In the first two parts of the personal branding series (How to build a personal brand through storytelling and USP: Position yourself in the competitive consulting market and set yourself apart from the competition), Oliver Foitzik has given you tips and information on defining your personality and positioning yourself in the market. Now, as a consultant, you need to inform your clients about what you can offer them. This article therefore shows you what you need to bear in mind when communicating with your customers and where the pitfalls lie when addressing customers.

4 tips for optimal customer communication

If you want to address your customers and potential customers in the best possible way, you need to pay attention to four things in particular:

1. Tailor your offer and your means of communication to your target group.
2. Identify the touchpoints where you come into contact with your customers.
3. Always put the customer and their needs at the center of your communication.
4. Address your customers on an emotional level as a first step.

Coordination with the target group

The prerequisite for optimal customer communication is that you know your customers and interested parties and know where you come into contact with them (touchpoints).

In order to better address potential customers, you should first answer a few questions yourself:

• Who has the greatest need for my expertise and range of services?
• Who can benefit most from my services?
• Do current developments and market trends increase the need for my expertise?

As I wrote in my article USP: Position yourself in the competitive consulting market and set yourself apart from the competition, the next step is to ask your customers. Only by talking to them can you find out what their needs and challenges are and what support you can offer them.

There are many ways to do this: go out to dinner with selected customers, start surveys via your mailing list or newsletter, research in topic forums or in corresponding groups on Xing, LinkedIn or Facebook, read comments and posts and post your questions there.

If you develop a catalog of questions, this makes it easier for you to systematize the answers. You can collect them in a file that you can use as a basis for the development of new products and services as well as for your marketing and content production.

Touchpoints: Where do you come into contact with your customers?

Knowing the touchpoints, i.e. the points of contact with your customers, is another important prerequisite for optimal customer communication. Because only if you know where you meet your customers and where they obtain information can you optimally maintain the necessary channels.

Touchpoints exist both online and offline. Online, this could be the website, the blog or an online store, for example. Offline, there are events, newspaper articles or brochures that your customers use to find out about offers. While it is relatively easy to identify online touchpoints using tracking tools, this process is much more difficult for offline touchpoints. Here you have to rely on what your customers say.

Find out which channels your customers use to obtain information and where they make their purchase decision - this "journey" from needs identification to purchase decision is also called "Customer Journey". It usually comprises seven to twelve contacts prior to a purchase decision, which need to be identified and utilized.

Putting customers at the center

Many companies make the mistake of overemphasizing themselves and their own achievements. Slogans along the lines of "We are the best" are far too common. What is the problem with this? They don't address the customer's needs and challenges, but instead focus on themselves.

However, the starting point for all customer communication must always be a need, a problem, a wish or a challenge on the part of the customer. Therefore, always think from the customer's perspective:

• What problems can I solve for my customer?
• What fears or concerns does my customer have?
• What goals is he pursuing?
• What do my customers want?

In the second step, you then consider how you can fulfill these wishes or solve these problems with the help of your range of services. You should also structure your customer communication in the same way: Always describe the extent to which your consulting service solves your customers' challenges and meet your customers where they are. Empathy instead of egocentrism is the order of the day in customer communication.

Emotional appeal

Instead of appealing to the rational side, you should first get your customers emotionally excited about you and your range of services. You can do this by focusing on the customer as mentioned above: your customer must always feel that they are the center of attention and that they are the most important thing for you and your company or agency.

Two dynamics generally drive human action: Either away from something or towards something. People want to solve problems and overcome obstacles ("away from"). They want to improve their performance, overcome challenges, strive for profits and positive results ("towards"). These emotions need to be addressed through your customer approach, which puts the customer at the center.

You then present statistics, figures, data and facts about how you will achieve concrete results in the second step. They serve to underpin the emotional statements and justify the decision rationally.

Because pro forma we want to justify everything rationally - yet it is the emotions that have us firmly in their grip.

(Source cover image: © FotolEdhar | Fotolia.com)