Know Thy Customer

I made the mistake today of Googling "Ten Commandments of Marketing." I wanted to know where "Know Thy Customer" ranked on the de facto online authority (as deemed by the highest search engine rank). Looking back, I know it was a dumb idea. I had expected that a dozen or so people would have posted their version of this fictional list of marketing dos & don'ts, but I had no idea that there would be more than 83 pages of results! That is more than 800 individual websites referencing some version of the Ten Commandments of Marketing. 

Ten Commandments of Modern Marketing

...Social Media Marketing

...Guerrilla Marketing

...Green Marketing

...Networking

...Better Networking

...Great Networking

Then things started to get weird...

...Ethnic Marketing

...Marketing for Chiropractors

...Marketing & Promoting a Horse Business

And my personal favorite: 

The Ten Commandments of Mafia Marketing

I also really enjoyed the Hip Hop Ten Commandments which really had very little to do with marketing, but almost made me fall out of my chair from laughing.

Know Thy Customer

Which came first, the product or the customer? It's a rhetorical question that suggests that your customer is at least as important as the product or service you provide. Not only is it important to define your target customer (i.e. who is your product/service for?), but the key to innovation is a constant effort to learn about your customer. Traditional market research can tell you who your clients are (e.g. age, gender, income, and some preferences), but it fails to help you understand how your customer thinks or feels. The only way to learn this is to ask them. Here are a couple of ways that you can learn more about what your clients think and feel about your company.

1. Ask you sales people & front line workers

The only standard form of immediate feedback for marketing is sales. In a sales conversation, the reaction of the customer influences the message. If you want to know what customers are thinking, ask your sales people & front line workers. Create an opportunity for these employees to report what they are hearing from customers. Invite them to an executive team meeting and listen to them. Listen only! If you want unfiltered information, you have to create an environment where people feel comfortable delivering it.

2. Monitor online conversations

You do not need to be a social media superstar to monitor the conversations about your company online. You can start simply by picking one forum to check periodically. Just reading what your customers are saying on a consumer review website like Yelp.com will give you some insight regarding what your customers are thinking. If you have time, you can engage in online conversations via your company's Facebook page. Setting up a Google Alert for your company name is another easy way to keep tabs on what is being written about your business. Empower your employees to help represent your company online as well. No one can do it all by themselves.

3. Invite customers to take a survey

Surveys are certainly not the most engaging forms of conversation, but they can help you gather valuable information about specific questions that you would like to ask your customers. Surveymonkey.com offers a free basic account that allows you to try this method of collecting customer feedback. For the best results, steer clear of broad questions like "How much do you like our company." Effective surveys are short, concise, and have a very specific measurement goal.

4. Get out and talk to your customers

Get up from behind your desk a couple of times a day and engage with your customers in the "front of the house." Don't have a brick & mortar storefront? Then pick up the phone. Call a couple of your customers that you haven't spoken to in a while. You will be amazed at how appreciative your customers are for the spontaneous conversation, and I guarantee that if you listen to what they have to say, you will learn something new every day.

The more you do to learn about your customer, the better chance you have of exceeding their expectations. Additionally, by engaging your customers in conversation, you will build strong relationships that will reap repeat and referral business.

While I didn't learn much about marketing from the Hip Hop Ten Commandments, I must credit Curtis Jackson (a.k.a. 50 Cent) for the following quote from his 2009 book, The 50th Rule.

 "Become a better observer of people. This cannot be done on the internet. It must be honed in personal interaction."

 -50 Cent & Robert Greene, The 50th Rule