Donate to Science & Enterprise

S&E on Mastodon

S&E on LinkedIn

S&E on Flipboard

Please share Science & Enterprise

Understanding What Works: Why It’s Beneficial To Get Inside The Mind Of The Consumer

– Contributed content –

27 June 2017. When you’re trying to establish a successful business, there are few things that will benefit you more than understanding what consumers want and how they think. If you can get inside the mind of your customers, you can increase your chances of being able to give them what they want, and ultimately, generate more profit. If you run a business, and you’re keen to maximize your income and ensure your customers enjoy a positive experience, here are some hacks to help you understand what works.

Consumer's mind

(Christopher Dombres, Flickr)

Market research

It’s incredibly important to understand your market when it comes to setting up a new business or trying to keep an existing company afloat. If you go into something all guns blazing without doing your homework first, there’s a high risk of failure. Before you develop new products, change the way you operate or set new pricing guidelines, get some reaction and feedback from potential customers first. The information they provide you with can be so valuable. You should have in-depth knowledge of who your customer is, what they want, how they shop and how much they want to pay for your products or services.

There are many different ways you can conduct market research from traditional techniques such as paper questionnaires to email surveys, comment boxes, and interactive chat features. You may find that if you’ve used a live chat feature, you’ve been asked to rate the service and share any ideas afterwards, for example. This could be an option worth considering if you don’t already use this method. If users tell you that they’d rather use live chat than make a phone call to a helpline or they’d spend more if you offered free delivery, for example, comments like this can help you improve your business, and ensure that your company is more customer-focused.

(Merhad77, Wikimedia Commons)

Connecting with your customer

As a business owner, you should always show an interest in connecting with your customer, whether this means engaging in face to face contact or providing them with options that enable them to get in touch with you via telephone or through your website. If you have a basic website, which doesn’t offer interactive features, it’s worth looking into improvements you can make. If you’re keen to be more clued up about site design or you’re eager for your employees to develop additional skills, it’s worth investigating courses like javascript classes by Training Connection. By pursuing advanced training, you’ll gain an understanding of the benefits of additions like slideshows and video clips, as well as learning how to include these features on your site. It’s always beneficial to offer your customers more. If you run an online clothes store, for example, giving clients the option to watch a slideshow, such as a catwalk featuring items they may buy, and ask questions and get an instant response, will work in your favor.

Once you’ve made contact with customers, don’t assume that they’ll come back. It’s important to maintain relationships and to encourage that client to choose your business again. Send out offers in the post, connect via social media, or offer promotions via email for subscribers.

Email on phone

(Gerd Altmann, Pixabay)

Analyzing trends and habits

There are lots of patterns and trends when it comes to how people shop and what they buy. It’s also incredibly useful to see how effective different types of marketing and advertising are, as this can help you streamline your strategy and tap into methods, which have proven successful for competitors. If you notice that a lot of people are engaging with you via sites like Facebook, for example, and this is increasing traffic to your website, it may be worth investing more money in advertising on Facebook and cutting back on other platforms, which aren’t generating much interest. On a wider scale, you can also use analytics to determine what consumers are searching for online, and what appeals to them most in terms of marketing offers. Is a flash sale more appealing than a voucher that is valid for a month? Is a 3 for 2 deal more alluring than 20% off a single purchase? It’s worth investigating what people do to adapt your business to suit the modern-day consumer. As patterns and trends constantly change, being on the ball can help you keep hold of existing customers and attract new ones.

Analytics illustration

(Tumisu, Pixabay)

Business is not just about developing the best products or offering services that people need. It’s also about understanding what your customers want. It’s important to consider your market at every stage and to take steps to get inside the mind of the consumer and tailor your approach to suit the client.

*     *     *

Comments are closed.