Why does starting with the customer matter? Well, the one thing that dictates whether your business will succeed or not is your customer. They will either come back and buy again from you or go somewhere else.
One of the reasons I love SEO is it makes you think from a customer perspective. I found it always helps me figure out how to build the page. Let’s take a look at what I mean. Here are the questions I ask when thinking about building or optimizing a web page.
Questions to ask yourself
A co-worker asks about creating a landing page to sell Chromecasts and Roku’s and other media streamers.
Questions:
- What kind of page am I expecting to see for the products I want to present?
- What problem am I trying to solve for this customer?
- What do I get in Google when I search “media streamers” or “buy media streamer?”
- How can I make the customer’s life as easy as possible so they can get back to their life as quickly as possible?
Once I go through the questions, I start answering them one by one and get a little closer to who my customer is:
- I want to see a page that doesn’t overload me with options and gives me the best 2-3 products out there within my budget.
- The customer’s main problem is trying to find a way to consume content on their TV’s by using a streaming device. They are looking for something easy, inexpensive, and reliable.
- I find this search result and can see “best media streamers” shows up at the top of the page. This tells me that customers are in fact looking for a landing page that can explain to them easily and quickly on which media streamer to buy.
- I would need to create a page that can make the customer checkout fast, have content that is simple and to the point, as well as have good images to give a sense of how it’ll look in person.
Piecing the information together
I’ve taken about 5-10 minutes or asking myself questions to feel empathetic towards the customer. It’s one of the most effective ways to market to someone that you’ve never met. It won’t address every single pain point, but it’s a good starting point.
We gather that our landing page is going to need a clean look, display 4-5 products, and communicate clearly what each product can do and how it’s different. We also know that people are looking to buy and could possibly buy as they’re reading through my landing page.
The alternative
However, imagine if we didn’t start with the customer. We may have put up a page with lots of media streamers and put loads of content. What are your chances of being really successful or even memorable? In my experience, the non-customer-centric approach hardly makes a sound.
The next time you’re on a landing page that you love, take note of what you love and don’t love. Ask yourself if you think they took a customer-centric approach. The more you can take this approach in marketing or even in life the better off you’ll be in succeeding, but don’t take my word for it. Try it out in your next campaign!