Improve Your Value Propositions By Understanding Your Customers

I’ve written about creating better value propositions before. At the heart of the process is understanding what customers care about. Today I thought I’d share a few ways to do this.

First, I would ask them. This seems obvious but you would be surprised how many people overlook asking their customers what they care about.

Another valuable exercise that I love is creating an ideal customer profile. Most marketers think this is just a matter of putting a bunch of demographics together about your customer. While this is important and can offer some value, it doesn’t tell us who our ideal customer is or what dreams, behaviors, and concerns they have.

We need to dig deeper.

I recommend using a Customer Empathy Map for each customer segment.

This customer profile was developed by the visual thinking company, XPLANE.

What I love about the empathy map is the insights you gather about your customers without having to be a social scientist. All you have to do is answer six simple questions and you’ll be off to the races developing stronger value propositions.

  1. What does your ideal customer think and feel? (worries and aspirations)

  2. What does your ideal customer hear? (from friends, influencers, etc.)

  3. What does your ideal customer see? (from friends, the market, their environment)

  4. What does your ideal customer say and do? (attitudes and behaviors)

  5. What is your ideal customer’s pain? (frustrations, fears, roadblocks)

  6. What does your ideal customer gain? (benefits, wants, needs, etc)

Here is an example of one we did for an upcoming project: CEM Example

Give it a try to let me know what you think?

Press ESC to close.