While defining your corporate identity is the first step to developing a sound business strategy, understanding your customers’ identity is the first step to communicating effectively with them.
You must know who you’re talking to before you can know how to talk to them. However, effective communication goes beyond changing your words for the target audience. To make the greatest impact, you must get insight into how the audience views itself, and tailor your message to affirm this self image. You must know and speak to the Customer Identity.
As a University student, I worked in sales. Successful telemarketers and door-to-door salespeople will tell you that the first few minutes of interaction with potential buyers are about finding out who they are on the inside. The marketer uses the rest of his pitch to highlight the aspects of the product that tie it to the buyer’s positive image of herself. Most “natural” salespeople do this instinctively, but these are skills that can be learned and applied to written communications with customers.
Persuasive communication, whether it be a commercial advertisement or a political speech, must show the audience that we know who they think they are. It must show them we agree with their assessment of themselves. Finally, it must convince them on both a rational and emotional level that the product or service is a natural part of that Customer Identity.
After figuring out who your customer is, how the customer sees you, and what the customer wants, ask yourself “how does the customer see herself? How does she want to see herself? How can my product help her keep/get that identity?” Once you can answer those questions clearly, you will be able to write copy which resonates with the customer. Always remember that the customer sees both herself and your organization as brands. The key to effective marketing is to present a narrative to her that reflects her definition of both brands, while revealing to her how seamlessly they fit together.