5 Steps To Influence Buyer Decisions With Your Brand
Mar
In this day and age, branding and marketing can make or break a business. So, it is important to know how to brand your business for your target market. One of the things that businesses struggle with is identifying their ideal customers, knowing their needs and wants, and effectively targeting them. However, the struggle does not end there.
Even if you are able to grab their attention, how sure are you that your competitors’ strategies are less effective than yours?
This is where understanding your customer comes in. Your buyers want to know what your company stands for, who you are, and why they should buy from you, instead of from others. By making themselves familiar and relatable, businesses can foster a sense of trust and loyalty among potential customers, and thus influence their buying decisions.
Did you know that buyers have already half made up their mind before they even take up a demo for a tech company’s product?
The remaining 50% of their decision is about validating their initial impressions, ensuring the pricing aligns with their budget, and confirming that the product or service would fulfill their needs.
Sharekh Shaikh, the founder of CleverX, an audience discovery platform, recently shared his insights on the Management Blueprint Podcast. He outlined a five-step process to creating customer familiarity. Are you intrigued to learn these strategies that could potentially revolutionize your business?
Let’s dive into them.
Step 1. Interview your target market customers
I don’t want to discourage you, but even some of the best products cannot always become a hit. You can pour your heart, soul, and sleepless nights into creating something exceptional, but it might not click with everyone.
Why?
Customers don’t just care about the quality of the product; they also want to know who you are, your references, and whether they should trust your brand before they consider engaging with you. Trust is a crucial factor in business, and establishing it can be a game-changer
What does Sharekh suggest?
Engage in one-on-one conversations with your potential customers. Have at least 50 of these conversations to understand what they truly care about. The more people you engage with, the better knowledge you gain. Unless you ask, you wouldn’t know.
Step 2. Learn about their problems and pain points
The second step is getting to know your target market at a deeper level.
Try to answer these questions:
- What are their pain points?
- What solutions are they seeking?
Understanding your customers’ struggles is key.
The biggest mistake you can make, as a startup or founder, is to create a product no one needs or cares about.
Step 3. Create a forum around it
Once you’ve got a handle on their problems, the next step is to create a space where these issues can be discussed and tackled. This not only builds a sense of community among your customers, but it also increases the awareness of your brand and product.
Step 4. Research their buying process
What information do they need before they’re ready to buy?
How do they prefer to receive that information?
By aligning your approach with their buying process, you’re effectively placing your product right in front of them when they’re ready to pull out their wallets.
Step 5. Identify the key channel of distribution
Finally, you need to figure out your distribution channel. This could be anything from hosting events, using LinkedIn for demos, or whatever else fits your business model.
For B2B companies, emails and LinkedIn might be the best channels, while B2C businesses might benefit from influencer marketing, mobile apps, or hosting events targeting specific demographics.
Conclusion
Real success is measured by the number of customers who find value in what you’ve built and are willing to repeatedly pay for your product or service. This should be every startup’s primary metric from day one.
To achieve this, you need to truly understand your customers, their daily struggles, and how your product can help ease issues in their personal and professional lives. You can figure out the tactical steps through trial and error, but missing the mark on understanding your customers’ problems can be a costly mistake.
Start with Step 1 now: the earlier, the better.
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