Know Your Audience

This may seem obvious but it is a critical and sometimes overlooked step for many businesses. Identifying, and more importantly understanding, your audience can make or break your business. Yet many organizations tend to skip or gloss over it. 

Dig in deep here. Yes, you may be excited to get to market with your product or launch to press but you need to get it right for the people that matter most: your customers. 

Who are they? What problems are you facing and how does your product/service help solve those issues? What are their priorities? What values resonate most to them and why? 
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If you are planning to service different countries or industries, the answers to these questions most likely will be different for each segment. While your overarching points should be universally consistent, you will need to factor those differences into your messaging and value proposition for each market. This will affect everything from your website and your sale collateral to your executive talking points and advertising campaigns. 

Taking the time to learn about your audience early on will make a world of difference in the long run. (It is also important to reevaluate your audience over time, as it could shift as your company and/or markets evolve.) Your customers will appreciate that you truly understand them and want to help them accomplish their business objectives.

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