Answers to Your Most Burning Customer Questions

Did you know that wonder is a form of fear? Basically, it’s a form of fear born out of our innate need to know something that we know we don’t know, and a drive to remedy that.

Sometimes though, as individuals or groups, we get stuck in the trap of avoidance coping because the wonder fear strikes when we’re not prepared to admit, we don’t know. In these cases the drive to know can go in the wrong direction.

Should I already know this? Do others around me expect me to know this? Why don’t we know this? How could we have known this? Who should have known this?

The search for answers may easily go internal instead of external because there is a taint of unspoken blaming involved as a protective measure, and of course the answers aren’t to be found there.

It’s not as though this is done with malicious intent, it’s more a psychological go-to. We don’t know, so let’s point a finger, avoid the questions altogether, or imagine we do know answers. Or another option might be let’s just continue doing what we’re doing and expect a different result at some point. These are ways we avoid the obvious and simple solution: Asking for the answers.

It’s really true that the truth will set you free. There’s nothing like knowing you know. It lifts a burden and allows things to fit, even in cases where the answers were not what we hoped for or expected.

For marketing strategists, the issue of not knowing has probably rarely been met with intentional avoidance behaviors. We always want to know. We will ask any question to get the answer in order to help a client successfully send the right message to customers.

In the past, however, it wasn’t always easy to hit the target. The truth is, there were no easy ways to know why customers care and buy, or let's at least say there were not sophisticated ways readily available to small or midsize businesses to carry out comprehensive market research in a timely and affordable way.

The pain in this was the consequences of educated guessing. The answers might have eventually come, but with a high cost.

Consider. From a predictive behavior perspective, you’ve got to ask customers very specific questions that are crafted to appeal to the emotive part of the brain. Not Yes/No questions or ratings from 1 through 5, but custom questions that will yield custom answers that are then broken down into qualitative and quantitative data.

The process reveals the concepts and messages that are most emotionally resonant to clients, customers, donors and members. Combined with the specific media channels that matter most to your targets, the object is to then generate the most mathematically effective solutions to your goals and lay out a plan that capitalizes on the findings of the data.

Take time today with your team to ask: