One of the biggest issues I get “push back” on from clients is encouraging them to focus on the problems their customers are facing when creating their marketing messages. When you can provide customer solutions to problems, profits will follow almost automatically.
This is why I hammer pretty hard on “focus on your customers as individuals so you can provide solutions” in my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results.
See, if you know what PROBLEMS your prospective customers are facing, you can then create marketing messages which focus upon the CUSTOMER SOLUTIONS your business provides.
The beauty of targeting your market as individuals instead of “groups” is that groups don’t have “problems”… individuals do.
When you define your target market as individuals, it’s easier to address the specific individual’s unique goals, desires and problems. When you define your target audience as individuals, it prepares you to create effective marketing messages… ones that enter into the conversation that is already taking place within your customer minds.
Great post. This isn’t just true for advertising messages. Business owners and managers should spend more focus on customer solutions as a whole. If you can’t define customer needs, you can’t define solutions, and if you’re not solving the customer’s problems then what value do you provide?
This is so true. My marketing used to focus more on “features” like XHTML and CSS. Once my marketing switched to focusing on the problems people are trying to solve with their websites, my results have jumped tremendously.
Joshua Clantons last blog post..7 Pieces of Software I Can’t Live Without