Are You Giving Your Clients What They Really Want? Article

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Are You Giving Your Clients What They Really Want?

Once upon a time, you needed a market research firm to learn about your clients—how old they were, their level of education, what they read, how you could help them the most. But now you can learn all that by just sending out a simple survey and asking.

Author: Yoon Cannon

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Just think, you can ask your target audience anything with the ease and speed of an email but the robustness of a big market research firm. Imagine how you can apply this to your business.

You can make more money and work less by giving your audience exactly what they want.

Why not ask questions about your client’s needs and desires to better help you shape offers and products to serve your target audience?

Imagine if they really want a blue widget but you’re spending all your energy creating a red gizmo? If you’d asked the right questions ahead of time, you’d save time and energy by creating what they do want. (And, isn’t finding and filling your audience’s needs really your purpose?)

You could also make your life easier by tightening your focus. Though it can sound a little frightening to laser focus your marketing and concentrate on a smaller audience it could be just what you need to boost your business to the next plateau. Concentrating your marketing on fewer people makes you stand out in a crowded market place and helps you land your ideal clients faster.

But it’s tough to make these determinations without background research.

Your secret weapon? Survey Monkey. Survey Monkey is a piece of free or low cost survey software you can use to ask your clients questions through email or on your website and it tallies and analyzes the responses for you so you don’t have to. It’s never been easier to gain high level market research about your clients.

Universities use it for M.B.A. admissions, Campbell’s Soup uses it to learn about their audience and thousands of one person operations use these survey tools to learn more about their market and target their messages.

There’s never a better time for surveying your prospects and clients than in preparation for strategic planning for 2011.

Whether you’re deciding to narrow your target audience or determine what new product or package to offer your prospects, simply asking a few questions can give you a ton of insight. Don’t guess, ask!

The answers to those very important questions don't just pop up. You need more information to adequately brainstorm quality choices. Getting that information can be done through
surveys quickly and cheaply. Here’s how it works:

1. Go to Survey Monkey.com and set up an account
2. Choose a template
3. Type in your questions
4. Send to your list and/or put a link on your website

This can be done in under 10 minutes.
5. Check the results
You may be surprised by what you learn.

In order to entice your readership to complete your survey you could offer a prize that adds value such as a free report or training video. This does double duty in that it serves to position you further as the expert in the arena and builds your relationship with your audience.

Another idea is you can partner with complementary businesses by distributing their products or coupons as a way to motivate people to complete the survey.

Either way it’s a win, win. You exchange valuable information and build your relationships.

Since part of strategic planning is asking how you can better serve your ideal target audience, surveys are a terrific way to help you truly know—rather than guess—what your audience wants from you. That makes planning your 2011 business strategy simple. You’ll know exactly what to do!

If you’d like help creating your 2011 game plan, you won’t want to miss my next seminar “Game On- How to Plan Your 2011 Success”. You'll leave with the tools and know-how to create a 1-page strategic plan.

About Author

Yoon Cannon is a systemic business growth coach, consultant and speaker based in Philadelphia, Pa. She specializes in helping entrepreneurs take their companies beyond the Million Dollar milestones through branding, sales & marketing, hiring and training. For more free articles and podcasts visit www.paramountbusinesscoach.com or call (215) 292-4947 EST.

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