You know your business. But do you know why customers choose your brand?
To shape an effective business and brand strategy, we need to know the who, when and why behind customers choosing your brand, rather than picking them out of an assumed line-up.
Look, you can 100% know your business inside out and still misunderstand why people choose your brand. You might put it down to your quality, pricing or years of experience. While a customer simply remembers seeing you somewhere and felt comfortable giving you a go. Understanding that decision helps you shape your brand around the needs and wants of the customers you’ve identified…and maybe even the ones you hadn’t. It also helps you recognise the situations where people need what you offer, so your brand can be thought of and available at those moments. Because I cannot tell you how many times I’ve chosen a Corona cerveza/beer when I’m at a bar or bottle shop (liquor store) when I’m near the beach, all because of the way Corona has been positioned for certain buying and consumption situations.
To demonstrate this, I’m bringing back two of the fictional brands I’ve developed for previous articles. The first is Popits, which is a brand of flavoured popcorn balls for little ‘poppets’ (kids) and active adults on the go. The second is Chapter Realty, an independent real estate agency in Sydney, Australia. Imagine Popits is stocked in the 3 big Australian supermarkets of Coles, Woolworths and Aldi, in addition to its own ecommerce store. While Chapter Realty is competing locally with national franchise agencies from Century 21, Ray White and LJ Hooker. Different businesses and buying decisions, but both can use these five steps to develop a better brand strategy by knowing their customer better.
1. Get your assumptions down before asking anyone
Most strategies start AND stop here. We assume who the customer is, either because we’re just starting out and need an ideal customer we think will buy, or we don’t bother to go any further than an assumption. Even so, it’s a starting point. So start by writing down why you believe customers choose your brand, who those customers are and what’s happening in their lives when they need you, as well as where they might be at the time of making that decision geographically. Get your team involved too, particularly the people speaking with customers every day. This gives you something to compare with what you hear later, before you conveniently convince yourself you knew the answers all along. And be specific. “We offer great service” isn’t giving you much to work with when every business is using that as table stakes.
Popits might assume parents buy it because of its ingredients and on-the-go ease, while the kids are drawn to the colourful packaging, popcorn ball shape and the catchy advertising they’ve seen from the brand.
Chapter Realty might believe vendors (sellers) choose it for its local knowledge and personal attention over the familiarity of a national franchise. Both are reasonable starting points. But at this stage, they’re assumptions. Write down what you’re unsure about as well, including the needs you believe your brand addresses, because that’s gonna help identify what you actually need to learn.
2. Speak to people before and after they choose
Customer research for small business can start with a manageable mix of conversations. Include people who haven’t bought yet, recent customers, repeat customers and those who considered you but chose someone else. Before buying, explore their impressions of your industry, what they need from businesses like yours and what they currently think of your brand. Afterwards, uncover what made them choose you and how the experience compared. Speak with different people at each stage, but return to some of the same people to understand how their expectations and impressions changed, if at all.
For Popits, that could mean speaking with parents considering a snack for weekend sport, then following up after their household has tried it. Include adults buying it for themselves too. For Chapter Realty, speak with homeowners before they appoint an agent, after they’ve chosen one, and after the sale if possible. Choosing an agent and being pleased with the eventual sale result tell you different things. And don’t only ask your happiest customers. The people who went elsewhere can reveal needs you haven’t adequately addressed.
You might also be thinking, “Where do I find these people?” or “People aren’t willing to give us this feedback”. To find people to speak with, start with recent enquiries, past customers, your email list or social audience. You can also invite feedback after a purchase, arrange a quick chat after a property appraisal, or work with a local sports club or community group to reach people who haven’t bought from you. A small thank-you, like a sample or voucher, can help, but making it easy matters too. Ask for five minutes, explain what you’re trying to improve and give them the choice of a quick call or short survey. Sometimes people will be more comfortable being honest through an anonymous form or speaking with someone outside your business. You’re not gonna hear from everyone, and any incentive should thank them for their time, regardless of what they say.
The bigger end of business does it with paid focus groups to analyse purchasing intentions as well as things like impressions of advertising, website navigation usability, and even packaging. Which is not to say you can’t do this too, but if you’re a smaller business, you can start small with your local community and existing customers to find these insights.
3. Get them talking about the actual decision
When you’re seeking this feedback from a customer (or a customer who decided not to buy), you’ve got to give people room to describe what happened in their own words. Ask them to walk you through when the need arose, where they were, what they wanted to achieve, which alternatives they considered, and what nearly stopped them. Avoid suggesting your preferred answer. Getting someone to agree that your packaging looks premium or your team seems trustworthy doesn’t explain much about their decision. Give them a chance to bloody explain it or you’re gonna be left with confirmation bias and you may as well have stayed at step 1.
With Popits, a parent might describe needing something easy to pack between school pickup and swimming lessons. An adult might have wanted a snack for the drive to or from a social tennis game. For Chapter Realty, a growing family might need to sell before buying somewhere bigger, while a downsizer wants help managing a move after decades in one home, while both are looking for an agent that understands these situations, especially if they have experienced them themselves. Those situations reveal more than demographic descriptions like “parents aged 30–45” or “Sydney homeowners”. They help you understand the needs, priorities and circumstances your brand strategy should account for and how well you align with those types of customers. Because the reality is that you’re not going to be for everyone and you might align with some segments of the market more than others…or even multiple but for different reasons and times of need. Without that insight though, you’re left without much of a solid direction to aim at for your strategy.
4. Compare what people say with what they actually do
What people say versus what they actually do can be miles apart. For example, many customers consider themselves altruistic and might follow the belief of “buying local to help the community” but end up buying from multi-national companies. So look for patterns in the conversations, then cross reference them with actual buying behaviour data where your industry and access allow it. This combines qualitative research, meaning the explanations and experiences of customers from their own mouths, with quantitative research, being the numbers showing the real outcome of when and how often something happens. A few interviews can uncover useful possibilities, but they don’t tell you how common those views are across your market and if they really are what ends up converting a sale. Equally, a sales report can show a change without explaining what caused it. The caveat always here is it’s often a mix of qualitative and quantitative reasons that people chose to buy, but for the times where there are discrepancies or outlier instances, it’s best if you can to have as much insight from both sides of this customer research coin.
Popits could compare feedback about flavours, price and convenience with available retailer sales reports, alongside its own ecommerce basket sizes and repeat orders. People might praise one flavour while another sells more, but you might be left with a choice if one product that sells less has a better margin. Additionally, check promotions, availability and distribution before deciding preference explains the difference because if the product isn’t where and when a customer needs it, coming to mind is only one half of the equation if it’s not available.
Chapter Realty could compare customers’ needs and stated reasons for choosing an agent with appraisal appointments and signed listings. If downsizers value its approach and consistently become clients, that could support further investigation over time of that target market if it emerges as a highly viable market. Use the numbers to test your interpretation of what customers are saying before shaping the strategy around a handful of enthusiastic comments.
5. Use the findings to shape who you target and when you show up
This is where customer research becomes particularly useful for brand strategy. Comparing what you’ve discovered with your assumptions, then deciding which customer needs your business is best placed to serve is the best starting point you can have, rather than going in blind.
Chapter Realty might find that the older demographic of downsizing sellers particularly value more in-person, patient guidance, clear communication and help coordinating their next move. If the opportunity is viable, that could inform the brand’s targeting, positioning, messaging and service experience. Its “Your Chapter” concept then has a specific customer need behind it, reflected in everything from its appraisal presentation done while sat next to them on their couch, rather than sent in a PDF via email, to the way agents provide additional assistance to co-ordinate their move from their home and even the purchase of their new downsized residence by offering a buyer’s agent service (or partnership referral with a separate buyer’s agent business).
For a product with wider market appeal like Popits, the findings could reveal several buying situations worth building associations with. These are called category entry points: the needs, occasions and circumstances that bring a product or service category to mind and inform when and where the product is available. After-school hunger for every day of the week could be one of these instances where Popits can use this insights to shape its packaging design with multi-packs for higher purchase frequency, that combines with advertising, content and distribution, connecting the brand with this kind of moment and making it easy to buy and have on hand where those needs occur. Whereas a single-serve for the front counter of a gym or sports club might serve different occasions.
Both approaches can work together. Chapter Realty still needs to be remembered when someone starts considering downsizing, and Popits still needs to understand who buys and eats its snacks. The aim is to give your brand a clear role in people’s lives, with the recognition and availability to be chosen when needed. That’s a much more useful direction for your branding and marketing than simply deciding it’s time for a different logo.
The thing is that this might feel overkill, or who knows, you might feel it’s a bit intrusive, especially the way many brands track us with online tools like Meta (Facebook/Instagram) to the point we think they're listening to our converstions. It might even be a little scary talking to customers, either because it can reveal harsh truths, or because your inverted nature gets the better of you to want to reach out to people (I’ve got my hand up here, don’t worry). But knowing why customers choose you gives you something practical to build a strategy around. It helps define whose needs you can serve, what your brand should communicate and the times and places it needs to be present. It’s better than picking them from an assumed line-up and gives you something to fall back on, especially if you identify multiple customer segments that you could target, but only have the capacity to target one or some now, and the rest later. Maybe even allowing you to future-proof your brand for later expansion in mind, or niche down into a more lucrative offering like luxury real estate.
It doesn’t matter if your brand is genuinely there to help your customers rather than track them, or you simply want to ensure your business can remain profitable by attracting viable customers. This level of thought before you execute a new product or service, a new packaging design, an event, or advertising, will give you the confidence and direction in your decision making that identifies a need and a time/place you can be there for them, so that both you and your customers can mutually succeed. It’s all part of branding, marketing and business. And there’s nothing worse than buying from a brand that never really thoughtfully considered you as its customer, just the same as there’s nothing worse than serving a customer that is totally misaligned with your brand creating a bad experience for everyone. So if you need help turning those insights into brand strategy, naming, messaging and brand identity (yes, it includes a logo) for your growing brand, say g’day. Let’s give your brand a shot at better branding for better business success.
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