You Are Not Your Customer

Who is your customer? You’ve given some thought to this question. How old are they? Male or female? Are they tech-savvy? Where do they spend their free time?

Your customer and how they think should be the driving factor in all of your marketing decisions. You may love reading The New Yorker, but if your customers prefer People, there isn’t any reason to spend your marketing budget on ads in The New Yorker. Nothing shocking here, right? We all understand this.

Here’s where it gets tricky: do you think you are your customer? You’re wrong. Disagree with me? Perhaps you’re thinking, “I’m just like my customer. I am my target market. We’re the same in every way.”

  • same taste in music
  • same age
  • same income level
  • same hobbies
  • same politics
  • we read the same magazines
  • we watch the same TV shows
  • we like the same celebrities
  • we care about the same news
  • we live in the same kinds of neighborhoods and shop in the same stores

All of these things will help you understand your customer. You are a part of your target demographic. This will give you extremely valuable insights for growing your business, but you still aren’t your customer.

What’s the difference? Your expertise. Your solution. Your business.

Your product or service addresses some pain. Maybe you used to have that pain, but you don’t today. Your customers still have that pain. Every time they decide to hand you their hard-earned money, they are thinking about that pain and deciding you are worth the price you set.

Why am I making such a big deal about such a subtle difference? (And it is subtle.) It doesn’t matter if you like your website. It doesn’t matter if you like your logo. Or your copy. Or your business cards. It doesn’t matter unless they motivate your customers to buy. Sometimes the small difference between you and your customer is why you like one logo when a slightly different one would resonate better with your customers.

Obviously you don’t want to be embarrassed by any of your marketing pieces. (If you grimace when you hand someone your business card, that will ultimately hurt your bottom line.) The opinion that really counts, though, is the one of someone who needs your solution and has money to pay for it.

Sometimes that’s easier to see as a business owner when you don’t have anything in common with your customer. But it doesn’t matter if it’s easy or not. Either way it’s critical to your success.

Is Fear Behind The Marketing Plan?

I am reading a bit about fear, how it works both to give you a boost and to paralize your efforts. I personally really like to focus on the positive side of things, which would be that boost factor I just mentioned. Most of the material I have read talks about a more mental shift and the inner working behind the emotion of fear itself. I think this makes for an interesting read, however, I have always had the mental mindset of action erases fear. I’m sure I read this somewhere, or, maybe it’s even some major quote and I’m lacking some serious props to someone. Whatever the case (sorry John Doe), I personally know the phrase is true. Action erases fear.

Let’s take this a step further and talk about clarity mixed in with action. Have you ever tackled a project without really knowing what your end result is or why you’re doing it? How well did that go for you? Big results? I’m guessing it went neither well nor had anyone writing your digits down in a book. Now think of a project that had clear action to the plan. You knew step-by-step what happened, why it was happening, who was responsible for it and how it was going to work to get you big results. Did that go differently? Were you more successful? I think so.

This is how I relate to marketing plans. I have talked to many business owners who have never done or stuck with a marketing plan. Not every time, but lots of times, the root of this lack of activity has come down to fear. Fear of thinking big, fearful of putting something out there you must obtain, fear of taking big steps to propel your company forward. However, stir in a good marketing plan with actionable steps each month toward that big vision and you have much less anxiety, much less fear and much more success. It’s seriously ingenious how simple taking a big goal and working backward from it can make marketing, or any planning, very simple, obtainable and clear. What makes this even better is that with clarity comes a whole new emotion. Let me introduce you to Mr. Excited.

When most people know what they are suppose to do, with a clear path in place, they get super jazzed. I know this is true for me! Then, once you’re exicted about the work ahead, you get some momentum, because you’re ready to tackle it, step-by-step. Then, I dare say you begin to see results!

A well thought-out plan, along with a healthy dose of action, really does erase the fear. So go ahead and dream up that big vision. Just plan it out and tackle it one step at a time.

“Can you believe it’s November?”

I know things are picking up. I know because people are talking about how quickly time is flying by. No one was talking about how “wow, it’s already July” this past summer. Time was s-l-o-w-l-y drifting by for a lot of people.

I hope you are ready for this pick up to begin and get better. I hope you’re ready to complete 2009 with a bang. I hope your 2010 planning is almost complete and you’re excited about what’s next. We are about half way through evaluating our marketing activities this past year and putting together our strategic plan for the next three years.

For our strategy, we really thought about a few key items and how they’ll look down the road:

  • We did a little client profiling. We determined a new client criteria and ’scoring’ process for how we decide to work with future business leaders.
  • We disucssed how we will continue to position ourselves as experts in marketing; what does this mean and what do we need to do to get results?
  • We made very specific 2010 goals. Wow, they are amazing! We really knocked these out of the park.

Let us know if we can help you with your 2010 marketing plan. We are almost done with ours, so our ideas are flying!