How to Find the Emotional Triggers that Get Your Customers to Say YES YES YES

I was just cyber-visiting a new blog, Infuse – The Blog for Influencer Marketing where Duncan Brown makes a terrific case (and provides a neat tool) for measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing.  Personally, I think that if you’re not measuring your marketing these days – you are hopelessly doomed to just being lost in your own illusions about what your customers really want and what will make them choose you.

Since, it seems that Emotional Triggers are tripping this readership’s triggers, I thought I’d share a tool I like to use to get my customers to tell me what’s important to them.

I can only wish I created this, but I didn’t.  It’s a standard survey measurement that’s been around forever.  My sincere hope is that my sharing it with you will help you put your money where your customers will be most likely to say "YES" to your offer.

What’s important to your customer when they are buying what you’re selling?

Great question.  You can do what a lot of companies do – and that’s sit around the table guessing and pontificating – or you can just do what I like to do and ask them.

But be careful what you ask for.  Asking your customers if "Price" is important is the equivalent of asking your customer if "having a roof on their house" is important.

A better question would be "How important is ‘having a roof that lasts for 30 years?’" 

So, just like in computers – garbage in, garbage out.  Be careful what you ask.

How are we doing?

Now we want to ask our customers how well we are delivering on what’s most important to them?  Great go down that list.

While you’re at it, you can ask them how well some of their alternative sources are doing – that’s a great source of benchmarking info.

Plot the chart

Plot Importance on the "y" axis and Performance on the "X" – and there you have it.

I’ve got to dash – so I’ll continue this later.  But really think about how this process will help you focus your money, resources and attention – not to mention differentiation!