to find than audiences.)
3. Find out what they truly want – even compulsively need - to spend money on. There are many things they want. The real question is, what are they willing to spend money on? Further, they should have the ability (or at the very least, the strong inclination and potential near-future ability) to buy what you are selling.
4. Try to understand what is motivating their actions. What do they really want? (Sorry to complicate things, but this might not be what they say they want. I might say I want to lose 10 pounds and then order dessert. Pay attention to their behavior.) What’s their agenda? What are their goals? What are they afraid of? What problems are they dealing with? What are they running towards/ away from?
5. Be authentic. Don’t try to be something you’re not. Speak to them about them and about what they want, just be you while doing it. Capitalize on your own strengths. (For fun, read this great post by Sonia Simone at Coppyblogger, where she asks the question, “If your blog could be personified as a shapely star of a really cheesy 1960s sitcom, which would it be? Ginger, or Mary Ann?“
6. Do some research, find out what your market is interested in and study that. Subscribe to their publications, join their associations, do some keyword research, etc.
7. Recognize that your target market has no innate understanding the value of your service(s) and/or product(s). They didn’t wake up this morning with the vision that lives in your head about how your product or service can improve their lives and solve their problems. Teaching them in a way that is relevant to them is your job as a marketer. Important: “teach” rather than “preach”. You will further your connection with them while increasing the knowledge of the value you provide. Most importantly, they will not run away from you if you are really giving them good information.
8. Establish credibility. Do and say stuff that demonstrates your credibility. Associate with credible people. Do what you say and say what you mean. Then repeat. Over and over again.
9. Understand that if you try to sell before you have connected, your efforts will be largely wasted. If you do sell before you have connected, and don’t make every effort to connect after the sale, you will likely not be rewarded with a 2nd sale. And, “You don’t really have a customer until you’ve sold them twice.” - Joyce Lillis
10. Really contribute. Contribute to the conversation, contribute to their lives, contribute to their efforts. Give, not for the opportunity to get, but because you recognize that ultimately it will result in more opportunities to give.
If your small business is experiencing a dip, direct attention to your marketing
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Sep 29, 2008
Jassen Bowman, in his article, The Fundamental Role of Marketing In Business, writes that, “More often than not, marketing is a back seat, tertiary thought that comes after their product/service and daily operations, if it’s even that high of a priority.” He goes on to say that, “….marketing encompasses all the activities that seek to identify what consumers want and how to promote and deliver those goods and services.”
Let me restate that: Here’s what marketing in business does - it identifies what consumers want and then acts as the conduit for which they find what they want and purchase it, equallaing sales in your business and ultimatly the acheivement of a successful business.
If that’s not all important when things are slow or difficult, or when you are just starting a small business, I don’t know what is.
If you are to survive your Dip, you must work to acquire good marketing skills. In fact, when business is slow, working on improving your marketing is the absolute best thing to do. Marty Foley identifies being skilled at marketing as as one of the most important skills an entrepreneur can have. In fact, when it comes to the success of your business, marketing is everything.
As Marty Foley writes, “The world can not and will not beat a path to your door to buy your “better mouse trap” if the world doesn’t know about it. Regardless of what business you’re in, marketing is the tool used to present the solutions that your products and services offer to the rest of the world.”
Well said.
I have found that many small business owners have a hard time making the time to work on increasing their marketing skills. There is too much “work” to do.
Our best small business advice is this: Acquiring knowledge about how to reach your customers is the most important work you can do if you don’t have enough buying customers!
Make a commitment to expanding your marketing ability. Read, test, try, join a mastermind group, find a mentor, whatever. But learn and act, and learn some more. Your successful business depends on it.
