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Get to know your customers better using data

Isla Mercer

Project Manager at Shaw

All businesses know who their customers are…but do you really know who they are? Maybe you set out who your target market was when you first began your business and have been basing your marketing strategy on that ever since. But without analysing your data, how can you be sure that your target market and your actual customers are the same? Getting to truly know your customer, and potential customers, are key to creating effective marketing strategies and expanding your business.

By using data to get to know your customers you can:

• Keep your current customers coming back again and again
• Find new customers
• Improve your customer service
• Streamline your marketing strategy
• Talk directly to your customers
• Inform your future product development

Who are they?

Creating customer profiles is a really good way to drill down who you should be targeting. But rather than you deciding who you think your target should be, it’s often a really useful exercise to let your current customers tell you who they are. It’s surprising how often these two sets of people don’t necessarily match up! Google Analytics can tell you where people are coming to your site from, what time of day they’re coming and what they’re looking for when they reach your site, which is all really valuable information. Maybe you actually have a huge potential market in a country you hadn’t previously focused on, just waiting to be untapped.

You can also gain a lot of information about your customers by researching which keywords and search phrases are taking people to your site. This give you a great insight into the kind of language they use and what they’ve been looking for that leads them to your site.

How do you reach them?

Creating content is time consuming (believe me, we know!). So you want to make sure all that hard work is used to maximum effect. There’s no point creating something and punting it out on all possible platforms in the hope of a bite. By looking at your customer data you can pinpoint where exactly people are coming to your site from – Google, social media, links from other sites, and then push the most effective channels even further. Even knowing which form of social media your customers like best can allow you to create content specifically for that platform, allowing you to be really targeted. For example, what works for Instagram doesn’t really work on Twitter.

If you get a lot of referrals from other sites, this indicates you could be doing more on the partnership front to tap into someone else’s customer base who clearly already have an interest in your business.

What should you say?

Even if you’ve got to the stage of knowing exactly who your customer is and how to reach them, don’t fall into the trap of assuming you know what messaging they’ll respond best to. You can use data to manage this too! As mentioned previously, looking at search phrases and keywords is a really good way to analyse what language your customers are using. You can test different messaging tones by using A/B tests and multiple advert variations to quickly gain important insights into what people respond to and what they don’t.

What do they want?

According to data collected by Salesforce, 80% of consumers say that customer service is just as important as the product or service a business offers. In our current society, people have more access than ever before to your competitors, and so in order for them to stick with your business, you need to make them feel special.

Customer feedback surveys are a good way to find out what people like/don’t like about your business, and implementing suggested changes is a really great way to show your customers you’re actively listening to them, and value their opinion. Plus you’re making your product/service fit their needs even more.

Most of what we’ve discussed so far has been digital, but nothing beats getting out and actually speaking to your customers. Focus groups are a great way to gather in-depth customer feedback, as well as getting out and speaking to them if you’re able to host tastings/events.Remember, your customers make your business (along with a lot of passion, hard work and energy from you and your team!), so getting to really, really know them, sets you up for success.

If you are interested in finding out more about your customers, get in touch and we can help you answer all of the above questions and more at edinburgh@shaw-online.com