What do Your Customers Need?

Marketing, Online Marketing, & Social Media: Lesson 3

Jodi Pitts, with the SBDC at the Upper Cumberland Development District, will be covering what your clients want, particularly from a marketing standpoint.

Topics:

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Video Lesson Topics

- Understand and Meet Their Needs

Some of the top things that customer report they need from businesses are:

-Functionality -Design

-Price -Reliability

-Convenience -Efficiency

- Basics of Marketing

Marketing is what do you want to say, who do you want say it to, and where do you find them. We will be focusing on the “what do you want to say” portion of the marketing equation. When building your business’ marketing, customers want clear concise information that is readily available. This information will help the client make a decision. Humans by nature want information, as the business owner you can provide them with that information which will present yourself as the expert in that field.

- Informational Marketing

Informational Marketing is where you address customers’ needs by using a variety of marketing methods to deliver the content. Some examples of these would be email, newsletters, social media, videos, infographics, and printed materials.

Google is a great resource to gauge what clients are looking for in your specific industry. By using Goggle analytics, you can find out how many customers are finding your brand online and what they are typing in to the search bar to find it. This tool can help you refine your messaging to meet the current trends and customer needs. Key word research can give you a broad view of customers, in your industry, and will help you optimize your website for search engines, by aligning the content of your site by what the customers are searching for.

- Connection and Familiarity

Clients also want a connection and familiarity with your business. This is a great way to achieve organic growth through social media in particular. One way to become relatable to the customer is by doing employee spotlights that highlight your staff in and out of the work environment. Another way, is by posting about your business and how it came to be and what makes you different than the competitors.

Social Media allows customers to view content by their individual preferences. Facebook is around 89% accurate for audience targeting. You can analyze insights to gauge how effective your content is. By looking at the common interests and demographics of your Business’ Facebook page, you can develop more accurate and targeted content. Facebook Messenger, which is fast and efficient, can also be used as a tool to communicate with customers.

- What do Customers Want from Websites?

People come to your website to be the answer to their problem but they are skeptical. Your website’s job is to show them that they are in the right place, put them at ease, and tell them what you want them to do next. On average you have around three seconds to win someone over on your website, before they navigate away.

The top three reasons customers report leaving websites are lack of clarity, bad design, and poor functionality. Because your website is such an important part of your overall marketing and branding, make sure it is working for you by fulfilling your customers’ needs.

Topics & Lessons

Each Below Topic Contains a Video Lesson and Helpful Downloadable Information