Before you can effectively market to your customers, you need to get to know them a little better. But just how much information do you need to know? How much is too much? This article will tell you what you need to know about your customers so that you don’t waste your time getting the wrong kind of information.

Get to know a few details about their personal lives. These are the basics – you don’t need to know who their 3rd teacher was or their most embarrassing moment. You need to find out where they live and work – the city, the neighborhood, even, if you are a community business. You should know their income levels and why they’ve chosen to shop with you.  You also need to know where else they shop – your direct competitors and otherwise so that you can recognize their spending habits. These details will help you craft your marketing message directly to them in a way they can’t ignore.

Find out why they buy your product. You need to know the motivation behind their purchase. Are they reacting to a mistake and need your product to fix it? Or are they trying to be proactive and prevent something from happening?

The answer to this will have great impact on how you write your marketing materials. Everything from your billboards to your catalog printing will be affected. Will your message be how to prevent a negative occurrence or how to prevent one? The way you frame your message will have an impact. Consider these phrases: “Prevents crabgrass” or “Kills crabgrass.” These are two very different motivations.

How many options they want from you. This consensus seems to be split among the general population: some people want a lot of options and some people are more comfortable with no options. People either want to mull options over, or not have to make any kind of decision and just take what’s available. You need to ask or do some research to find this info. If you don’t have enough options, people will go elsewhere because they’ll feel controlled. If you give too many options, people might be overwhelmed and can’t decide at all. Try to give the right number of option so none of your customers feels alienated.

How they best process information. Some people are visual creatures, others are auditory. People that best understand new information by seeing it will buy more often from seeing brochures, photos, flyers and reading text. People that learn better by talking with people and having things explained to them person-to-person will buy more often with great customer service that is there to explain and answer questions and television or radio commercials that use a lot of speech. Knowing how your customers prefer to be communicated with is important because it’s an easy way for you to connect with them and to effectively get their attention.

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