Simple Marketing Funnel | Do Your Research

You're probably anxious to get started and would like to dive right in. This is what most marketers do, but it's also why most marketers fail, too.

It's important to understand who your customers are and what they really want.

Doing your research takes time, but it's worth it.  When you understand the emotions of your target audience, you can create the right content for them at each step in your marketing funnel.

When you can give the right message, to the right people, at the right time, you will succeed.

Understanding Customer Demographics

Demographics are things like your target market's age, gender, income, occupation, location and so forth. This gives you first level insight into how they might make their purchasing decisions.

You might be targeting executive women over 40 who vacation alone, for example, or 20-something men who live and breathe martial arts.

You're looking for that small core of people who are your ideal customers. When you know who they are, you can find out where they hang out, what they read and watch, and so forth.

And when you know exactly who you are targeting, you can get inside their head and use their language, too.

Everyone believes they are unique, and so are their problems. If your marketing language is tailored directly to your market, then your audience will feel that you are speaking just to them, and your conversions will increase.

You might want to use FollowerWonk to learn the language of your prospects. Just type in what their profession is and where they live to find people on Twitter who fit the profile.

Make a list of these Twitter accounts, follow them to monitor what they share and send, and find out what they're talking about.

Also, go to Amazon and find the recently published books in your niche. Read the reviews and you'll find the common objections to what's already out there.

Be sure to read the reviews that are 2 to 4 stars. These are the folks who tend to write out a more thoughtful review, with one or more objections, and they'll say what they thought was missing about the book as well as what was right about it.

Using Buyer Psychology

If you can discover the psychology of your buyers, then you can use that to craft messages that resonate with them and make them think you really know them.

You want to understand their personality, attitudes, viewpoints and so forth.

For example, you might notice that people in your target market tend to be on social media in the evening. This tells you that the right time to send them messages is during this time.

Or maybe your target market favors one particular social media site. Adopting the style of communication used on that site, as well as using the site itself, will work wonders to connect with your audience.

To really get to know your audience, use a tool like Qualaroo to ask your website visitors a question when they get to a certain page on your website. When they answer the question, you can ask them for their email address and follow up to schedule a phone call to learn more.

You're not trying to sell them at this point.  You're just trying to gather information on the problems they deal with, the words they use to describe their challenges and so forth.

Any chance you get, interact with your prospects and customers to find out what's on their minds, how they speak, what words they use, what keeps them awake at night and so forth.

The better you know your customer, the better able you can serve them.

Now that you've got your research done, let's build the funnel itself:

Click here for the next article in the Simple Marketing Funnel Series - Attract Your Tribe