When you put a lot of effort into analyzing data and trying to understand the customer, but you don't know what he is willing to spend money on in the future, then you are just a waste of work and effort.

When running a business, "finding and holding on to exclusive customers" is always what every business wants most.

To do this, first of all, you have to know the four aspects that are closely related to customers: market, product, channel and positioning; and among these four aspects, "market" is the direction that must be paid attention to at the beginning.

Why? The reason is very simple. If you don't find a market that supports your company's survival, development and growth, no one will pay you, even if you have the best products, strong channels and clear positioning.

No matter what kind of business, no one is willing to pay you, so you can't survive even if you drink air.

customer category

When looking for a market, I pay attention to three things: the size of the production value, the trend and the appearance of the customer.

(1) The size of the output value

The output value must be large enough to support the survival of the company and have sufficient room for development, but not large enough to make everyone's eyes light up. After all, no one wants a group of wealthy wolves and leopards to grab the market.

This output value can be used to quickly calculate the output value of the market by using the annual turnover of each company in the market and the annual business distribution obtained by calculating with the weighted matrix.

The companies to be calculated here, in addition to the listed companies, can also find the relevant company information in the market and the upstream and downstream of the market through the publicly issued company directory and government gazette.

If it is consumer goods for people's livelihood, you can visit and observe the business conditions of stores in the target area.

(2) Trends

And even if the output value is large enough, if the trend and trend of the market are not what your products can provide, then even if you have worked hard, climbed thousands of miles and thousands of mountains in the mysterious cave, and found the treasure of King Solomon, you It will only be because there is no way to transport the treasure out of the cave, and will accompany the gold and silver treasures to die of old age in the dark cave that no one knows about.

Therefore, the pigs standing on the tuyere will also fly, that's the reason; but whether you want to follow the fly or not depends on how far and how high your customers are willing to let you fly. It was a dream, and when you woke up, you found that you had crashed on a desert island, with only one Wilson by your side.

If you want to understand the trend, there are different information collection methods in different markets. For the information on people's livelihood consumption, in addition to street visits and field observations, you can also go to hypermarkets and supermarkets to observe the arrangement of goods on the shelves, as well as consumers' attitudes. "Shopping cart" content to understand the preferences of local consumers.

If it is aimed at enterprise-level customers, you can collect the information of participating manufacturers in various local exhibitions, and go to the exhibition grounds to observe the distribution of people, the time of stay and the busyness of the booth business, and you can get a rough understanding of the current focus of the market.

(3) Appearance of customers

In order not to leave yourself alone with Wilson, you need to develop a customer map. The so-called customer map is divided into two forms: one is called "sales spiral" or "sales funnel", which is used to describe the development process of customers from far to near; the other is called "customer journey" or "consumption". “Customer Experience Map” is used to describe the process from which customers never hear about your product until they buy, use, and share it.

From the perspective of "sales spiral", from the distance between customers and you, you should pay attention to at least four kinds of customers: (1) Haven't heard of your product; (2) Know your product; (3) Bought your product; (4) shared your product.

Of these four types of customers, we should pay the most attention to the fourth type, that is, the customers who have shared the product; this type of customers will further evolve into "fan customers" and "exclusive customers" after having a good user experience.

"Fan customer" means that your product can inspire the goodwill of customers, and customers are willing to spend money and time to participate in product-related activities.

"Exclusive customer" means that customers only want to buy your products, use your products, and vigorously support and pull others to support your brand and products.

customer appearance

Among the above three items, "customer appearance" dominates the development of trends and directly or indirectly affects the size of the output value.

Therefore, we must understand the different points that customers at different levels pay attention to in the "sales spiral", and after understanding the points of each level, plan the "customer journey" belonging to that level.

When paying attention to customer points, in addition to the "pain points" and "expectations" traditionally talked about, we should pay more attention to the "job" and "desire" behind these two things.

(1) Pain points

People hurt because they are hurt. Customers will be in pain, which means there is a problem. And whether your products and services can help him solve this "pain" or "problem" like "magic medicine", that is the "basic element" for customers to consider purchasing your products.

If you can't even achieve the "basic", no matter how powerful your product is, it will only be fleeting like fireworks. Of course, there are also many products and services, just for the "strategic" goal, and deliberately let It swept across the night sky above customers like a comet.

(2) Expectations

If you don't plan to be a comet, then after solving the pain point, you must be able to meet the customer's "expectation". This expectation is not "solving the problem", but "becoming better than before the problem occurred." ".

Resolving a pain point is like getting injured, applying ointment, and putting on a cloth.

Meeting expectations is like this ointment, in addition to healing wounds, whitens, softens, and even provides long-lasting vitamin care.

Of course, if you want a product to achieve two effects, you must pay attention to a bit of a strange thing, that is, the customer's intuition about the efficacy of the product is usually that one product focuses on one effect. If you emphasize that a product has two effects If there is an effect, then customers usually feel that "the effect will be halved", that is to say, the "effect of treating wounds" is worse than others, and the effect of "whitening, softening, and maintenance" is also worse than others.

If the customer's "pain point" is not so painful that they need the most professional products, then such "dual-effect" products may be more welcome. This is like the shampoo market. In addition to the cleaning effect, there are also All kinds of maintenance combinations, after all, as long as the hair can be washed until the customer feels clean, it does not need the ultimate clean shampoo effect.

(3) Tasks

In the father of disruptive innovation Clayton. In "An Innovator's Answer" by Clayton Christensen, Prof., "Jobs-To-Be-Done" is a force behind "pain points" and "expectations".

Because whether they want to "solve the problem" or "become better than before the problem occurred", these are "Jobs-To-Be-Done" for the customer.

Regardless of Professor Kristenson's detailed explanation in "An Innovator's Answer", in the simplest way, "Jobs" can be divided into four categories: (1) personal/emotional tasks; (2) social (3) functional tasks; (4) auxiliary tasks.

(1) Personal/emotional tasks represent: products that address and satisfy customer emotional needs; like colorful balloons in an amusement park.

(2) Social tasks represent: can solve and satisfy the contribution that customers want to provide to others when they interact with others; such as YouTube.

(3) Functional tasks represent: can solve and satisfy customers to achieve a certain goal; such as food.

(4) Auxiliary tasks represent: can solve and satisfy the tasks that customers want to complete in a specific situation; such as carnival masks.

To understand and clarify what kind of job customers are willing to pay for, you can ask the following questions:

1. What do customers think they need?
2. What do customers intuitively think?
3. What do customers desperately want?
4. How are customers doing this now?
5. Why can't customers do this task?
6. How do customers value this task?
7. Under what circumstances would a customer be willing to pay more to accomplish this task?

The purpose of the above questions is to go from the customer's "why" to "why not" and "how to get over the not", so as to understand in the "customer journey", the "what" channels and channels customers will now find "what" product, and in the “what” context, “how much” the customer is willing to spend on the product or service.

(4) desire

Behind all kinds of "tasks", it is the real "desire" of customers that drives the progress of the "tasks". Without this "desire", no matter how painful the wound is and how much expectation there is in the heart, these tasks will not be possible. Appear.

It’s like if you are injured, but the injury does not affect your daily life, you have no “desire” to actively heal it, and you will not want to spend money to treat it.

But if you are injured, but this injury will affect your daily life, then according to the degree of impact, you will think about how much money you should spend on which products to treat it, and whether this product can bring benefits other than treatment, It depends on your needs and situation.

For example, if you have a scratch, but at first you feel that a small injury is innocuous, so you leave it alone, but after a few days, the wound starts to get serious, but you don't want to see a doctor, so you go to buy ointment, cotton And gauze, wiped the medicine, wrapped it in gauze, and thought, "Well, I hope the wound will heal."

The next day, you found that the wound did start to heal a lot, but at this time, the gauze was not very beautiful, so is there anything that can be improved? You asked about it in the pharmacy, and found that there are some colorful and shaped wound patches, which can be wrapped in gauze, breathable and colorful. Although it is more expensive, it is more beautiful than traditional gauze, so, In addition to the gauze, you bought these patches.

This series of behaviors is the "task" in the customer's mind from "solving problems" to "meeting expectations", and the driving force behind this "task" is the goal that customers "desire" at different stages.

In fact, just like when solving a problem, you need to find the "problem behind the problem"; to find out the customer's desire, you must find the "demand behind the demand".

Market appearance

Therefore, combining the three things of "customer category" and the four aspects of "customer description", we can clearly go from big to small, find the right market, grasp the current trend and understand how customers are willing to spend money, which is The process from "finding the right market" to building a "customer journey".

When the "customer journey" is established, it is not that you can happily open the cash register to collect money, but you must pay attention to the things that must be done in every link of the "customer journey".

Think about how to manufacture and maintain products, participate in or establish channels, and establish and market positioning from a business perspective.

Think about how to get and absorb product information, buy and use products, share and recommend products from the customer's point of view, and further become the iron powder of the product, and even the exclusive customer of the company.

When you have a group of "exclusive customers" enough to support the survival of the company, the company can grow and move towards the next stage of development goals.