I chat with many businesses that tell me they’ve got their ideal customer profiles sorted. They’re feeling confident and ready to go.
They know the industries their customers work in, the job titles they hold, what their hobbies are, what they like to wear and all their demographics.
But describing a customer is not the same as understanding them. And this is where a lot of marketing starts to fall short.
Are your customer profiles just marketing tick boxes, or have you really taken the time to understand what would make someone choose you? Because if you haven’t looked at the latter, then you’re missing a trick.
Digging Deeper
Knowing what someone does, how they spend their time and what they like to wear isn’t always that helpful. You run the risk of putting people into too small a pigeon hole and you could miss a whole potential client base.
What is far more useful is shifting your focus away from who the person is and towards how they actually behave. What makes them take action, what makes them hesitate, and what makes one option feel more appealing than another?
Without that level of understanding, marketing decisions are often based on assumption rather than insight. Activity still happens, but it becomes much harder to consistently achieve the outcomes the business is looking for.
Heart Before Head
One of the most important things to recognise is that people do not make decisions in a purely rational way.
We probably think we do. It’s easy to assume that customers will assess all the information available, weigh up the pros and cons and make a logical choice based on what is best.
In reality, however, most decisions are made emotionally first and then justified logically afterwards.
That means that if something feels right, people move forward. If something feels uncertain or risky, they hold back, even if the logical case is strong. This is a key point that is often missed in marketing.
Quick & Easy
Another factor to consider is how people process information. Did you know that our brains use an incredible amount of energy? For our very survival we need to reduce the amount of information we digest, otherwise we’d exhaust ourselves.
Because of this, our brains are wired to conserve energy. That means we only stop to process the things that seem relevant to us. If something is too complex or takes too much effort to understand, we are likely to ignore it.
This has a direct impact on how marketing should be approached. Clarity, simplicity and focus are not just nice to haves. They are essential if you want your message to land.
Habit, Familiarity and Perceived Risk
Humans are creatures of habit. We tend to stick with what we know. Choosing something new can feel like a risk, even when the alternative may be better.
This is particularly important in competitive markets, where customers are often choosing between similar options.
If your marketing does not build familiarity and trust, or if it creates even a small amount of uncertainty, that can be enough to stop someone from taking the next step.
I often say to my clients, we have to avoid things feeling “icky”. The whole experience of dealing with you needs to feel comfortable and easy. Even if it all looks great on paper, if your customers don’t enjoy the experience of being in your world, they’ll walk away.
Remember, our heart rules our head more often than we realise.
Understanding this allows you to think more carefully about how you position your business and how you guide customers through the decision making process.
Behavioural Economics
I’ve completed a course on behavioural economics through the Chartered Institute of Marketing. And more recently, I also attended a webinar on neuromarketing, which reinforced many of the same principles.
This has strengthened my approach to marketing. It has added another layer to how I think about strategy and has given me a clearer understanding of how businesses can overcome barriers to success. I’ve seen the difference many times between good marketing and brilliant marketing.
So how much have you really dug deep in your market? Do you have anyone on your team that can do this important work?
Good marketing is not about doing more. It is about making better decisions.
When you take the time to explore your customers properly, everything else becomes clearer. Messaging improves, targeting becomes more focused and activity becomes more effective.
If you are investing in marketing but not seeing the results you expected, it may be worth asking whether you really understand your customers as well as you think you do. If you would like to take a more strategic and considered approach to your marketing, then get in touch. We would be happy to help you build a clearer path to reaching your goals.
