Anticipating buyer behavior can feel like you are chasing the wind. Without a crystal ball to rely on for guidance, you need to create buyer-centric ideas grounded in what you know about your customers right now.
All the data you collect on customer buying habits through your website, time spent on crafting buyer personas, and social media stats must transform into enticing ways to get buyers to take notice or come back for more.
The question is, how?
Tips for Creating Marketing Ideas That Focus on the Buyer
Shar VanBoskirk, an analyst at Forrester Research, has an interesting thought on the customer-centric mindset: “Only marketers who are customer-obsessed and adapt to consumers’ changing behaviors in real time will succeed.”
While “obsessed” is a strong word, the key point to remember is customer-centric marketing ideas need to be painfully targeted, because you may only get one shot before the winds of change wipe away the trail of breadcrumbs. Marketing tactics also need to be easily adaptable in real time to pack a punch and hold customer attention while you have it.
6 Ways to Create Buyer-Centric Ideas That Resonate:
1—Identify your best customers and focus on marketing products and services for them, first.
When you are clear on who your top customers are, it’s likely they’ve purchased from you before. Focused, targeted marketing that hits hot buttons are a better bet for conversion than aiming to convert a customer who’s on the fence. Dig into the data to see better insights into your customer behaviors, and use that to refine your marketing ideation processes.
2—Don’t choose for customers, let them choose from your best offerings.
You collect data for a reason, but it doesn’t always mean you can predict what customers will purchase. It’s up to you to create a clear and enticing buyer experience. Show them the story of a product and its impact on their bottom line, then create marketing content that leads a buyer to an educated choice—quickly. Also craft marketing ideas around case scenarios that address customer challenges and clearly demonstrate which products or services work together effectively as a specific solution as well as separately.
3—Gather details on customer complaints and turn them into a buyer-centric idea.
Use information you gather directly from customers to create ideas that are real solutions to real problems. This way, your customers will feel heard, and you get specific insights on how to market to a unique pain point you may have missed.
4—Make it personal and powerful.
Buyers look for personalized messaging as part of their purchase experience. Determine what that means for your customers. For example, serve up customized online experiences for targeted users, or provide personalized deals based on a recent purchase history.
5—Bring buyer persona and marketing life cycle together.
When you are clear on your buyer personas and have specific data on purchasing habits or behaviors, obvious patterns emerge. Use data-informed information to create marketing ideas and tie an offering into a specific marketing lifecycle, like a short-run deal or a seasonal campaign. This generates interest and a sense of urgency that will work for the right type of customer. Be sure to promote the same information across all channels along with a customized message.
6—Pull together customer data and insights from all departments.
Collaboration is key. Use all touch points of a purchase experience to leverage direct and indirect ways to help your key customer groups. It’s an easy way to generate new pairings of products and services for buyers and see which ones can be repurposed with a new call to action.
Data is just data until you can think of innovative ways leverage it and provide better service. If you start with the buyer in mind, you can use all the customer data you collect to personalize the buyer’s journey and build customer loyalty effectively.
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: How to Create Buyer-Centric Ideas for Marketing
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