Website Designing – Meeting Creativity with Customers Expectations

admin    Web Design     Creativity, Customers, Designing, Expectations, Meeting, website

Website Designing – Meeting Creativity with Customers Expectations

When your creativity meets with the expectations of the people then you can say your website design is successful! Website designing is the combination of creativity, technological expertise and market knowledge.

A variety of the websites such as social websites, ecommerce websites, business websites and many more prevailing on the internet and having their respective customer base. All websites have distinct designs according to their subject, only the common thing is how much they attract the visitors or customers and produce productive results for the owner. For making the website design productive there are certainly common but smart and ever effective rules should be followed before designing website.

Thousands of different people visits internet daily with their specific demands from the internet stuff in form of websites and smart designer keeps all the essential factors on the website to create the online charm everlasting for his/her target customers. Before landing on the online platform and for achieving ultimate customer’s satisfaction one should find the real purpose of the website that helps to guide the web designer to move further in correct direction. Purposeful design makes the website unique for targeted customers; design leaves the impression of real purpose of the website.

After deciding the real purpose collecting the user expectations is necessary because designing should be attractive for the ultimate user and make your design flexible according to demand of the user or your customer. So better to conduct a proper user survey before moving further to next step of designing website. Now purposeful thought and users choice is not only enough stuff for moving further in designing good website, there are certain common professional things to be in consideration for safe landing on the online platform. You should act according to nature of your website such as which technology or programming language will suit best to your business and will suit to your budget, as all wants cost effectiveness processes. Under thought of professional website design one should include certain things such as simple design always attracts everyone which reflects real message with simplicity without striking colors, cluttered sections, messy highlighting text, etc. Sometimes nature of the business demands exactly opposite thought like more striking colors and flashy patterns but universally simplicity is a best policy, lastly choice of the website owner matters. Professional designers always keeps in mind about the easy navigation of the site, easy loading is always acceptable because competitive users don’t want to wait for more to see the miracles. Enhance your knowledge about best designs by visiting some popular websites of similar subject matter on the internet.

Lastly, if you are failing to design according to your thoughts or still confused about unsolved issues, then turn around towards services of professional website designers.

Related Website Design Articles

Use PR to Reach Your Customers and Other Audiences on an Emotional Level

admin    Web Marketing     audiences, Customers, Emotional, Level, Reach

Use PR to Reach Your Customers and Other Audiences on an Emotional Level

Using public relations is more often about making an emotional appeal to your audience rather than addressing only logic.

The use of hybrid cars, better health care, more medical research, more accountability in government, and safe playgrounds are all issues that have benefited from an emotional appeal using public relations.

Does your product or service hit them right in the heart when it counts? During a natural disaster, for example, can you provide help? Are you a radio station with information, a facility with shelter and food, or a company that offers medical assistance or transportation? (Think of snow days in which people with SUVs race to hospitals, shuttling doctors and nurses to work.)

Whatever you are promoting, you need to explain to your audiences on an emotional level how it benefits them or others they care about. Every good product, every good service is, at its heart, a means by which to help people live, work, or play better. As retailers know, what they sell are benefits, not features.

Travel agents sell adventure, discovery, education, and relaxation (not trips); movie theaters sell escape, romance, and excitement; software makers sell efficiency and convenience; jewelers sell glamour and love; home builders sell the concept of togetherness, shared lives, and community; luxury carmakers sell power and status; restaurants sell taste experiences and camaraderie; and fashion designers sell style, beauty, and sex. If you sell office supplies, you are really selling efficiency. Violins? A lifetime of musical enjoyment. Hybrid cars? Good environmental practices, cost savings, and trendiness.

Has anyone ever bought a top-of-the-line Harley- Davidson motorcycle just for sheer transportation, or a ,000 Rolex just to tell time? People trust brands, and brand building comes about as the result of marketing and public relations, supported by advertising and word of mouth.

A good brand provides buyers with predictable quality and appeals to their emotions. And, in the war for attention, brands win. You can be the top brand, even if it is only within your industry or among your target audiences.

Help people understand clearly on an emotional and rational level the benefits you can provide. Generally, people respond to an appeal because it addresses one or more of the following needs:

- Business/mission: Can you help them meet their goals, make more money, save time, make them look better to their superiors, get a promotion, or beat their competitors?

- Social life/lifestyle: Can you make their lives more enjoyable, provide more leisure time, make them more attractive, help them find romance, make them healthier, make their friends and coworkers envious, or help them further their hobbies or other avocations?

- Beliefs: Can you provide a “place,” physical or virtual, where they can feel comfortable expressing their political opinions, religious beliefs, or other personal feelings? Can you provide information that will help them make up their minds on important issues? Does your organization support a cause in which they strongly believe?

- Reputation: Can you further enhance or protect their professional or personal reputations?

- Ethnic/religious/national identity: Can you help them connect with others who share similar ethnic, racial, religious, geographic, or other traits? Or give them a place where they can experience diversity and meet people who are unlike themselves?

- Philanthropic: Can you help them to help others and also feel good about themselves?

- Fantasy/Escape: Can you help them get away from the mundane and routine, at least temporarily?

If you can address one or more of these needs on an emotional level, you have a much better chance of having people understand what you can provide and respond favorably to it. They will be more willing to take an action you would like them to take.

More Target Audience Articles

Impress Your Customers

admin    Web Marketing     Customers, Impress

Impress Your Customers

Customer service can make or break a business. Here are some tips for training your employees, handling customer complaints, building customer loyalty and impressing your clientele so that your business can prosper.

The first rule of thumb when it comes to customer service is to listen carefully and intently to what your customer conveys. Most customers will tell you what they expect if you just ask. Take to heart the requests and expectations of your customers in your store. If they are annoyed with having to wait for an employee to unlock dressing rooms, then instruct one employee to always prioritize opening those doors for customers.

Small improvements in your business practices can make a big difference in how customers feel about your store, what they say about your store and whether or not they return. Listen carefully to their needs and offer fair advice. Do not be pushy or treat the customer like you are better than them. After all, you would be out of business if it were not for the consumer.

Build a relationship with the customer. Find something that you have in common and create some common ground. Whenever you can identify with a customer’s needs or situation, you can build a relationship with them. Make them feel special. This could be as simple as making a statement about how you do not want them to have to wait for a dressing room. Acknowledging their dilemma, no matter how small will help them feel like they are not being ignored.

If a customer has a complaint, listen very carefully. Come up with a solution that suits both of your needs. No matter how upset a customer may be, always keep your cool. Validate their feelings and sympathize with their situation. Do not make excuses because this can lead you into a circle of back and forth arguing. Simply explain what happened, if possible, and quickly change the subject to the solution. For example, apologize for the inconvenience, explain that your computers were rebooting or whatever may have been the cause for their problem and quickly offer a special discount, store coupon or promise of future better experiences. Be careful not to promise something that you can not deliver.

One way to show that you genuinely care is to help your customers even if you do not expect to make any money. If someone is just browsing, not buying today or has no intention of buying, still give them all of the help and support that you would a paying customer. Building this type of image makes a great impression and word will spread that your store has great customer service and courteous employees.

Keep your store inviting to your customers. Keeping the store clean, neat and organized gives the impression that you care. This may not cross your mind as a customer service technique, but it is. Make sure that your clothes are organized according to department, style and size. This makes for a pleasurable shopping experience. Even your clothes hangers should be neat and orderly. Taking these extra steps will ensure that you make the best impression on your clients.

Find More Pay Per Impressions Articles

Getting Inside Your Customers Heads

admin    Web Marketing     Customers, Getting, Heads, Inside

Getting Inside Your Customers Heads

When you are in business, your task is to meet the wants, desires and needs of your customers. Easy!

This is much harder than it sounds. Each person is totally unique and if you look at their individual wants, desires and needs you will never be able to satisfy them all and you will go broke trying.

This is where statistics comes into play. If you get a large enough group together they will begin to form a statistically coherent pattern. You can use this pattern to gain a little glimpse into what is going on in your customer’s heads. That is the purpose of things like census data – to look at big enough groups of people to help governments make appropriate policies.

Back at the turn of the century the statisticians looked at things such as demographics. Businesses worked out their best customers were all of a certain age, spent a certain amount of money, lived in certain areas, had certain jobs and visited certain shops.

Demographics were a great start to help us to segment our customers and to help us work out where we should target our marketing. Even today you will find print media will provide you with demographic data on their readership to help you make a decision about whether or not to advertise in their publication.

The problem with demographics is they don’t take into account large variances within groups and they don’t take into account the changes in how people view the world. 30 years ago you could look at a demographic profile and make a decision that if you wanted to reach businessmen of a certain income and age you should advertise in the Financial Review or Wall Street Journal.

These days people gather their information in a more varied way. With the internet people search for precisely what they want – they hang out with like-minded people and exchange ideas and information.

Readership of newspapers and magazines are dramatically down. TV viewing is down. Radio listeners are down. People go to their clan or their group to find information. Using demographic data as your sole way of making your decisions is not helpful to your business.

So what has replaced demographics? In recent times we have started to look at psychographic profiles. We work out the common things our best customers think, value and believe in.

Psychographics are where you start to look at why people do what they do. To do this you ask questions such as:

* What needs are your best customers looking to fulfil?

* What beliefs about themselves and the world do they hold?

* What inspires them?

* What problems do they have?

* What is similar in how they view the world?

* Where do they hang out?

Psychologists have been doing something similar for years when they look at tools to help profile people such as Myers Briggs, Team Management Index, and Belbin. All of these are ways of categorising ways people view and interact with the world.

Let’s make this a bit more practical so you can see what role this plays in business and getting inside your customer’s heads.

One client I have specialised in kitchen and bathroom renovations. We started with demographic data and found that 95% of all their clients were over the age of 40. They lived in their own home, were employed in white collar jobs earning a reasonable but not excessive income.

We then started to dig a bit further to look for similarities in their lives and how they viewed the world. All of them had raised their families and finally as the kids were getting a bit older they had some discretionary income that they chose to spend on themselves. “It was their turn” was a common saying among these clients when talking about their renovation. “They had put up with things for years and now they deserved something nice.”

The one interesting thing was every single house was extremely messy and the clients apologised about the mess to the tradespeople.

So how did this translate into our marketing? Well we placed an emphasis on it being their turn and deserving nice things. We also made mention of the fear of people looking down their nose at your house and how the tradespeople the company used were real people who understand if the rest of the house wasn’t in show perfect condition.

We also used pictures and colours that reflected the taste of their customers (and not some over the top flash designers).

Is this manipulation? No. We just looked at what was already there with their customer base and sought to understand their needs better.

The business wanted more customers just like the ones they had, so by directing our marketing to the psychographic profile of their best customers made it easier for customers to feel right at home with the company from the marketing. This translates to more sales from the right customers.

Now it’s your turn to get inside your customers heads. Go back to your best customers … the ones you truly love working for. What makes them so great? How do they view the world? What problems are they trying to solve by coming to you? What do they value? Where do they hang out?

While you are at it have a look inside at yourself. What makes you so great? How do you view the world? What problems do you love to solve? What are your values? Where do you hang out?

When your profile and your customer’s profile are congruent, then your business booms. If you are in a state of flux and you are not clear on your own profile, then business can be challenging as you attract the wrong type of customers to your business.

Getting clear on your own profile and the profile of your ideal client makes marketing easier, selling easier and your life easier.

Related Demographics Articles

5 Secrets to Reaching Target Customers Through The Media

admin    Web Marketing     Customers, Media, Reaching, Secrets, Target, Through

5 Secrets to Reaching Target Customers Through The Media

Small business owners with limited time and budgets know it is critical to identify target markets – customers as well as media – for big results. Many, however, don’t know where to begin. Focusing on three keys will skyrocket success.

Key #1: Know Your Target Audience Like the Back of Your Hand

Your target market of customers and prospects will have at least four common characteristics including a particular need, access to your products and services, enough money to purchase your products or services, and decision-making power.

Ninety percent of small business owners never take the time to identify the challenges of their target market or how they can help them overcome those challenges. Take time to walk in your ideal customers’ shoes. Know him/her like the back of your hand. A few questions to ask:

How do they spend their day? What type of work are they involved in? What is their family structure (married, divorced, parents)? What are their hobbies? Which magazines and newspapers do they read? Which television programs do they watch? Which radio programs do they listen to? What websites do they view? What keeps them awake at night? How can you help them?

Key #2: Know Your Target Media Like the Back of Your Hand

Once you determine the characteristics of your target audience, you’ll be able to focus on ways to reach them via the media. Walk through the same process visualizing your ideal media contacts. Narrow down publications that are targeted to your ideal audience.

Visualize a reporter or editor. Imagine a frenzied, overworked person with stacks of paperwork on their desk and the clock ticking down toward the next deadline. Imagine a person with a voracious appetite for information.

Media contacts have never-ending deadlines to fill print, web, television or radio space. If you provide well-written, interesting copy that appeals to their target audience, you will make the media your partner, become a media “expert in demand,” and get key messages published. There is no better way to create a buzz, build credibility and get your name in the news!

Key #3: Build Strong Media Relationships

In order to turn your effort into ink, understand the media and build strong media relationships. Know the publication, the type of information your contacts are looking for and the way your contacts put articles or news clips together. Here’s a quick overview to help.

Daily newspapers want to help their readers every day. Magazines are typically feature-oriented and will research and write more in-depth stories over a longer period of time than daily newspapers. Television is a visual medium with stories lasting less than one minute. Internet outlets have an urgent need for immediate information.

Key #4: Approach Your Story Like a Journalist

Knowing how to approach reporters and editors, no matter the media outlet, is critical in order to establish a win-win relationship from the get-go. Give them what they need so you can get what you need. If you become a source of information and story ideas, regardless of whether the ideas are specific to your business, products and services or relate to other topics, you will become a valuable media ally.

One of the very best ways to connect with your target media is to write your story the same way they would approach their story. How do you know how they’d write a story? One quick solution is to review the “nut graph” that appears near the top of every story. The nut paragraph is typically just after the lead, and is the paragraph where the writer explains in a nutshell why the story is important. Often times it includes statistics, perspective, and/or comparisons. Notice what is important to the reporter and their media outlet. Notice the target audience they are speaking to. Then zero in to the media outlets where you can create win-win collaborations to get your business in the news.

Key #5: Keep the End in Mind

Remember that newspapers, magazines, and web publications are always searching for a good story. Make sure they find yours. Getting your message into the hands of the right media is a win-win situation. If you hand editors and reporters newsworthy stories on a silver platter, you are helping them meet their deadlines and fill their pages, news clips or radio segments. You are helping them maintain the interest of their readers, listeners and/or viewers, which just happen to be your target audience. You’ll also find yourself being featured regularly.

Are you ready for big results on a shoestring budget? Focus your media efforts around these 5 key concepts, and you will get your name in the news.

Find More Target Audience Articles

How to Get More Customers and Sales For Your Business With Internet Marketing

admin    Web Marketing     Business, Customers, Internet, marketing, More, Sales.

How to Get More Customers and Sales For Your Business With Internet Marketing

Market segment customers by various physical or tangible attributes, use the demographic groups. B2C companies in the market as a common age, gender, income, geography will use as demographic characteristics, home ownership, marital status, etc. target market areas or demographic profile of buyers to define – for example, single men, 18-35 years of age living in urban areas and no one is home.

Generally, industry classifications B2B companies, revenue, employee number, etc., use the demographic characteristics similar demographic profiles of market segments or business is defined to be the target buyers.

For the better analysis comes into play Psychographics and such aspirations, interests classified as a psychological perspective, the target buyers, vision, ideas, lifestyles, behavior, demographics, etc., who usually buys a particular product or service or tangible Based on information about the offers will buy properties. Psychographics provides more insight into what is most likely to motivate purchase. The previous example using demographic targeting single men, 18-35 years of age living in urban areas and not one house, psychographics may indicate that people who read books and business skills to participate in curriculum development and more likely to buy that service or product. Views can provide demographic and psychographic match and more targeted marketing and sales for the improvement in efficacy.

From a marketing perspective, what defines demographic definition of psychographics buyers generally want buyers, while needed. Expectation that greater physical Demographics Psychographics are powerful drivers of behavior shows. While one shop who earn $ 30,000 a particular demographic, the desire to earn $ 100,000 a store in their purchase decision and one clerk is classified manager will play an important role. Marketing and selling is only a weak demographic clerk will present situation. But their aspirations in relation to the marketing manager of a store to its current position will be very strong.

How to use this information to benefit your business:

- How your business and marketing and sales for volume customers are buyers? How you use this data and how effective is it?

- Adding a specific demographic data, marketing and sales efforts of their psychographics important to improve effectiveness.

- Doing your research your business / products / services yield valuable insights for your marketing, sales and competitive can improve effectiveness is to gather relevant psychographics.

Unique softs provide outsourcing your task to one who is not on your shore or the buyer of the service is located in some other country then the provider of the service. And wide range of internet marketing to promote the websites.

For more information visit us: http://www.uniquesofts.com/internet-marketing.php

Related Demographics Articles

Copywriting – Write Ads That Get Customers And Cash Fast

admin    Web Marketing     Cash, Copywriting, Customers, Fast, Write

Copywriting – Write Ads That Get Customers And Cash Fast

Basic copywriting skills are essential for any business owner. You can write an ad today, have it published in newspapers or online tomorrow and will get sales the same day.

Discover how to write ads with a simple formula: HPSA. It’s an acronym for Headline, Pain, Solution, Action. HPSA works for any kind of ad, from a simple classified ad to a long direct response sales letter, whether for the Web or print.

Think you can’t write ads and that you need a copywriter? If you can talk, you can write. Certainly you’ll want to use a pro copywriter for long direct response letters in which you’ll invest a lot of money for printing and postage, but you’ll be amazed what you can accomplish yourself when you pick up the skills of writing everyday copy.

The major benefit of do-it-yourself copywriting is that you can get an ad selling for you fast – you won’t have to wait for your favorite copywriter to fit you into his busy schedule.

Put Yourself in Your Customer’s Shoes

The more you can put yourself in the shoes of your customers, the more easily you’ll sell.

So start by making a list of the benefits of your product. Customers buy benefits, not features.

For example, if you’re selling a dog bed, a feature might be that the bed has ten inches of foam cushioning. So what? Your customer thinks. Sell the benefit of the foam, which is: the luxurious foam relieves pressure on sore or arthritic joints ensuring that the bed’s comfortable for aging, arthritic dogs.

The easiest way to list benefits is to write down all the features of a product, then beside each feature, make a list of the benefits the feature provides.

You can even get your customers to help you with this. From now on, ask each customer which particular feature of your product caused them to buy – what benefits particularly attracted him?

Got Benefits? Now You Can Use Headline, Pain, Solution, Action

Your ad’s headline does two things: it stops your customer in his tracks, and classifies him. When he stops and reads “Dog Arthritis? Your Faithful Friend Rests Easy On Our Dog Beds”, the customer will keep reading if he’s your target audience.

The more specific you can make your headline, the better.

Next, remind your customer of his Pain, which in our dog bed example, is his pain when he sees his dog whine when the dog tries to lie down, and get up again, because he’s old and his joints are sore.

Tell a story here, about how your luxury dog bed helped a particular old dog – you can include a customer testimonial too, if you have sufficient space in the ad.

Now you’ve targeted your customer, and have reminded him of why he needs a good dog bed, you can describe the benefits of the dog bed – why your dog bed is the Solution to the customer’s problem.

Finally, tell your customer how he can take Action – how he can buy the dog bed – and you’re done.

Your Customers: Who are they and what do they want?

admin    Web Marketing     Customers, They, Want

Your Customers: Who are they and what do they want?

Choosing demographics and your targeted audience can be slightly different on the Internet than it is in the offline world. You can find new niches to market to, niches that don’t exist in the offline world.

No matter how good your product or service is or how great your sales copy is, the key part of your marketing plan is finding the right crowd: a starving crowd.

Ask yourself what that means in your business. Think about the ways that you can locate and identify a starving crowd.

Now start to think about the ways you can create a feeding frenzy. This will become more defined as you go along. But start planting the seeds now. Ultimately this will be the most important question you ask yourself. Keep in mind that there might be more than one distinct crowd of people that would appreciate what you offer. This is great. However, each niche needs its own targeted marketing campaign.

Now, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Who is your target audience?
2. What do they want?
3. How can you motivate this target audience to act now?

Make a list of all of the benefits of your product or service. You will be doing this again at different stages of this process. However, it’s a good idea to consistently rehash this. You will discover new benefits you had never thought of. Keep in mind that your product or service’s benefits are different from the features. People don’t respond to features. People respond to benefits, because it answers their first question: what’s in it for me?

Once you begin to develop a list of benefits, you can start to think of what kind of person would benefit. Yes, there are probably obvious answers to this, and those are important. But push a little more and see if you can discover who else would fit the profile.

If you want to know what some wants, just ask. Do a search on the Internet for forums in your business niche and go visit them. These are forums where people discuss issues and ask questions about your field. If it’s a popular forum, you will get a lot of answers. Make sure you browse through the different posts as well. You will begin to see not only what people want and what people like, but you will also hear what they hate. You will hear them tell horror stories. Take this to heart. This might be some of the most useful information you could ever get.

Related Demographics Articles

Have Your Website Designed Today To Reach Target Customers

admin    Web Marketing     Customers, Designed, Reach, Target, Today, website

Have Your Website Designed Today To Reach Target Customers

The level of success a business experiences usually depends on how its target audience perceives it. This is especially true when a company is trying to establish its presence online. It is at this time that these businesses need to invest in an appropriate website designing company. If you are looking for website design Kenya is one of those cities that offers a wide range of options. This is because over the last few years the importance of web designing has grown significantly. So, even the demand for website designing in Kenya has grown tremendously.

Web design companies in Kenya can help to create custom designs that contribute to new visits and also create awareness in the minds of visitors. Through this, companies can develop a true identity for themselves. In addition to an identity, companies that use web design services can also place their products and services in a strategic way which will help to attract and expand business. For this reason, all companies that want to make an impact in the online business world must hire a professional website designing company.

Companies that hire web development in Kenya can expect a number of benefits. One of the most important things is the ability to make and incorporate designs in the way you want it. A custom website design can also help companies stay ahead of the cutting edge competitive business environment. Custom website design can also make a business stand out from its rivals. Along with this, companies are assured of economical costs for their tailor made designs. All these features ensure that this is a cost-effective way of reaching out to the right audience.

Due to the various benefits that custom website designing offers, it is quite popular these days. Companies in need of these services can find a number of web design Kenya services that can meet specific needs. These services not only make business sites look unique and appealing to customers, but can also look after proper navigation of the site. This ensures that target customers find what they are looking for easily and quickly. They can also include flash designs in the website to make it more attractive to customers.

All these features together can ensure companies of a professional look and feel to business websites. Hiring a reliable website designing company in Kenya is easy and affordable.

Stop Treating Your Customers Like Cosumers

admin    Web Marketing     Cosumers, Customers, Like, Stop, Treating

Stop Treating Your Customers Like Cosumers

I was having coffee recently with a brand manager from a multi-billion dollar food and beverage company who was struggling with the launch of a new brand.  “We need to be entrepreneurial,” he said, “but I don’t know how. How do I start thinking like an entrepreneur?” As we continued to talk about the presumed consumer need and the demographics driving their marketing decisions, it struck me that the biggest opportunity he was missing to think like an entrepreneur was to stop treating the people who buy his product like consumers and start treating them like customers.

Customers are people we meet in the marketplace—they have a face and a name. Consumers are people we get to know in PowerPoint decks and belong to cohorts with catchy titles like “Active Annie” or “Budget-Conscious Bob.” Customers talk to you when they buy your product and give you real time, real life feedback that includes the good, the bad and the ugly. Consumers are recruited by focus group facilities and get paid to answer questions from a discussion guide. Customers are complex. Their problems are unpredictable and force you to think creatively and make changes quickly in order to earn their loyalty. Consumers are homogeneous. Their problems exist as data points and are often solved by tinkering with concept statements while sitting behind a desk. And perhaps most importantly, when you have a genuine relationship with them, customers share their time, their experiences, their ideas and their networks to become your partner in business. With consumers, we have a transactional relationship. While they may reward us with repeat purchases, it is rare that we get more from them than the exchange of cash for goods.

I understand that in the corporate world, the “customer” is the retailer and the “consumer” is the end user but when it comes to launching new products these are semantics worth changing. Few entrepreneurs I know talk about the people who buy their products as consumers. They use the word customer because they are on the front lines doing the selling. Unlike the brand manager whose consumer is objectified into demographic criteria, the entrepreneur has an intimate relationship with the people buying their goods through exchanges at the register, on forums and fielding customer service calls.  This intimacy frames how they how they solve problems, it results in a rich understanding of real and urgent needs, and is often the catalyst to breakthrough ideas about how to grow the brand.

There are myriad ways in which you can get to know your customers. The key is to put yourself in situations that require a one-to-one interaction and allow you to connect with the customer in a genuine and personal way. Don’t know how to get started? Try this:

Set up a kiosk at a mall, a fair or an expo and spend a few days selling your products directly to the customer. Give them your contact information and invite them to call you with questions or comments. If they’re willing, ask if you can call them back in a few days to get feedback.
Join the customer service team. Answer the phones, interact on forums, field questions, try to solve problems and listen to what your customers are saying.
Set up a sample station at retail partner, a community center or a gym. Do more than give away product, engage in conversation and see what you can learn about the people who stop to talk to try your product.

Next time you get stuck on which levers to pull in order to grow your brand, take a moment and ask if you know who your customers are. Step out from behind the desk and go stand behind the register. Put a name and a face and a personal history to the person buying your product. Explore what it’s like to be on the front lines. You may be surprised what you learn and soon find yourself treating your consumers like customers.   

Related Demographics Articles