No one in the world knows your customers better than you. You’ve built up a business based on anticipating their every need and ambition, helping them succeed and progress. You’ve learnt from their failures, frustrations and fears.
We’re sure you’ve developed a deep understanding of what makes them tick. In fact, we’d put money on the fact that you count some of them as personal friends.
But before getting stuck into a new content marketing strategy, guess what?
You still need to do some customer research.
Why do so many businesses try to skip this step?
We honestly wish we knew. The desire to skip ahead in the process and pass on conducting customer research is something that we often witness here at Kollectify — and as content marketing specialists, it still surprises us every time
This isn’t levelled as a criticism of the Shopify businesses (apps, merchants, agencies) eager to dive into the exciting process of content ideation. But we’re painfully aware of the massive opportunity that they seem so keen to bypass. It’s our job to apply the brakes and show them the host of benefits that come from an initial round of carefully conducted customer research.
The need to conduct research in no way reflects a lack of understanding or customer connection on your part. But as the rest of this article will explain, it’s simply too important and nuanced to leave to assumption.
Why is customer research so important?
Simply put, the customer research needed to form the bedrock of your content marketing strategy looks at your audience in a whole new light.
It involves asking the questions that simply won’t have come up in your day to day interactions, exploring ideas and assumptions that predate your existing relationship.
What motivated your customers to work with you? Exactly what were they thinking and feeling when they were looking for a solution like yours? How do they feel when they’re first introduced to your solution all the way through to becoming a loyal customer? What’s surprised them most about the experience of using your app, or using your products?
How customer research helps every stage of strategy
As you work to define your brand positioning, you’ll create a strategy for each stage of your content marketing. This will help define the topics and formats that your dream customers want to interact with at each step of their journey towards working with you.
Customer research is crucial in informing every phase.
The Attract Phase
When deciding on the best content topics and formats to reel in your dream customers, you need to dig into what makes your current audience sweat on a daily basis. This applies beyond the challenges that they can solve with your help, service or product — what problems do they commonly encounter?
By creating content that is mindful of these more general stumbling blocks, offering fresh takes, empathy and solutions, you’ll be able to position your Shopify business as a go-to, trustworthy source of information.
The Convert Phase
Customer research can also shine a light on the exact words, terminology and language that your customers use in relation to your Shopify app or brand. The tone that’s used, and the way that your customers report feelings when they interact with your brand are important when mapping out the conversion phase of your content strategy — it’s used to craft your own unique message, tone of voice and content style.
Getting this pitched correctly is imperative if you’re looking to create content that strikes a chord with your dream clients.
The Close Phase
Another valuable insight that will come out of your customer research? You’ll learn why your customers choose your business over similar competitors. How close were they to going with an alternative solution? What was it that tipped the balance in your favour, finally getting them across the line and onto your books?
Armed with this knowledge, you’ll know exactly where to shine the spotlight when it comes to convincing your leads to make that final, all important decision and come on board.
Ready to take the first steps?
If you’re starting to see the value in taking a thorough approach to your customer research, we’d recommend checking out the Kollectify resource article, Why Research is Vital for your Content Marketing Strategy.
If you’d like some pointers on the best way to conduct this first round of customer research, we’d love to help. We have built a program specifically for businesses looking to attract Shopify merchants! For more details on the program lessons and 1-1 support, click here.