What's in A Question?
By Sandra Pearce, MPA Media Marketing Manager
Why do these things matter? Consistency – Diversification – Differentiation
And how do you know what to be consistent with, where and when to diversify and what differentiates you in ways that will get your future customers to buy from you? And why did I start with so many questions? Alright, enough questions. I'll get to the point. And the point is ... you can never ask enough questions.
There's an old saying, "If you don't tell people the truth, they'll make it up." But how do you know what your customers think is true? What are your customers saying, and thinking, about your company, your products, your service, your brand? If you don't really know or just think you know, maybe it's time to ask.
You'd be amazed at what you can learn by simply asking your customers and leads a few questions. What questions do you ask, you ask? Well, that depends completely on what you need to know to move forward. I use a simple rule of thumb. What do I believe I already know? What do I need to know to provide better products and services? Then I ask to see if I'm correct. And, people really like being asked what they think. It lets them know you care and helps them feel that they are contributing.
We do take our own advice, by the way. As an example, a few weeks ago, most of you received an email survey from us asking you what you thought about our products and services, what you like and don't like about doing business with us and a few other things. We analyzed the results and discovered some very interesting things. We learned that there are some products and services we offer that many of you didn't know about or didn't know enough about. What did we do with this new information you ask? Well, we didn't just file your responses away in the draw labeled "Good to know." We actually created a new communication program designed to educate our existing and potential customers about the products and services we THOUGHT you knew about. But, and here's the main point, we didn't know what you knew until we asked.
So, what do you do with answers to questions you ask your customers? If talking to your customers confirms what you thought you knew, great. Then you can keep communicating what you're communicating in the same ways. I find that this is not generally the case, as I illustrated above. If the answers show that the general perception is different than you thought it was, or what you sell is not as understood as you think it is, it's time to make some changes to your marketing. But let's not stop there. If you refine or change your marketing message without campaign tracking in place it could take a long time for you to know if the changes you've made are having a positive or negative effect.
Marketing actually is a science. That may surprise some of you. Not that I'm a scientist by a long shot. But, the data gathering, stats analysis, eye movement testing and sweat measurement tests in response to ads, and so on, and so on, never ceases to amaze me. In cases where companies are about to spend $2 million on ad buys, I think that kind of investment in research is warranted. Not to mention, long before the investment in expensive protracted research, large companies generally start their process by asking questions so they know what messaging and design is most probable to work. For small to medium companies without massive marketing budgets like ours, these types of costly tests are just not financially feasible. But, asking questions is simple, cost effective and are truly valuable if the research is done "scientifically".
Now, I don't mean that we have to create equations with variables based on data input sets with predefined parameters. (I have no idea if what I just said actually makes sense mathematically by the way.) We do, however, need to understand the basic math. How many people are we surveying, what percentage responded, and is this a large enough percentage for us to know that the data we gathered is representative of our whole audience?
One major pit fall that can create a set of answers that you should NEVER make changes to your marketing based on is this: Pre-loading the survey. By this I mean asking questions in ways that lead to answers you want to get to begin with. That doesn't do you or your customers any good. It's very important to be open when writing your questions and willing to do something with the answers.
So it's time to go back to the beginning of this article and I'll re-emphasize why I'm focusing on research and what it can help us accomplish.
- We need to stay consistent with our brand and messaging. It takes people seeing a message at least three times on average for them to act on it and really absorb your whole message. It also takes more than one contact to build a relationship and a relationship with your brand is what will sell your products.
- We need diversification in our marketing. By using different platforms and methods to communicate, by talking about more than one thing over and over, we show our current and future customers that we are not a one trick pony and there's more to us than meets the eye.
- Differentiation is an absolute necessity. We are not the only game in town. We all have competitors so we have to tell our customers what makes us different and why they should do business with us instead of the other guy.
There are some basic tenants of marketing that I try to remind myself of often:
- Think Long Term
- Build Consumer Engagement
- Treasure Your Brand
- Problem Solve, Not Avoid
- Always Think Outside the Box
- Know What Your Customers Think About You
I believe that all of these require the last to be successful.
What do I hope you take from this article?
Questions are for asking. Answers are for acting on.
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