Bizsuccess

Friday, October 16, 2009

By: Susan Gunelius

Many business owners and marketers think they know everything there is to know about their customers.  No, scratch that.  They think they unquestionably understand their customers.

Unfortunately, both of those assumptions are completely inaccurate 99.99% of the time.  In fact, just when you think you know and understand your consumers is when it’s time to learn even more about them.

In other words, don’t get complacent in your customer research.  Of course, paying for in-depth research continually is not realistic for small businesses, but all hope is not lost.  Take the time to talk to your customers, get face-to-face time with them, and get to know them.  Turn the lack of budget to fund a research study into a positive for your business by doing what you do best as a small business owner — building relationships that last for many years to come.  That’s something large corporations can’t replace no matter how much money they throw toward research and advertising.

However, there is a danger to conducting research and collecting customer demographics directly.  First, there is always the very real possibility that you could project your own assumptions and inferences onto your interaction with your consumers that could skew or invalidate your findings.  Second, you can get overly comfortable and confident once you gather your initial data.  That’s when information gets lost or falls through the cracks.

Bottom-line, learning about your consumers (current and prospective) is essential to building your customer demographic and behavioral profiles since there is no better way to create products, services, and marketing messages that resonate with that audience.  But learning about your consumers is an ongoing process that should never end — particularly in the 21st century when personal likes and dislikes change constantly as new products and information come to market.  You need to be flexible enough and prepared enough to adapt to those changes as necessary.

Again, that’s where the problem comes into the picture.  It’s easy for small businesses to get a basic understanding of who their customers are and then move onto the next “to do” on their priority lists, but that’s a big mistake.  Just when you feel confident in the customer profiles you’ve created, they change.  It’s inevitable.

Don’t let it discourage you.  Instead, navigate through the change and build from where you left off before the change occurred.  The best marketers roll with the punches and adapt continually.  It’s the way of life for marketers in the 21st century.