“You can have the best product or service in the world, but if people don’t buy – it’s worthless. So in reality it doesn’t matter how wonderful your new product or service is. The real question is – will they buy it?”

- Noel Peebles

One of the more interesting challenges in my world is to help clients shift perspective. It’s natural to focus on your offerings – making them bigger, faster, better, etc. That’s not a bad thing per se. But the more important issue is what your customers are buying. It’s every bit as important and should form the cornerstone of your marketing and sales efforts.

So how do you build this deep understanding of the buyers? We often start with:

• Interviews – in person is always best, but phone is typically more practical. You can usually get about a half hour of time. Sometimes more if you’re lucky or they’re particularly motivated. Always develop your agenda with specific questions and follow-ups. Try hard to make it more of a conversation – you’re far more likely to dig deeper that way.
• Surveys – typically using an online tool, these can provide valuable insights from a large pool of respondents. The downside is it can be difficult to delve into motivations and build deep insights. They are often used as a tool to clarify your interview questions or confirm interview data you’ve already collected.
• Site Visits – nothing beats seeing your customer in their own environment. It helps you build a much clearer perspective of your customers world and often contributes to effective campaign design and copy.

Whatever it takes to build insights into your customers, our philosophy is that it’s Step One for developing marketing strategy, building brand, crafting messaging, and just about every tactical deliverable you can imagine.

But wait…it doesn’t end there. Customers change. The world around us changes. The next challenge is to develop techniques to constantly listen to our customers and continue our understanding of their needs. We’ll save that for another post which will include User Groups, Online Communities, sharing insights between support and marketing, and more. All can help us keep our finger on the pulse of our customers.

So keep repeating the mantra:

It’s not about what you’re selling.

It’s about what your customers are buying.

Once you embrace this customer-centric philosophy, everything about your company changes with it – your brand, your web site, how you reach out to buyers, and even the way you evolve your products and services.