Your customers are one of your most valuable assets in business. They not only provide the necessary income to help your business survive, but they also provide valuable insight into your products and services, and the best way to market them.

If you want to find out how to be more strategic in your marketing, spend your budget more wisely and attract more of the customers you want to work with, the answer lies in your existing customers. Here are four marketing lessons your customers can teach you.

1. They can tell you what customers to target

One of the best lessons your customers can teach you is who you do and don’t want to work with. Make a list of your most challenging customers. What made them challenging? Why did you not like working with them? Do they have any characteristics in common that may help you qualify potential customers better?

Now make a list of your top customers. What did you love most about working with them? What made them a great customer? Do you see any commonalities or patterns that will help you find and identify your top customers easily?

2. They can tell you where to find more customers

Once you have identified your top customers, look at where you found them or how they found you. Are there any commonalities or patterns here?

Did a particular advertisement, message, referral source, marketing activity, incentive, product or service, attract your top customers to you? Is there a particular social media platform, publication, website or influencer they were influenced by?

If you can, also compare how your most challenging customers found you. This will allow you to qualify your sales and marketing efforts and ensure you attract more of your top customers into your business.

3. They can tell you what customers will love most about you

Often in our marketing we will pick out the features, benefits and solutions that we think will appeal most to our customers.

While we can often be right, a customer can give you a more practical example or application that you or a potential customer may not have thought of. They can also find additional benefits or prioritise benefits differently to how you would have imagined.

4. They can get new customers to trust you

Your current customers play a major part in your marketing and sales process; they minimise the risk of your new customers’ purchase decision. While you can address the frustrations of potential customers, offer solutions and provide an incentive, your existing customers provide the ‘proof’ that what you say or do works.

Without their stories, testimonials, case studies or referrals your sales are hinged on how much trust and rapport you or your sales people can build, or how competitive your pricing is.

What marketing lessons have your customers taught you?