A few weeks ago, in part 1, I shared the idea that one of the best ways to generate more – and better – leads was to uncover your audience’s (unspoken) desired outcomes by talking to them.
Which is all fine and good, you might say, but where do you start? Who should you talk to? And what types of questions should you ask? The main thing to keep in mind here is that you’re looking for who the ideal or best customers are and why they buy what they buy.
In my own research, I found tons of blog posts full of interview questions, but what I realised I was looking for was a process. Here’s what I found:
- Start “high-level” – talk to your (or your client’s) commercial team and anyone in a client-facing role. As you talk to them, you want to start with 4 basic questions:
- Who are the customers that pay the most?
- Who are the customers that stay with you/them the longest?
- Who are the customers you/they love working with?
- Who are the customers that have a high need for your/their product or service?
As you work your way through these questions, the list will gradually whittle itself down to your (or your client’s) best customers, and these are the customers you want to start with. If you can’t talk to them directly, get as much as you can out of the commercial team.
- When you talk to them, be curious – this second step is all about uncovering and understanding the customers’ reasons for choosing you, your service, and/or your product, with questions like:
- What challenge did they have prior to buying?
- What alternatives did they consider?
- What part of the product or service do they get the most value from?
And so on… HubSpot has a great post and infographic with 100 sales-type questions to get to the core of your audience’s needs. Remember that at this point, it’s all about listening and digging deeper – listen for stories, ask for examples. A great follow on question is: “Tell me more about that”. You’ll uncover the gems later, when you go back through and analyse the interview.
And the great thing here is that you’re getting your clues from the proverbial horse’s mouth.
So, do you see how this already helps focus on giving the customer what they’re looking for?
Once you start identifying their underlying desires and the value that you deliver, it’ll be that much easier to position your product, service, content, etc.
And this is the path to generating more and better leads…
Of course, the next most obvious question is how to use everything you have learned to create the right content and to position yourself correctly, but I’m going to keep that for part 3.
Until then, I’d love to know what types of questions you use in your audience interviews.
And Happy Holidays to you and yours.