Customer Development: This Can Make or Break Your SEO

As a marketer, it is your responsibility to always make your customers on the utmost part of your digital marketing strategy. For this reason, here’s an article on how Customer Development can Make or Break Your SEO!

Customer Development

Marketers nowadays are obsessed with search engine optimization (SEO) and other digital marketing strategies to sell more products and gain more profit. However, by achieving this ambition, they forget the main key to their success… their customers.
Customers are what make businesses running. Without these people, your business would surely fail. This is why, it is necessary that in everything you do, your customers should always be in the heart of your business.
Customers are important to your business. These people can become the loyal defender of your brand and within a second, they can also become your business’ worst nightmare. For this reason, you should always keep your customers satisfied as it is a factor in helping your brand stand out against the competition and it will lead to more success in your business. 
Because of this, customer development should be your priority and not just digital marketing strategies. 
Neil Patel said in an episode of Marketing School that customer development is all about talking to your customers. You should figure out what they want, they hate, and what they like about your product or service. Then, get this information through different ways and tools. 
Do keep in mind that the data you need includes both qualitative and quantitative information. You can directly get quantitative data through analytics tools on social media platforms or with Google Analytics. However, with qualitative data, you need to get it from doing customer development. You see with Google Analytics, you can see if every visitors bounce off of your website but you really don’t know the reason behind it. This is why, you really need to ask these people through customer development. 
You should also note that in this matter, it is important to talk to different people who have been in contact with your business or your industry. Communicate with those people who bought your competition’s product and services aside from yours, those who have canceled or returned your products, and those who are potential customers but didn’t end up buying.
Basically, what you should do is determine your customer’s problem and solve it. By doing this qualitative survey, you will be shocked by the amount of information that you can gather. If an information or a problem kept repeating from one person to the other, then it is a signal that you should make adjustments regarding it.
For example, if the main problem of your customers is that you don’t allow free shipping, you might want to reconsider it. Make adjustments in the base price of your product and add the average total shipping in the US if most of your customers reside there. Then, change your product into free shipping. You will not lose your money because you did your math and you made sure that whatever changes you did, your customers will really be the one who will make the most out of it.
Thus, you should really know your customer’s opinion on your product and services through interviews, conversations, surveys and other ways of getting this information in order to help improve what you offer to your customers.

Tips for an Excellent Customer Development

Customer development is an essential aspect that you should do to better serve your customers. With this in mind, here are the top tips to increase your brand’s customer satisfaction:

1. Talk to Your Customers

Interaction is a key aspect on customer satisfaction and you should not neglect this in your business process. 
Before planning the changes in your customer service, you should talk to your customers first. Ask what they like, hate, and what they think should be changed in your product and services. You won’t know these insights from your customer if you haven’t asked them, this is why it is important to always seek for their feedback.
In every change in your process and your product and services, you should talk to your customers as they are the key identifier if that change will be a success or not. 

2. Seek for Feedback

Finding feedback from customers are one major problem of entrepreneurs. Some give up on doing this and just continue their product launching without even asking what might go wrong. 
You see, it is important to find prospects for interview and you can do this through online or offline methods.
When you choose online, you can always ask your customers on your website or different social media platforms to answer a survey, poll, or schedule an online chat, call, or video interview with you. You can also provide them something in exchange for their feedback so that they will surely respond to your request. 
However, if you choose an offline method, you can always visit conferences and seminars and distribute feedback or survey forms or arrange a small session to some attendees. 
Whether you choose offline or online methods, you should always ask the essential questions, get raw details and let your interviewees express their opinions freely. Lastly, always ask for contacts and referrals because you don’t know, there might be other people who are willing to give you the feedback that you need. 

3. Track Competitor

The last people who will give you feedback are your competitors. Although, they won’t give you first-hand information about their brand, you will surely get this information from other customers who have invested in their business and from online reviews. 
List the positive and negative reviews about your competitor and use this in your customer development. Check what aspect that you should not follow and what you should. This is really important as you need to know everything about your industry. 
By tracking your competitor, you are not just researching your industry, you are also using this in creating better products and services for your customers. 

4. Test before you Publish

Before showing your products and services to the public, you should be totally confident with it first. This is the reason that you should test it before you show it to everyone. 
One thing that you should do before making a product or service open to the public is by testing it first. You can ask your loyal customers or employees to test it. Then, ask them about their feedback. If there are needed changes, change it. If there isn’t, then you are good to go. 
Do keep in mind that in making a new product and services, you need to test your concepts first so that when an issue turn up, it’ll be a lot easier for you to fix it.

5. Always be Available

Lastly, in making sure that you are giving your customers the best services, you should always be available. 
When you make a lot of promises, it hinders you in solving it. However, you should not fear that you cannot solve your customer’s queries. By asking them to give their feedback, you are already signalling them that you are open and available for changes. So, be open with it and tell them the truth. 
Moreover, to keep your customer satisfaction moving, you should also keep your availability sign on. This means that when a query is sent, you should always acknowledge it. Thus, you are more open with your customers and have better communication with them. 

A digital marketing company for you!

So, these are the things to keep in mind. Gone are the days that you should only focus on SEO or on other digital marketing strategies. Instead, use these strategies in making your campaign more customer-worthy. Make your customers the priority of your products and services. With this, customer development will surely make or break your SEO.
However, if you find it hard to accomplish your brand’s digital presence and customer development, ESTRAT Digital Marketing Agency will help you solve this problem!
ESTRAT is one of the leading digital and social media marketing agency in the Philippines. The company will your business grow through relevant, up-to-date and effective Internet marketing strategies. This will ensure you that the company will provide you a professional service that is perfect for your business!
So, for your digital marketing problems, hire ESTRAT now!