The 8 Best Ways to Anticipate Customer Needs [INFOGRAPHIC]

Written by: Lucy Benton, Marketing Specialist and Business Consultant

Whether you work in IT, retail, fashion, fitness or just about anything else, you have probably noticed that they all have one thing in common.

In each one, there is a handful of brands that are leaders in their industry. Not only are they leaders because they are able to meet the needs of their target audience with great accuracy, but they also set trends. They are actually able to anticipate their audience’s needs, sometimes even before the customers themselves realize that they need something.

This is especially true in industries such as fashion, or even music. Of course, music should be an artistic expression, but in reality, trends come and go, and record labels are there to discover the next big thing in music and market it to their audience. The same goes for fashion. Leading brands already know what will be trendy next season. However, they don’t just randomly decide that polka dots are going to be huge next year. Yes, they dictate trends, but all of that is the result of extensive audience and market research.

Even if your niche isn’t music or fashion, you can still apply the same principles to establish yourself as a leader. But, in order to anticipate customer needs, you need to do your homework first. It is crucial to discover who your target audience is before you do anything else.

You can create customer personas which will help you focus on those people which are your actual audience. How do you do this? Well, there are many different ways you can collect the necessary data. You can conduct surveys, offer free trials of your product and ask the users for their opinion.

If you can offer a great experience to go along with a quality product or service, you can expect your customers to come back. By keeping your current customers and attracting new ones, you will be on your way to become a leader. Since all of this sounds pretty vague, check out this clever infographic below, created by marketing experts over at Proessaywriting.

The infographic breaks the anticipation process down into eight essential steps which you need to follow in order to meet the needs of your audience, and perhaps even beat your audience to the punch. Keep on reading to find out what you need to do!

About Lucy
Lucy Benton is a marketing specialist and business consultant that helps people turn their dreams into profitable businesses. Now she is writing for marketing and business resources. Lucy also has her own blog Prowritingpartner.com where you can read her latest publications. If you’re interested in working with Lucy, you can find her on Twitter.