Beer or sangria? How well do you know your clients?

With the start of the summer season, I asked myself the following question: are my clients more likely to drink beer or sangria?

Do I know my clients well enough to be able to answer this question? Why is this question even important? After all, we aren’t going to have a drink; we are here to work together.

Understanding your customer should not limit itself to only knowing their professional needs and preferences but also to understand the person as a whole.

The advents of digital and social media have fundamentally changed the buying habits of people. More than one third of people use social media regularly, 74% say they use Facebook for professional reasons, and 62% of consumers visit a Facebook page before making a purchase or visiting a store.

The old saying that people buy and do business with people they trust is still true. The only thing that has changed is the way that they engage with your businesses. Their first contact with your company is often through social media or the internet.

Social media, specifically, is a communication tool where businesses have the privilege of building a one-to-one relationship with a client or prospect. This also means that companies have to make sure that they understand their client very well and have development ways to continue integrate their customer’s voice into their business processes.

The starting point to building this relationship is to develop a customer persona. Though personas are not a new concept, very few companies have actually taken the time to develop and integrate this powerful tool.

When you begin to build your profile, make sure to name your persona and develop both a personal and a professional profile for them. Who makes up their circle of friends and influencers? What are the big issues they’re facing? Who influences their decisions? Where do they live and work? What are their needs and wants?

Don’t forget to write the profile in the customer’s voice and use the “I” pronoun.

The persona goes further than a sociological profile… it goes all the way to knowing if they prefer beer or sangria – and if they answer “both” (my favourite kind of people), then in what circumstances do they drink beer or sangria?

If you would like some help to build your customer persona, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Somehow… I’m thirsty 🙂