7 Proven Ways To Win Customers and Gain Market Share

Every marketer believes they know their customer.

But many work with distorted versions of reality. They combine some data with assumptions. And start blurring the lines between the two.

They forget the difference between who their customers really are and who they think they might be.

Suppositions become what marketers believe is reality.

Growth stalls. They’re unsure why.

And you can almost always trace it back to a misunderstanding about the customer.

The High Cost of Erroneous Insights

In 2001, Tim Ferriss launched a supplement company, BrainQUICKEN.

The supplements boosted mental performance.

And he thought his target customers were students and overworked executives.

But sales struggled.

Until Tim Ferriss discovered that NCAA athletes were buying BrainQUICKEN to improve their sports performance—not for studying.

By pivoting to focus on athletic performance, Ferriss found his real audience, changed the name to BodyQUICK, grew the business, and eventually sold it to a private equity firm.

This is a common trap.

Even successful brands often miss what their customers value because they work with assumptions instead of realities.

These assumptions lead to wasted ad spend, stalled growth, and messages that don't stick.

But I Already Know My Customers… Right?

Once, I was working on a project for a company doing about $100M at the time.

They were trying out a lot of different things but struggled to grow revenue.

I ran a survey with a high level of statistical confidence. But they didn’t believe the results.

“There’s no way our customers think that way.”

I reran the survey. It cost another $25,000.

Guess what?

Same results.

They had fallen into a common trap: believing their customers were the customers they wanted.

It happens all the time when companies create Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs).

Companies fall in love with some idea of their customer. And they end up ignoring the customers who are spending money with them.

As with the $100M client, an ICP can get you far. It gives you some direction.

And any consistent direction will often be better than no direction.

It’s like running with a pair of frayed shoes: Frayed shoes are better than nothing. But you’ll make out what you can achieve in them.

Growth eventually stalls when you don’t have a complete picture of your real customer.

And it resumes when you do.

7 Proven Ways to Unlock Customer Insights

Aligning what you think about the customers with who the customers really are is critical for continued growth.

Here are 7 tips to help you stay focused on your customers so you can win market share.

1. Ask Open-Ended Questions

When you talk to customers, it’s tempting to try to confirm what you believe.

The problem is that it’s easy to ask leading questions, do just that, and end up with a narrow understanding of your customers’ realities.

Instead, ask open-ended questions to explore how they think about you and your category.

2. Analyze Behavior, Not Just Words

Actions speak louder than surveys.

Surveys are useful for understanding how customers wish to be perceived. But they don’t always reveal how customers behave.

I remember hearing a story about someone interviewing a customer in their house. The customer was baking something that smelled delicious. Then, their son came in and exclaimed, “Mom, you cooked?!”

The mother wanted the researcher to perceive her as someone who always cooked for her family. But she was often too busy to make sure she had time to cook.

There is a lot of opportunity in helping customers go from how they behave to how they want to behave.

3. Understand Their Why

Go beyond what customers say and surface behaviors.

Figure out their deeper motivations.

It can lead to figuring out adjacent problems you can solve for the same customers.

This is one of the more complex strategies to implement. It requires an understanding of psychology, business, and your products.

It’s one of the areas a consultant can often be better than trying to do it in-house.

They can bring their knowledge of customer behavior and business to your knowledge of your specific business.

4. Segment for Specific Problems

All segmentation is artificial by nature.

They’re representations of reality that help you execute at scale.

Businesses make mistakes when they try to apply the same segmentation to every problem.

But you have to match the segmentation to the problem.

When I consulted Kohl’s during and after the Great Recession, we primarily used three different segmentations—attitudinal, life-stage, and geographical—to help us overtake our nearest competitors, win market share, and add billions to the bottom line.

5. Talk To Passionate Fans

In 1952, Allan Wilson published the first Harvard Business Review article on qualitative research.

In it, he asks, “If you wanted to understand someone, would you ask 100 acquaintances or their best friends?”

Yet many businesses base their information on surveying 100s of customers that are more like acquaintances.

When you interview passionate customers, they often know more about the problems the business solves than the executives do.

It matters more in their lives.

And if you get more customers to see the business the same way they do, it’s a sure way to win.

6. Test, Test, Test

When you think you’re sure of something, test it on a smaller scale before launching it on a larger scale.

Only after testing it can you know whether or not it will work.

Things that seem like a sure bet may miss.

The reality of the market should be the only determinant. Not your opinion.

It’s great to keep in mind what Nobel-prize winner Richard Feynman said:

“When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when is is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is in some doubt.”

7. Plan Scenarios

Things change fast.

Customers don’t respond to your business in a vacuum. They respond to you in relation to the macroenvironment and category.

Look for trends.

Figure out how they’ll affect your customers.

Create scenarios with preliminary responses.

That way, you’re prepared to act when change happens. And you’ll move to action while your competitors who didn’t plan are still trying to figure out what to do.

Onward

When you uncover deep customer insights, creating products and messaging that resonate with customers and win market share is much easier.

Keep these 7 tips in mind to win the hearts, minds, and wallets of your customers:

1. Ask open-ended questions

2. Analyze behavior, not just words

3. Understand their why

4. Segment for specific problems

5. Talk to passionate fans

6. Test, test, test

7. Plan scenarios

Using these tips will ensure that you focus on your real customers instead of who you imagine them to be.

And, of course, drive growth.

Need help implementing these strategies for your brand? Just reply to this email. Whether it’s rethinking your questions or translating insights into action, I can help you turn your brand into the preferred choice for high-value customers and win market share.