Marketing: What You Think They’ll Think

Posted by Shakirah Dawud in Marketing & Business

The above thought had been in my head for months before Ithe following thought arrived in my inbox from social media queen Liz Strauss’s weekly email list:

I had been thinking about who I thought they were and who they thought we were. That thinking might have been translated to “What will our customers think of that?”

A better thought might have been “What do I think of that?”

Now when I make decisions, I make sure to consult myself in that mix.

I’ll never really know what my customers think.
I’ll never really know what my neighbors, friends, enemies, or anyone else thinks, as matter of fact.

That will always be a guess.

But I can always know what I think of what I’m offering and whether I think it’s up to the standards I want to represent.

“That will always be a guess.”

It’s true, in the end. Numbers, polls, studies, observation and networking can only tell you so much about what’s going on in your customer’s head. Gathering as much information as you can will give you an advantage over most of your competitors, but there’s still always a chance you’ll miss something critical.

Don’t let this fact paralyze you.

If you approach marketing with knowledge, you may not hit the bulls-eye, strike-it-rich pot o’ gold, but you will land close enough that you’ll be able to gather even more information that will help you perfect your aim.

But if you make decisions based solely on data without keeping the soul of your business’s identity in sight, you can fail spectacularly to connect yet again.

You’ll never know, though, until you act.

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