I Am Your Customer

July 31, 2012  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in on August 2012

I€™m not unlike many of your target customers. In fact, I€™d argue I€™m so much like your target that a huge research company could include me as part of its focus group on consumers and furniture shopping/buying.

Here are the stats. I€™m married with a dual-household income, 40-something, own my home, have three kids, own two vehicles, three smartphones, four additional iPods, three computers and an Internet-ready Wii. We have four rescue pets€”one dog and three cats€”and we€™re considering a tortoise for some strange
reason.

In our house, we surf the Internet through WiFi, download movies, watch cable, (U-verse, to be specific) read books, READ multiple newspapers that are delivered to our home daily, watch the local news AND the €œNightly News with Brian Williams€ on NBC. We€™re subscribers to seven magazines€”not including Home Furnishings Business. Two of those are weekly, and the others are monthly.

This is one informed, tuned-in family of five, and we€™re all really good at research. Heck, the youngest of the crew types in questions on Google frequently.

We dine out a couple of times a week, head off to the beach every chance we get and dig being at home together.

Companies trying to speak to me through their marketing and advertising to sell me have a variety of ways to reach me, and it€™s likely they€™ll need
to use a combination of different media to
communicate.

Let€™s face it, we all live in a hurry-up world. There€™s work; there€™s home; and they bundle to create life. Most consumers have days filled with work, family, sports practices, after-school events, volunteer work, social outings.

Most of us no longer live in a world that consists of going to work and then coming home to veg out. It€™s quite different.

We go to work and then we hit the gym or the soccer field or the tennis center.

Sometimes we grab dinner on the run in between shuttling kids to and fro to different activities. Sitting in the recliner or snuggling into the sofa to watch mindless television doesn€™t seem to happen as often as it did €œback then€.

Some weeks, your commercial/ad/message could easily reach me on the car radio.

Other weeks, it would be a challenge to find me listening to the airwaves. Instead, your best bet is the local newspaper, despite the stats that show readership is dwindling and people aren€™t reading. Or, at the first of every month, you€™ll find me curled up on the back porch devouring all of those magazines.

Speak to me then.

Some days, the network television newscast could be the only other way to tempt me into your store front. Primetime television gets trickier. Usually the shows we watch are recorded, and I€™ve become the master with the fast-forward button. Time is valuable. Why sit through 30 minutes of a program when the recorded version allows one to watch the same show in 20-something?

Surefire method? Get my mobile number€”I€™m likely to share unless you€™re an axe murderer€”and e-mail and communicate with me that way. We slashed the home phone a while back, so my iPhone is always with me. (I mentioned the three kids, right?)

The point is, advertising is no longer a one-size-fits-all strategy. Heck, sometimes it€™s not even a one-size-fits-most deal.

Get creative in your messaging and where you deliver that message, and the consumer will likely come.
Enjoy!