An SMS mail-out, like any other marketing tool, exists to make a profit. If clients don’t react to your messages after reading them, then they’re not interesting for them. This shows that you don’t know your audience.
Before you start sending messages, it’s important to try to understand your customers and study their needs. How can this be done?
Create a customer portrait
A correctly compiled client portrait helps to understand which channels and marketing tools can be better used and what offers may interest your customers.
The client portrait is a collective image of your potential buyer, usually including the following characteristics:
- age,
- marital status,
- income level,
- place of residence (geography),
- gender,
- sphere of employment,
- position,
- typical problems associated with their specific work,
- needs,
- fears and desires,
- etc.
The more detailed the portrait of the client is,the higher the chance of creating an offer well suited to the needs of your target audience. It helps to take into account as many personalised characteristics as possible, in the greatest possible detail.
“Sarah Smith, a stay at home mum, 37 years old, has no higher education and three school-age children, she shops online and loves watching the Great British Bake Off”
You can divide your customers into several large and contrasting groups. Work out a portrait for each of them and make sure that all subscribers get interesting information.
Conduct a survey
What could be better than directly asking your customers what they want? By doing this, you can find out their needs and make the most profitable offer.
Here are some tips:
- Try to avoid questions that require only monosyllabic answers.
- Make the questions multiple choice, including an “other”, option.
- Ask a few open questions which elicit detailed answers.
- Choose an optimal number of questions, so that your clients don’t spend more than 10 minutes answering them.
- Don’t force customers to fill out a complex registration form or a set of mandatory fields.
- Motivate clients to pass the survey with a small gift or a bonus. Set a deadline, as this can increase the response rate.
Examine your competitors
See how other companies cope with the task of analysing their customers. It’s quite possible that they have already implemented a good idea, which can be borrowed.
Call or chat to direct or indirect competitors from time to time, note how they build a dialogue with clients, and draw conclusions.
It is not necessary to focus only on direct competitors in your field of activity. Good ideas can be found in companies operating in other spheres. You only have to adapt them to your business.
Your clients can help to develop your business. Understanding their needs and desires can allow you to make really interesting offers to them.
