What Else Does Your Customer Do?

Your customers don't live in a vacuum. People have multiple interests - often disparate interests. Your product or service is one small part of what makes your customers whole. If you sell a consumer product, your customers will have multiple related consumer products they view as a part of a whole. If you sell business products or services, your customers will have and need multiple related things. Your business customers are also people. The decision makers have families. They have pets. They have parents. They have lives outside their business. Consumer customers can also be business people.

Talking to your customers in their language means you have to understand their entire world. Now, you can't customize your marketing plan to a specific individual. There are certain generalities you make based on what your customers are most likely to do. Marketing is about stereotypes - not in a negative way, but as a means of targeting a group of individuals in a broad way. It's about hitting the widest target with the least amount of ammo.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Let's say you run a small cafe in  a downtown area. Your cafe isn't isolated. Potential customers are generally not coming downtown to visit your cafe exclusively. They are likely shopping or going to a show at the theater or visiting a museum or visiting an art gallery. Your customers have multiple other interests. You can be part of their experience by tapping into how they're using downtown. They are visiting for specific reasons - you can make your cafe fit into their day. You achieve this by being aware of events that are going on, patterns throughout the day and week and promote your cafe according to how your potential customers are experiencing the entire area. Partner with some of the venues to help customers make the connection between visiting these places and visiting your place. Link yourself to where your customers are and you become part of what they're doing. You become part of their experience.

Another example - your shop sells a specific type of product - let's say a specific line of athletic shoes. You've noticed that sales are way down. Because your athletic shoes are so good, they don't need to be replaced often. Your clients are thrilled, but repeat business is way down. Your existing customers would buy more product from you but don't need it. Expanding your product line to include additional related products such as dress shoes, hiking boots and other high quality footwear allows you to tap into the goodwill of your existing client base and increase multiple sales. People have multiple footwear needs - people buying athletic shoes also need dress shoes. By understanding that your customers have multiple interests and mutiple needs, you can offer product lines that satisfy each of them. You increase your sales by increasing the per-customer sales.  You know your customer has multiple needs and you're satisfying them.

Business owners tend to have tunnel vision. They establish their business because they want to sell one certain thing. While that is the impetus for starting a business, don't forget that your customers have many other interests. Figuring out what else your customer needs and providing it for them will increase your bottom line and your customer loyalty.