Customer research

Having identified your best target customer segment, you need to develop an in-depth understanding of these target customers, their needs and options.

The first step is clarifying exactly who is the customer. For consumer and small ticket business purchases, this is normally fairly easy to identify and define. For high-ticket business purchases, frequently a number of people are involved playing different roles, such as champion, recommender, decision maker, and approver. In all cases, you need to identify the typical profile and motivations of these different players, so you can tailor your marketing and sales approach accordingly.

Next, you must develop a deep understanding of the needs you address. Customer needs can be analyzed in two primary categories:

·         Core needs – these are the functional needs customers have that you address, normally driven by increasing revenue, reducing costs and / or managing risks.

·         Buying needs – these needs are to do with the customer’s ability to buy - what must happen from both a process and budget point of view to get to a purchase commitment.

Both these sets of needs must be clearly understood and addressed in order to secure a purchase order from the customer!