March 1, 2021

Author: Amber Anderson

Understanding what your customers need is key to making sure they continue to choose you.

Staying at the top of your customers’ minds requires that you meet them where they are, and that means understanding their purchase path and pain points so you can decide what the best way is for your business to reach them.

1. Update your customer personas.

The best way to serve your customers is by understanding who they are and where they are in their life journey. Customer personas provide helpful insights into your customers' lives.

If you don't already have customer personas in place, spend some time creating a few before building your marketing plan. Start by doing some research to see how your customers’ needs have changed since the pandemic hit and what they need right now. For example, your customers may include working mothers who now have the added stress of juggling work and their children’s shift to virtual schooling and increased home responsibilities.

You can find free insights through foundations and public policy organizations. Trend and research reports from business consulting companies are valuable as they provide insights on market trends and consumer behavior.

Use this new information to update your customer personas to reflect their new needs, experiences, behaviors and goals so you have it on hand.

2. Identify customer pain points.

Once you've revisited or identified your customer personas, it's time to determine their unique pain points. What are the challenges they're currently facing? Did they lose their job? Are they caregiving for a loved one?

Create a list of pain points (at least 10), and then narrow them down to the top three. Think about how your brand can solve their problem, and write a positioning statement—a two- to three-sentence statement that calls out your customer’s problem and how your brand can solve it.

According to research by the U.S. Census Bureau and Federal Reserve that examined the impact of COVID-19 in 2020, working mothers “in states with early stay-at-home orders and school closures were 68.8 percent more likely to take leave from their jobs than working mothers in states where closures happened later."

If working mothers are one your desired audiences, think about their situation. How has this impacted their lives? How has it created new areas of opportunities for you to support them as a brand? Make a note of the challenge and possible solutions or areas where your brand can provide direct value or offer support.

3. Create a customer journey map.

Now that you have a better sense of your customers and where they stand, a customer journey map can help you find ways to connect with them.

A customer journey map helps you identify the customer’s purchase path, so you can determine ways that your brand responds at each interaction. It typically includes the following stages:

• Awareness: This is when a customer first becomes aware of your company/product/service. Where are they when it happens? How are they introduced?
• Consideration: The customer is thinking about the product and service while doing research and are comparing you with your competitors. During this time, you want to offer them something that helps justify why they should pick you.
• Purchase: The customer has decided to purchase. What’s next? Are there instructions that they need to follow? A welcome email or flyer that you provide? Do you offer an incentive to upgrade?
• Retention: Existing customers are easier, and more cost effective, than retaining new ones so having a customer retention process in place is key. A new customer is on board. How do you keep them? Frequent check-ins? Relevant content? Discounts?
• Advocacy: A lot of small businesses get new business from referrals. Think about the creative ways you can get your customers to advocate on your behalf. Discounts? A simple ask?

Once you’ve plotted out how the person is getting to you, think about the ways that your brand can show up at each stage. During the awareness phase, a potential customer is being introduced to your brand. In the past, they may have found your product in a brick-and-mortar store on a demo counter. People aren’t browsing or shopping in person as much in recent times, so you’d want to think about alternative ways to catch their attention. Having a customer journey map helps you first identify the various ways the person is connecting with your brand and then develop intentional touchpoints for your brand at each phase.Understanding your customers’ purchase path will help you serve them better. And creating the foundational pieces—customer personas, pain points and journey map—will ensure that your brand is able to stay connected, even during market changes.

Photo: Getty Images