Stop. Overthinking. Your strategies.

Hey, there!

My head-scratcher this week is about…

…how a lot of marketers overcomplicate their strategies, instead of doing the most obvious thing: asking the customer what they want.

Five or six years ago we were struggling with a client. 

He was selling digital cameras but he was really shooting in the dark with his marketing campaigns. 

We asked about their ICP and the client thought their customers were professional photographers.

He was adamant in believing his clients were pros - people wouldn’t buy these products if photography was a hobby, it’s clear they’re pros. 

We insisted on researching his customer base and we convinced the client to place a survey on the thank you page. 

Then, the client saw the truth: 

65% of their sales were coming from amateurs.

Do you know who your customers are?

Customer research is affecting the whole marketing strategy. 

Only when you know who your customers are and why they buy, can you actually be relevant?

And here’s the catch - when you don’t know your customers, you don’t ask the right questions, then you don’t grow. 

When you’re not growing, you get anxious and start running in different directions, not always the right ones. 

You get lost.

There’s this trap in marketing, of believing you always have to be creative, make better jokes, or make the logo bigger. 

Once you get caught in this trap and the lack of creativity is stopping you from delivering value. 

However, marketing is not about a crazy level of creativity. 

Yes, being creative is a fantastic thing. 

But if you're creative in the wrong direction, with the wrong message, you're just a cool message. 

Nobody's going to buy from you just because they thought you had creative ads or email sequences.

Another risky trap is marketers thinking that customer research should be done by other departments. 

No. If you are in charge of speaking in the name of the brand, you have to ask your customer:

Why do you buy this product? What's the end goal?

And then nurture the relationships with your customers, train them to use the product, and document their progress. 

If they are not using the product properly, they will not be repeat customers.

Jeffrey Eisenberg stated it beautifully in our today's episode of CVOLive:

"People make a mistake believing that if someone bought from them once, that's now their customer."

If they don't buy again, there’s no value from them, they’re churning, and will not recommend you. 

Your customers are just people, you can talk to them. 

You should talk to them. Prevention doesn’t happen because of creativity alone, it happens when you care. 

For example, if a segment of your customers bought from you once, twice, but stopped the third time, just ask them what’s up. 

They trust you because they've spent money with you over and over again. You have to find out what changed. 

Then act upon it.