Stop Talking to Yourself and Start Communicating with Your Customers

When you run a business, you must communicate with your customers. Are you just talking to them, or are you actually listening to what they have to say and having a meaningful conversation with them?
Many marketers end up having both sides of the conversation in their heads and do not gain any traction – and this blog is here to address that so you can avoid making those mistakes.

Crafting the Conversation

As humans, we tend to talk to ourselves and spend more time crafting a response than listening when having a conversation.

Consider the last time you needed to ask for a raise, address a problem in your relationship, or tackle another major conversation. You likely spent time practicing what you were going to say, rehearsing that conversation in your head repeatedly, and crafting the perfect message.

When you do this, you invent the other side of the conversation. However, you can never control what the outcome will be or how the person will react. The same thing goes for our clients and prospects!

Talking to your customers is an essential part of your marketing, especially with the prevalence of social marketing and online media. So, if you want to see results, you need to learn how to do this properly!

Understand Their Language

The key to communicating with your customers is to understand their language. Sure, you can connect with them on Instagram or Facebook – but your messaging is only be effective when you speak to them in a meaningful way.

This involves understanding how they search for things online, what problems they are looking to solve, and how your products and services fit into that equation.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming you know your ideal client because you are them – avoid having both sides of the conversation in your head and talk to them so you can get the real answer. You know the answer to their problems is your product because it’s your business, but how will they come to know that if you don’t put yourself in their shoes first?

You can’t know exactly how they are feeling since you already have the knowledge and solution to the pain points at your disposal. It’s hard to remember what it was like before you knew all these things, and you don’t know what you don’t know. So, ask!

How Do Your Customers Find You?

Another crucial aspect of communicating with your customers is understanding how they found your business. You may be thinking, I already do this – whenever I onboard a new customer I have them check a box to tell us whether they found our brand on Facebook, Google, etc.

However, this is not enough! While it is encouraging that you are seeing results from those channels, it doesn’t give you enough information to understand what you should be saying. In other words, it doesn’t tell you how to market to them.

How can you address their problems? What were they searching for when they found your company? What caught your attention about our marketing campaign or website?

These answers will help you drill down into the language you should use to expand your reach and target the right prospects. Your current customers will help you get this valuable information, but you can only get their feedback if you ask them!

If you are ready to continue this conversation and learn how to engage like a human, join our community group here.