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Entering the Summer of 2021, there is a noticeable and important shift in mindset among business leaders. For the first time since the pandemic began, growth is truly on the horizon. As we shift from survival to thriving, we must begin with the reason why we still stand. We must begin with our market.
Defining and understanding your market and your marketing strategy is the single best next step as you strive for growth. To truly be customer-fueled, you must look to your customer when thinking about what is next. The world will tell you where to go, but it is up to you to listen. Here are 6 ways to listen to your customers when determining the next steps with your business.
Define Your Market
When you think about your market, who exactly is it? What age group are they in? What are their interests? If you don’t truly and intimately know who your market is made up of, you cannot listen to them.
Bring Marketing and Strategy Together
If they aren’t already, consider marketing and business strategy to be joined at the hip. The market very well may indicate the need to pivot in business strategy. Business strategy may not align with what the market needs; to properly serve your market, unite their forces!
Conduct a SWOT Analysis
It may feel like business school all over again, but there is a reason the SWOT is so widely used. Bringing your team together to analyze your internal strengths and weaknesses while also looking at the external opportunities and threats will expose you to the bigger picture and may even point you in a new direction.
Keyword Research
Keyword Research can be an excellent way to learn more about what your customer wants while seeing what their most pressing problems are. Once you understand what they are searching for and where they are searching, positioning can become truly aligned.
Conduct Your Own Market Research
You know what problem you need to solve and the challenges you want to understand. Making the effort to create your own customer survey or conduct product research will give insights into your market’s pain points and wants in a more intimate way.
Test Test Test
After spending time getting to know your market even better, you may notice they are pointing you in a certain direction. This does not mean go in that direction and call it a day. This means it is time to test that direction in every way possible.
These tactics are critical to understanding your market and positioning your business for growth. Business leaders need to define and align their market’s needs with their business objectives to be positioned for customer-fueled growth. Understanding your market impacts business success! When you don’t know what to do next, your market will always guide you but you have to know how to listen.
