One piece of advice that we always pass along to clients and readers is to “know your customers better than anyone else.” But, beyond making a few vague judgments, how can you really learn about them?

Here are four of our favorite ways:

1. By studying web analytics. Granted, this won’t tell you a lot about your customers directly, but it will give you a sense of how they interact with your site – which can tell you a great deal about what they are actually looking for.

2. Through trade show visits and marketing. Even in the digital age, nothing beats face-to-face communication when you’re trying to learn about buyers.

3. With online and offline surveys. Shorter surveys work best, since more of your customers are likely to fill them out, but any direct feedback you can get from customers is a good starting point.

4. By engaging them on social media. Not only will customers tell you about themselves (and what they want) on social media, but the more friends and fans you have, the more you can learn about key demographics within your customer base.

The more you know your customers, the easier it is to create messages and marketing pieces that appeal directly to them. So, give these four tactics a try, and find out what buyers really want from you.

Call Marcy Design, a Columbus Ohio website design company to help with your web, marketing and advertising campaigns.