As you are probably well aware, consumer expectations have drastically changed over the last few years. These individuals are no longer satisfied with simply purchasing your product or service. Instead, they anticipate a more complete experience with your company.
This means that they want the interactions between your business and them to be more meaningful. In short, you need to be more useful to both your current customers as well as your potential clients. This article deals with all the ways that you can effectively manage this:
5 Ways to Market your Consumers by Being Useful
1# Find Out What Your Customers Want
It may not be all that surprising, but there is research to suggest that companies actually aren’t all that accurate at guessing what their consumers want. So, although you may presume that you are meeting your clients’ needs, this isn’t necessarily the case. This is often because organizations have a habit of thinking from their own perspective rather than trying to consider a consumer’s point of view.
The question remains, now that you are aware of this flaw, how do you fix it? Well, the answer is actually rather straightforward – ask your customers.
Rather than relying on customer satisfaction surveys alone, take a more proactive approach to these questionnaires. Engage your consumers directly and see what it is that they actually hoping to get from your company as well as your product and service.
It is important to keep in mind that your consumers’ requirements will change rather frequently. Thus, you can’t rely on the same batch of answers for too long. Every so often, send out surveys to your clients to make sure that you can stay up-to-date with their requests.
2# Don’t Always Focus on Your Product or Service
Your customers can tell when you are being disingenuous and aren’t actually trying to help them. After all, you have probably seen tutorials, blog articles, and various other resources that are more product placement than real guidelines. Clients are immediately put off by such content as it focuses on the company rather than on their own needs.
What you need to keep in mind is that your client isn’t necessarily interested in trying to find out more information about your organization or even your product.
Rather, their main objective is to find a way to make their lives easier or better. This is what your resources need to pinpoint and cater to.
As contrary as it may appear, it can be good to set aside your direct marketing strategies as these can make it seem as though you have ulterior motives. So, when creating helpful content for your consumers, make sure that you are actually providing them with advice and guidelines. Marketing your product or service should be secondary and done more discreetly.
3# Make It a Point to Offer Advice Before Purchases as Well
Even if you pride yourself on your excellent customer support, you should be aware that you are not doing nearly enough. This is because you are waiting too long to interact with your customers.
Consumers these days tend to be a lot savvier when it comes to shopping. They will often go through reviews and buyer guides before deciding what product or service they should choose.
This is where your subtle marketing tactics should come in. Create buyer guides for your potential customer, listing out all of the features they need to be looking for in the products or services they are offering. Use legitimate information and it can be helpful to have various authority sources back up your claims as well.
As mentioned above, you shouldn’t go overboard pushing your products here either. Instead, simply mention that if your consumers want a particular set of features, they might find that Product X or Service Y will be quite useful for them. By taking this preemptive leap, you will be able to target more than just repeat customers; you will be able to appeal to potential ones as well.
4# Create Quality Content
A few years ago, the most popular marketing method was video and blogs because they were found to be quite effective. Unfortunately, most companies took this trend in the wrong direction.
In place of quality content, they chose to bombard customers with a greater number of videos and blog posts. Needless to say, this isn’t a very advantageous strategy.
This is why it is so vital for you to focus on the quality of videos, blogs, or podcasts over anything else. Make sure that you are only dealing with topics that your consumers actually care about.
It is also important to ensure that you are providing your clients with accurate information. Last but not least, it should be in a pleasant format that is easy to digest.
So, rather than trying to create numerous types of content, you should focus on the quality instead. This will allow you to create a more loyal following, guaranteeing that you will have your consumers coming back to you, their trusted guide.
5# Tailor Your Platform to Your Consumers
Technology has provided companies with more avenues than ever to interact with their current and potential clients. The most common platforms include social media, podcasts, and blogs. Most organizations have taken to each of these options with much gusto but unfortunately, this isn’t an effective direction.
Think about it, all these platforms are frequented by very different demographics. So, what may work for one company is simply not feasible for another. For instance, if your main target audience is women between the ages of 18 and 35, then you will find Instagram to be the best option. On the other hand, if you want to appeal to a more general audience, then podcasts are the way to go.
This article lists out all the elements you need to incorporate into your marketing strategy to come across as more useful to consumers. While this may require more time and effort on your part, there is also no denying that it will produce better results.
Read Also: Get the Crowd to Your Stall – Increase Customers
Author Bio: Tracy Plunkett is a writer and blogger with a focus on new technology, business, and how these industries affect one another. Her goal is to enlighten her readers with what she has learned through research and experience. When she isn’t working, Tracy can be found following her passion for photography.
