It's not about you...
If you keep up with the marketing gurus of the day you've heard it over and over again: "It's not about you. It's about THEM." It's good advice. Great advice, even. Nobody cares about you. They just care about what you can do for them.
Though all this sounds obvious, few people seem to really understand what it means. It's more than just saying, "Product X will make YOU happy." It means seeing the situation from the customers' perspective and constructing your product and your marketing to be meaningful and valuable within that context.
To see through the customers' eyes, big companies use focus groups, surveys, demographics, market trends and countless other tools that add up to more than the GDP of Djibouti.
For us little guys, that kind of research is not an option. That's just fine. As little guys we have a profound advantage: We're closer to our markets and that means we can know them with greater depth than any research could ever achieve.
For the scrappy little company, seeing through the customers' eyes can be a simple process. Start with the goal of creating something that would excite the target market -- something they could buzz about. Then design it as best you can on your own. And the deceptively simple coup de grace.... ask them what they think!
I've done this countless times and it works beautifully. With your big plan at the ready, call up someone in your target market (chances are you know them already) and ask them out to lunch to brainstorm with you about how to make your plan even better. Ask them about features they might want, what the competition is doing, how they look for a product/service like yours... anything you can think of that could make you more relevant, credible and valuable.
Don't stop with just one brainstorming session, though. Keep going until you're confident that you're actually seeing it through their eyes and giving them what they want.
Though all this sounds obvious, few people seem to really understand what it means. It's more than just saying, "Product X will make YOU happy." It means seeing the situation from the customers' perspective and constructing your product and your marketing to be meaningful and valuable within that context.
To see through the customers' eyes, big companies use focus groups, surveys, demographics, market trends and countless other tools that add up to more than the GDP of Djibouti.
For us little guys, that kind of research is not an option. That's just fine. As little guys we have a profound advantage: We're closer to our markets and that means we can know them with greater depth than any research could ever achieve.
For the scrappy little company, seeing through the customers' eyes can be a simple process. Start with the goal of creating something that would excite the target market -- something they could buzz about. Then design it as best you can on your own. And the deceptively simple coup de grace.... ask them what they think!
I've done this countless times and it works beautifully. With your big plan at the ready, call up someone in your target market (chances are you know them already) and ask them out to lunch to brainstorm with you about how to make your plan even better. Ask them about features they might want, what the competition is doing, how they look for a product/service like yours... anything you can think of that could make you more relevant, credible and valuable.
Don't stop with just one brainstorming session, though. Keep going until you're confident that you're actually seeing it through their eyes and giving them what they want.
posted by Cascadia Collaborative Law Group at 12:41 PM
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