How to best meet the needs of your customers through marketing

Most businesses know the importance of meeting the needs of their customers - without the customer, there is no business. You can meet and exceed the needs and expectations of your customers through successful marketing.

Know your customers
The first thing you need to do in order to meet the needs of your customers through marketing is to actually know your customers and their needs. There are several ways you can go about doing this, including:

- Be observant. You will know when they are pleased with a certain product and service. When this is the case, think of other services or products you can offer them that are similar and that you think they could benefit from. On the flip side, it's important to respond appropriately when they are dissatisfied. Don't continually market products to them that they don't like or can't use.
- Get feedback. One way you can meet the needs of your customers through marketing is by getting feedback on your efforts. This could include a number of things, such as phone surveys, questionnaires, and surveys. Questions should include such things as where they heard about the website or company, if they were satisfied with the services, and so forth. This way, you can know what they need.

Listen to feedback
Once you have feedback from your customers, you can then go about making sure you can meet their needs. For example, let's say your customers have expressed interest in a tech support hotline. Your marketing efforts will have helped you determine what they needed and were interested in. From there, you can establish the service or product and then market it to other groups and customers. In addition, make sure you're aware of problem areas. If your customer service is being rated as "fair" or "satisfactory" considering stepping it up a notch.

Market relationships
It's more profitable for companies to retain current customers then to market to new ones. That why a large portion of your marketing campaign should be focused on making sure your current customers are satisfied with your services.

Target your efforts
Your marketing efforts will go to waste if you don't target the specific type of customers you would like. Magazine ads and billboards are great, but make sure they're going to the right audience. If your customers are doctors and you sell medical supplies, advertise in medical publications or put flyers or ads around medical office suites. In addition, you may also want to consider using a list broker. A list broker will give you the names and contact information of consumers and businesses narrowed down to your specific search criteria.

Be available.
You can meet the needs of your customers and market to them at the same time by being available to them to take suggestions or solve problems through such means as customer support hotlines or tech help, like live chat or other means. This way, you can market other products or services to customers while still serving to maintain customer loyalty.

While marketing is concerned with selling and promoting products and services, you can still meet the needs of your customers while marketing your products to them. Fostering good relationships with you current customers by getting to know their needs will keep your company in the front of their minds.