Businesses used to say they not only meet but exceed buyer expectations.
It turns out that goal is now unattainable for most.
The explosion of online media gives buyers abundant information for comparative shopping. This includes products, pricing, and the reputation and character of competing businesses.
Smart companies now recognize they need to acknowledge this marketplace condition.
Develop Accurate Buyer Personas
Start by thoroughly assessing your buyers and what they care about.
#1 – What are their most relevant problems? Solve these first.
#2 – What are their aspirations, what they really want? Hint: It’s often outside of their budget, but if you can help them get it, they’ll usually find the money.
#3 – How much do they know about it?
Make this more about the buyer as a person than as a buyer. If you are focusing on products and services then you are missing a major shift in buying behavior today, namely, those subtle qualities and experiences that lead to likeability and trust.
Now consider your business. Who are you and what do you care about that is meaningful to your customers? An example could be sweating the details. That capability aligns with a particular type of buyer, and usually not one concerned about getting the best price.
#1 – Does your business have a unique culture?
#2 – What are its general capabilities and strengths ?
#3 – In what areas is its expertise strongest?
Now take the results of these assessments and marry to a meaningful process.

Build a Meaningful Process

I’ve never been a advocate of the marketing funnel because it tends to focus on what the business wants, and that only leads to mistakes when buyers do not behave as expected.
Instead, plan to collaboratively accomplish what everyone wants by focusing on the comprehensive customer experience.
Imagine and map the ideal experience from the first referral, or consumption of content online, to long into the future when that buyer becomes a repeat customer.
Then ruthlessly simplify that experience into the fewest elements possible. For example, choose only a few marketing channels with which to excel. There must be a reason for every little thing that happens or it should be eliminated.
You are building an experience like an attorney builds a case with the available evidence. He or she is trying to win over the judge or jury, and you are doing the same with the buyer.

Manage the Narrative

Your challenge is designing an approach to the marketplace that is uniquely your own. It should communicate who you are, what you care about and why, and how your business can help those buyers.
You’ve heard it before, but it merits repeating: Focus your marketing so that buyers feel like you are communicating directly to them. You have to speak their language in every way by telling relevant stories, answering important questions, and backing it all up with research.
This is not a one and done event, but a process that you are always reassessing and refining. For example, if your buyers are not asking the right questions, then you have to be prepared to do so at the right times.
Research, study, and implementation are what makes this work. The results you create are the raw material for making it better
Over time you will progressively build a toolbox of industry data, case-studies, typical problems with solutions, visuals, preferred communication channels, and more.
All of this gets integrated into a process that you own.
It becomes a guidance system for responding to the right buyers, in the right way, and at the right time.
Keep it simple and learn to trust it.
It’s your marketing GPS.