T
he value of your product or service is in the eyes of the market. While too many businesses think they can create value of their products by their own standard and perception of what the market wants and needs, they fail to realize that only the free market determines what the customers value and what they will buy.
Customers tell you everyday if you are meeting their wants and needs. Everyday customers pick and choose, in the free markets, what they want and need in their lives. Their perception is shaped by their daily issues, professional and private struggles, wants, needs and desires. It is often very difficult to create a “want” in a market for a new product that hasn’t been on the consumers’ mind yet.
It is crucial for business today in the technological and information age to realize that their products and services must meet the specific needs and wants of their customers. The customer can fire an entire business in a second with his or hers decision of where to put their trust and from whom to buy. It is imperative that business cultivate trust with their past and present customers.
Future customers will come along with good testimonials and word of mouth from past and present customers with whom you cultivate communication on how their wants, needs, desires change over time and evolve. The key to success here is to know, predict, and follow the rising and passing needs of your targeted customer base, and to always be on the look-out for new customers in different but connected market segments.
Questions to ask yourself about your customers:
Think of all the times you were a consumer, customer, buyer in a store, restaurant, or business. What did you notice that you liked to be provided from salespeople? What made you feel valued and special as a customer? What exactly made you trust a business to the point you gave them your dollars, time and attention? How can you relate to your own customers? Write down all of your past and present ideas, opinions, and experiences. Often they are exactly the same as the experiences of millions of other customers.
Keep updated with journals in your trade, profession, business, but notice how often some of those very important trade journals with news about your niche do not keep up with customer needs over time. Keep notes about the lack of solutions for those customers, and consider offering your own solution, service to those unsatisfied, undervalued and underserviced. If you have a unique selling angle, you can rule that part of the market for a long time while your competitors in the other segments lag behind in confusion.
Giving before receiving is the key to prosperity.
Your target audience wants to be valued and made to feel special. They need their wants and desires addressed and fulfilled. You are there to help them out so consider preemptively cataloguing their most pressing wants and needs and offering a few solutions in form of free information on your sites or in the brochures you hand-out to past and present consumers. It is true that the more you give without expecting immediate results is multiplied in the near or far future in return. Give it a try especially if your target audience is skeptical or suspicious of any new business or offers because they have been burned in the past with businesses betraying their trust.
Nourish the trust between your business and the consumers and you will reap long term benefits and profits, especially from past consumers who will be some of your best long-term consumers as long as you value them by keeping in touch with free information, valuable offers each month or weekly, and asking for their help or opinion with building your business over time.
Sign up to Tubular for Free today.
