Early in my career, as a new sales rep, I was invited into critical business and marketing development discussions with my Publisher. I’m not sure why he decided to confide his strategic decisions to me, but I’m fortunate that he did. I learned more than a few fundamentals of business, and that former Publisher is now the President of one of Penton’s most successful divisions.
One topic that he keyed in on, and that I’m frequently reminded of, is the fundamental need to know your customer/audience. On the surface, this sounds quite straightforward. However, to truly know your customer, you have to invest the time, energy and resources into securing the necessary data, demographic and otherwise.
The first, and most crucial, step in learning about your customer is engaging a third-party research firm. That can be a difficult pill to swallow when budgets are tight, but every organization needs to question the assumptions that they are making about their customers, and the only way to do that objectively is to employ a neutral party. The more you know about the changing needs/wants of your customer, the greater the probability of successful product launches and extensions.
Of course, if your budget does not have research dollars allocated at present, and the likelihood of them appearing any time soon is poor, then you need to rely on a media partner for this type of information. As a result, it is vital that you align your company with media partners that continually invest and reinvest in audience or market research. It is, frankly, unacceptable for media companies to reference audience studies from 2008 or earlier and anticipate that advertisers will assume that nothing has changed in their audience, the market or their demographics. It is equally important that your media partners provide a source for the data. It’s not a matter of distrust, but instead, it is a matter of verifying that the audience demographics, buying power and future purchasing plans match up to your objectives.
Now back to the insights that I learned long ago: A media organization’s primary goal should be to help clients grow their business through valuable marketing efforts. This principle has guided my entire career, and it is the foundation of Penton Media.
When you succeed, we succeed.
Sincerely,
Shahla Hebets
