Customer Insights Every Business Owner Should Know
The key to success in today’s small business can be summed up in three simple words. “Know your customer.”
It is a perfect adage for today’s environment in which longstanding practices and realities are melting away to reveal a transformed landscape where opportunities are abundant, but often more obscured. In this new environment, customer insight is not only important, but also imperative.
It is no secret. Small business profitability is deeply connected to customer insight.
But what is customer insight?
Customer insight means having knowledge about customers and markets that helps structure thinking and decision making. It’s about having the whole picture, visible to the whole organization, from executive to customer service.
Customers expect you to know who they are, what they want, and how they want to be addressed. They want to converse with you. They want to be listened to.
Consider these recent consumer survey findings from the analyst firm Digital Clarity Group:
- Only one percent felt their customer expectations were always met.
- Around 89 percent had switched providers due to poor experiences.
- A full 82 percent said that the company they abandoned could have taken steps to keep their business.
What does this tell us? It means gaining customer insight is one of the most important things in business.
The source of insight
The next question we should be asking is, where can we obtain customer insight data? Customer insight comes from combining data from a number of sources. It is about using all data sources and applying the correct weight to them.
Insight comes from compiling and combining evidence, from data, to paint a picture. Merging the market research and database marketing teams is a step in the right direction, but it’s only part of what is required to create insight.
Part of this process is to know your customer’s touch point data. The following are sources of important customer insight data:
These sets of data can be generated from the following channels:
- Social media data
- Enterprise data
- In store talks
- Email communication
- Website logs
- Phone communication
- News media
- Syndicated research data
- Forums and review sites
The challenge most business owners face is leveraging the data they collect in order to create the right marketing mix. They struggle to aggregate the data to form the right customer insights and disseminate the right actions.
Customer insight requires that small business owners address the following points.
- Who are your most valuable customers (MVCs)
- What do they want to purchase?
- What motivates them to purchase?
- Beyond transaction, how can you interact with your MVCs in a relevant and profitable manner?
- How can you customize aspects of your product or service in order to meet the individual needs of your MVCs
Indeed, having the answers to the above questions is no longer a luxury. Small business owners must not only find answers but also act on those solutions in order to drive growth and profitability of their businesses.
The ability of firms to understand customers one at a time across multiple channels will mean the difference between success and failure because customer-based strategies are the key to competitive differentiation in today’s business world.
Knowing how, when and what to offer a customer can mean the difference between a profitable versus an unprofitable business.
According to Data Mine, you know you are on the right path and have the right customer insight in place when you have adequately answered the following critical questions.
- What is the aim of this organization?
Why was the organization formed? It is important to have the big picture even as you go about your daily duties. Unfortunately, many small business owners get consumed with daily tasks that they forget the mission statement of the company.
What is the organization’s customer acquisition strategy?
Every organization must have a marketing strategy. Doing business without a marketing strategy is like driving in the dark without the headlights. You risk not only getting involved in a fatal accident, but you also risk moving in the wrong direction.
What do we already know (not think we know)?
Obviously, you already know a few things about your customers. It is important to be aware of what you already know so that you can have a starting place.
- What do we need to know?
Now that you know what you know, it is time to know what you need to know. Identify the knowledge gaps and get the right information. Find out what data you need to collect and what tools you need to collect the data and collect it.
· How are we going to priorities what is needed?
Bearing in mind the constraints of time resources, identify the most urgent needs.
How will we ensure insight is retained in the business?
After gathering the customer insight, you need to ensure that it is retained in the business.
In short, insight is provided when the right questions are asked and solutions provided. The following illustration illustrates this very well.
The building blocks of customer insight are:
· Clearly defined company aim and objectives
· Customer driven marketing
· Organized and accessible data
· The right people in the insight team
· Knowledge management
In order to achieve customer insight, people must work collaboratively in the organization and have a clear data strategy.
Customer insight is not employing an analyst, or even a team of analysts. It requires organizational commitment to change. If it was easy, every organization would have customer insight sorted.
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Web design Tricks to Build Customer Loyalty
What are some of the elements in website design that one must include when looking to build customer loyalty? If you are looking to build a website for your small business, you know very well that nurturing customer loyalty is an important priority. Unfortunately, many businesses miss the opportunity to build customer loyalty and retain existing clients through their websites. You can get more out of your existing customers as well as new prospects if you incorporate the following elements in your website.
- Responsive Design
More and more business owners and agencies are embracing responsive web design and in this age of mobile technology, why would anyone be left behind?
Customers don’t want to struggle with websites that aren’t mobile friendly. Statistics show that non-responsive websites are likely to lose more than half of their potential customers because more than 50% of searches are now done through mobile devices. Moreover, customers who access your site are likely to access it in future using multiple devices. In other words, even if people visit your site via their desktop, they might get disoriented the next time they visit it using their mobile devices and it is not responsive.
You can have the best product in the world, but if your website isn’t designed to be mobile responsive, you are losing tons of customers to your competitors.
Therefore, it is important to look for a professional custom web design service that can create a responsive website.
- Encourage referrals
Did you know that a well-designed website can help to facilitate referrals? The most loyal customers are acquired through client-to-clients referral networks and recommendations. Looking for web design packages that are network-driven can make the difference between struggling to get clients and enjoying a constant stream of new leads.
You can encourage your existing customers to refer your business by giving them special bonuses for every new business they bring. People are more likely to believe friends who have done business with you than some ad in their sidebar. So you should make it easy for customers to refer other customers to you.
- Social media share buttons
Social media buttons are essential if you want your content to be shared widely. When your audience find your content valuable, they are likely to share it via their social media accounts. This is a free and effective way of marketing your website. In order to incorporate unique social media share buttons in your website, look for a custom web design agency that knows how to create elegant buttons.
As a rule of thumb, your social media share buttons should big, prominent, unique and beautiful. The only way to achieve that is to look for a web designer that knows what they are doing. Incorporate social media share and like buttons into every page of your website to enhance maximum engagement with your audience.
- Offer great value/offer irresistible value proposition
Customers come to your website because they want or need something. Give them solutions that will solve or help them solve their problems.
Through a custom website layout that promises value to your customers, you are able to gain more customers. It is advisable that you offer a freebie such as free eBook, webinar, and course or trial product so that your customers can have a taste of your services and content before paying for them. If it is what they are looking for, they will be more than ready to pay for the full service.
Having said that, your website layout must be neat, impeccable and functional in order to capture the attention your customers and entice them to sign up with your free offer or trial.
- Get customized web design
A customized web design enhances personal engagement with your customers. Customers want to enjoy personalized services. Customers also want to get assurances they can get hold of you through your phone or email when they want to. Therefore, your email, phone number and physical address should be prominently displayed in case customers want to reach you for whatever reason. It is also inspires confidence in your customers.
Don’t forget to include a comment form so that customers can give you feedback. In addition to that, it is good to have live chat capabilities. The more your customers are easily able to get in touch with you the better.
How do you Create Marketing Emails that Will Generate Instant YES?
When a well-crafted email hits your inbox, you open and act on it because it grabs your attention. These emails might look simple and natural. Achieving a clear, balanced and persuasive message takes time and effort, but it is worth it. In order to create an email that will generate positive results (people clicking your Call to Action), here are steps that need to be taken into consideration. Think of these steps as a logical staircase where you need to move from one step to another.
- Make your messages consistent and persuasive
Human beings like consistency. It is hard-wired in our brains. For example, once someone decides to do something, they would strive to make all future behavior to match past behavior. If there is a mismatch, the person immediately begins to feel that something has gone amiss somewhere. It is the same with the emails you receive.
An email campaign should have a consistent message to elicit an action. Emails that have a consistent and persuasive message always outperform those that don’t. A consistent and persuasive email should lead one to take an action.
An inconsistent message is one whose parts don’t add up, i.e. they offer contradictory information.
Example
Suppose that your email is something like “Unbeatable Discount on iPhone 6 this Week”, yet the headlines says, “20% off on all smartphones,” with many types of smartphones being presented.
Although the email may not be factually wrong, it is inconsistent and you are likely to lose some customers. Your message will be more successful if all the components agree.
- Use high quality and relevant images
Use images that are not only relevant to the offer, but also high quality and original. Showing stock images is an instant click-killer. Make sure your images supports the main messages and that they reappear on your landing page—the page your customer will land after clicking the Call to Action button. This will make people feel that they have landed on the right page.
- Have a great presentation layer
Treat your promotional email like a shopping window. The more inviting the presentation, the more likely people will want to enter your shop. Just having a great product is not enough to make people want to buy from you or sign up for your services. Having an inviting presentation layer in your email will grab the attention of your subscribers.
- Precision Targeting is Indispensable: Target the right audience
In theory, it would seem like sending an email to everybody will increase your sales, but that is not what expert marketers do. When it comes to sending email campaigns, targeting the right audience is very important. According to Marketing Sherpa, sending an email to untargeted database is counterproductive. Unfortunately, many small business owners do this all the time.
Collecting email list and blasting everyone that is on that list with an email campaign is akin to shooting in the dark, and it is a bad habit that you need to stop immediately. Why would you want males on your list to receive email offers about "fashionable bras" that you recently launched? Wouldn't that be shooting yourself in the foot?
Highly targeted email campaigns experience 208% higher conversion rates compared to the “batch and blast” emails. As a marketer, you need to rise above the mediocrity and segment your list. Optimized email marketing pays off big time. Marketers that use email segmentation record a higher ROI compared to aimless emails. Moreover, email segmentation drastically reduces opt-outs.
Here are the steps to take if you want to send targeted email campaigns:
- Target a high-value segment
Now that you have an email subscriber list, it is time to separate the wheat from the chaff. A good way to find valuable segment from the list is to look at your list bearing three factors in mind:
- How recent is the subscriber? Subscribers who have done business with you recently are more likely to respond to your email campaign.
- How often does the subscriber buy? Subscribers who purchase from your more frequently are more likely to respond than others.
- How much does the subscriber spend? Subscribers that have spent 50% more than your average subscribers are more likely to respond to your emails.
This is not the be-all and end-all email segmentation check list, but it is a good starting point.
- Target using demographics
If possible, divide your list into specific groups to enable you send personalized, targeted and relevant messages. Without further ado, here are five main demographic features you can use to segment your list:
- Geographical locations: if you are serving cross-border markets, dividing your list according to geographical location will make it easier for you to send emails at the right time. This will also ensure you don’t break respective laws and regulations.
- Age: you might have offers targeting different age groups, which means that you can target millennials/college students, baby boomers, little kids and retirees, among others.
- Gender: just as you might want to specifically speak to a college student or retiree, you might want to customize your offers and messaging based on gender.
- Industry: if you have lists that cut across several industries, it is prudent to segment your list based on industry to add another level of personalization.
- Persona: you should study your subscribers and understand them. Know what makes each of them tick and design email messaging around their persona.
Offering exclusive email content to target audiences allows you to offer exact solutions that solve specific needs/dilemmas and supports conversations that will drive your conversation rates and increase your ROI.
Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach and engage with your customers. However, in the absence of effective email marketing strategy, you might not achieve your marketing goals.
Mjrvisuals can help you increase your reach out of that content through our expertise. We run the gambit of visual imagination including video production, digital marketing, video editing, print design, advertising, graphic design, graphic animation, motion graphic and media design. Be part of our portfolio of clients and let us tell your story to the world. Click here to visit our website: mjrvisuals.com/
Are you Utilizing the Power of YouTube Marketing
If you have been ignoring the impact of YouTube marketing, then you have been committing a cardinal marketing sin. There are some shocking statistics that will show you just why YouTube marketing has become a big hit. Nielsen report shows that in the year 2011, internet video streaming views increased by 35% compared to only 0.2% increase in television views in America. Mobile video viewing also increased by 20%; therefore, it is clear that internet video marketing (like YouTube) is now more popular, cheaper, and result oriented than the traditional TV marketing. As a matter of fact, the number of people who visit YouTube for entertainment, research, and education is alarming. YouTube is now the second most search engine by volume.
However, something else you should know is that about 35 hours of videos are being uploaded in YouTube every minute, meaning if you take 10 minutes to read this article, you will meet about 350 hours of newly uploaded YouTube videos. So what? So, it means that if you are thinking of using YouTube to advertise your products, then you should bear in mind that competition is extremely high; so, you need to approach it with some plan if you hope to achieve positive results. In other words, just uploading a video does not necessarily mean that you'll automatically get YouTube hits.
The following are two suggestions to get you started on how to get positive YouTube performance:
1. Just like a website, content is king, and good quality is paramount. Please invest some time to create a quality and compelling video before you upload. Potentials customers should find your videos useful, engaging, and attractive to view. If you let them feel like they have wasted their precious moment viewing you video, be sure that the video will never go viral, or worse still, they wont come back. The rule of the thumb is this: the video should address the needs of the viewers. Anything else is thrash. Therefore, invest some time in researching on what the customer needs and create something relevant. For instance, it doesn't help uploading a video that talks about meditation, yet you are selling cars. In that case, you would want to talk about 'how to maintain a car'.
2. Since it is Google that owns YouTube, you have to play by Google Search optimization rules to get an edge. For instance, in order for the video to be findable, it must have a title, good descriptions, and tags, among others. Also, you should create a brand if you want to attract and retain customers. This doesn't have to be done with massive investment; all you need is to be consistent with your content, create a similar backgrounds, create a playlist for the most popular videos, and choose an appropriate layout.
All in all, taking your business online is not an option in this internet age if you are to stay profitable, and relevant. YouTube presents you with one of the best channel of informing the online users about your presence; hence you should take advantage.
How to increase YouTube traffic
YouTube is an incredible social media platform that marketers can use to advertise their companies. Now, there are almost 100 hours of videos that are uploaded every minute to the site, meaning that video marketing has become popular. However, the only problem is that the competition is stiff. That being said, it is simple for your animated video to get lost in the gigantic video galaxy in YouTube. But I got news for you: there are some pretty simple but effective organic traffic generation tips to keep in mind.
- Make good first impression
Most people do not know how important those video thumbnails can be. Thumbnails are the first thing people will see whenever they come across your video. So, never underestimate their power. In that regard, the thumbnail should be click worthy. YouTube will automatically create the thumbnail for you and give you three options. You need to include something catchier. Feel free to customize the thumbnail and upload. I recommend trying them out, all of them, one at a time to see which one will perform better.
- Mind your title and video description
Your title and video descriptions are important, very important. They can help in improving your search research results. The first term should be relevant. It is always suggested to include a keyword in your descriptions. The title should also be clear and precise. The video description is where you can tell the audience what the video is about and how it going to solve their problems.
- Background image
You can complement your video content by accompanying them with a clearly designed background image. Apart from color and theme options, YouTube helps users to upload their own background images to stand out from the crowd.
- Feature your best video
Not all videos are the same. Some videos will be more popular than others will. Therefore, you ought to use your best videos to attract traffic for the new or less popular ones. Sometimes it is better to select another video to occupy the space left by the featured video.
- Add tags
It is important to tag your videos with keywords so that you can bring the viewers to yourself. To find these settings options, go to your channel.
- Take care of the comments
Many people make lousy mistakes that cost them thousands of loyal viewers: they fail to respond to the comments left by viewers. Although this might not look important, it is a serious offence when it comes to attracting and retaining viewers. However, you should be wary of spam comments because they are equally toxic to your content.
- Be active
Recent activities shown on your channel help your customers to know that you are active. Video owners who have liked other channels are also more likely to drive more traffic to their sites.
- Create a playlist
Users like playlist and creating one will be a big boost to your channel. Especially if you have a series of videos that have a sequence, it saves your customers the headache of scavenging through the heap.
Telling stories with video on social media; Snapchat
Another social media platform is making way for businesses - Snapchat. If you’re marketing to millennials or younger, it’s time to get on Snapchat before your competition does!
Snapchat just introduced a new feature, Discover, which lets Snapchat users connect to an exclusive group of world-class leaders in media, including CNN, Comedy Central, Cosmopolitan, Food Network and several more, in a new storytelling format, which puts creativity first. It is intended to be a new way of exploring the Snapchat Stories feature. Snapchat’s Stories feature lets users create compilations of snaps that last 24 hours for their friends to see. In 2014, Snapchat’s Our Story features was introduced, which compiles snaps that users submit during select big events around the world, like college game days and festivals.
Discover’s goal is to partner with trusted media companies to tell stories that put the narrative first. With Discover, the technology is accommodating creatives, not creatives accommodating to technology. Now that Snapchat is clearing making way for businesses, it’s time for hop on the wagon before the others do. Although it is unlikely that your business will be making its way to the Discover feature, Snapchat, in general, is a great opportunity for businesses to provide their fans with updates in real-time -- to lessen the technology gap even more. It’s a fun and interactive app, which is a unique mix of Instagram and YouTube.
It’s easy to sign up, find your fans, and promote your new Snapchat account on your social media page. It is a must if you are marketing to millennials and younger, but it will not be long until it will be a must for all.
Snaps can be either photos or videos, taken in real-time, not uploaded, and they can be decorated with text and graphics. Once you have your snap ready, you can post it to your Stories for your followers to see. As you keep posting, the longer your story will get, and the more fun it becomes! Users can reply to their friends’ snaps in both private chats and in Stories.
MJRvisuals is a full-service video production company, based in Washington, D.C. Our goal is to bring your vision to life. If you are interested in working with dynamic video production team, contact MJRvisuals today.