How to Speak Your Customer’s Language Effectively and Grow Your Business
Your online reputation only gets better with your audience on an existing, genuine level; simply to keep you at the top of their mind in a sea of other competing distractions.
Imagine getting off a PMV at a bus stop, and you notice someone holding a Bible in one hand and ranting to everyone within the vicinity. Obviously, you will notice the ignorant passersby, and this is because the preacher is speaking to everyone – in effect, he’s not speaking directly to anyone.
The same is true with your web content/copy. If your audience are just not converting into solid cash, chances are that you’re not speaking to their hearts; by this we mean speaking their language.
You see, speaking your customer’s language is the equivalent of whispering softly into their ears, individually; he or she will connect with you on a personal level, because, they know you’re speaking directly to them, as individuals, rather than a group.
Speaking your customer’s language is the bridge to getting instant notice and a huge following, either online or offline. That is exactly where you want to be, if converting genuine leads into sales and high customer retention are the lifeblood of your business.
Customising your messages to suit your customer’s expectations is critical in marketing.
Now, the question remains: how do you speak your customer’s language effectively?
First and foremost, let’s begin with several points of reference and embed them into practical steps that we can follow:
- Visualize your Ideal Client
Put aside some time to think about your ideal client/customer in detail, as a start. This will give you a clear picture of the kind of audience you’ll be virtually motivated to work with.
This calls for the creation of an “avatar” for your ideal client, which is bound to evolve overtime as your circumstances change.
Once you establish a relationship with your audience, you will gradually realize who you enjoy dealing with, at the same time distinguish those that bring out the best in you.
The important thing to remember here is that you will have to start somewhere.
Your target client must be at the top of your mind always, so that you have a handle on what they want, what they dream about every day, their daily struggles, in addition to their personality, strengths, whims, and blemishes.
Imagine your absolute client and serve with distinction; who they are, what they need right now, and their everyday lingo are elements of your ideal client’s language you’ll need to know and familiarize yourself with – if you want to be fluent.
- Ask Questions
At this point of your journey, you need to consider the potential questions your target audience will be asking, and attempt to answer them as best as you can. This way, you will understand how they see and feel about the problem you’re trying to solve.
Here’s a list of basic questions as one way of being on top of your client’s problem, before you offer the solution. You can add more to this list depending on your situation:
Now you can answer these questions, or other similar varieties to learn your client’s language, effectively.
In addition, you will realize that you don’t necessarily have to answer each and every question, because the information you will get down the line may not match one or half of these questions. But as an initial impulse, you need them all as a compass.
The complementary next step is to listen and learn, as you imagine every detail about your ideal client. Once you have this information by pen and paper, you can lean towards imbuing it in a poll, survey questions, or sample interviews.
- Consider Social Listening
This means starting out with places your target audience visit often.
Rings a bell?
Yes, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. Even more effectively, other popular online platforms you may know of that are your target client’s wading pool.
For the most part, if your business, for instance, is all about meri blouses, handcrafted jewels, and the like, obviously a platform such as Marketmeri will be an excellent starting point. With its Facebook page as well, imagine how it will be to note the comments by followers.
And this is where your journey towards speaking your client’s language begins.
LINGOS TO NOTE…
The essence of Social Listening is to look out for key comments or statements by customers/clients, which will easily tell you more about the problem you want to solve. Key statements like:
I wish…
I want…
I struggle with…
It makes me feel…
I need…
I tried…
Does anyone know how to…?
Can anyone help me with…?
How can I…?
You can see these statements as the neon lights along an airport’s runway. If you want to speak your client’s language fluently, they will get you there.
Keeping these in mind, you can creatively blend one or more of these statements into your web copy/content to directly speak to your target audience – individually.
Once that becomes a recurring project, the skill, the experience and the mindset developed imprint themselves in your DNA. Eventually it becomes second nature to you.
There’s really no magic, or secret formula to it. It’s all about concentration and repetition. That’s all it is.
The web, search engines and social network platforms have what they call Algorithms which also studies the communication behaviour patterns of every web user. They read your attitude and behavior on the Internet and would recommend or propose to you content or topics related or relevant to your behaviour and liking.
- Engage in Conversations
This is the fascinating part of this journey. Your objective in this case is to meet with your target audience, either individually or as a group, and do an informal “interview” just to get the ball rolling.
It’s the opportunity to soak yourself in the language and perspectives of your client(s).
This means you’ve gone prepared, your questions written down beforehand, and it’s only questions after questions to get through now.
To get the ball rolling, begin with a question as simple as “tell me a little about yourself”, and then pick up from there. At the end of the day, you should be in the best light to view the problem you want to solve – from back to front – and a bonus for knowing exactly what it takes to be them.
Additionally, you should establish a time frame to meet with as many people as you can. This may take up to weeks, or a month or two, the max.
- Enjoy the Meetings/Interviews
These forms of meetings and interviews are meant to be exciting in themselves, because you’ll be interviewing your potential clients – those you will find enjoyable to work with, and those that mirror your definition of a dream client.
Try not to sweat the details. Be at ease, and treat these people as pure gold; because they are. And enjoy your time as much as you can with them.
Let them know that it’s all about market research to help you better understand them, so what you’re about to offer on the market will please them, spot-on.
Remember to send an earnest thank you to follow up! If you did end up offering some free advice or information, it can be extra nice to summarize your recommendations or any techniques you suggested, in a set of organized notes.
- Analyze
Now it’s time to answer the questions you had in mind all along. Consult your original list of questions you wrote earlier, and try to answer them one by one, based on the information you got from the meetings/interviews.
You may also end up with a few more questions like:
- What have I learned about my audience?
- How do they see and feel about the world?
- What language do they use to describe their problem and what they need?
- What do they want?
- What do they need?
- What’s the transformation they’re looking for?
- How can I package my services to really serve them?
- How can I meet them where they are right now?
- How can I talk about what I can do for them, in a way that they’ll understand?
- Is there a free piece of help I can offer as an opt-in, that they would love?
- What do I still not know?
If the answer to that last question is “a lot,” consider doing another round of research to fill in those gaps!
- Put your Compiled Information into Perspective
If you reach this last step, that means you’re overly satisfied with what you’ve learned so far, as information on-hand. So now it’s time to strategize them into perspective, such as:
- Update your Dream Client Profile to reflect what you learned.
- Create, launch, and sell an offer that directly solves the problem they described.
- Use the language of your audience in all your copywriting, to catch their attention and show that you understand them.
- Deliver the emotions your dream client wants to feel, in your brand voice, content, website experience, visual identity, and everywhere else.
- Incorporate the topics you discussed with your target audience into your content strategy, addressing the key pain points and the unanswered questions they have.
Conclusion
The Internet is more crowded and competitive than ever before. If you want your readers to buy from you, it’s critical to bring them with you until the end. This is why it’s critical to speak your customers’ language effectively.
Written by; Wordsmith
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Author: SMEwebs
Digital Marketing Expert, Web Developer & E-Learning Freelancer.