What It Actually Means to Know Your Customer

Every conversation I have about marketing starts with the same question.
Who is this for?
Most business owners start with a demographic or a niche. 

That’s a starting point.

But it isn’t the same as knowing someone.

A demographic tells you who might buy. It never tells you why.

Knowing your customer means knowing what she’s afraid to say out loud. What she has already tried and quietly given up on. What keeps her up at midnight scrolling for the answer nobody has given her yet.
I learned this over more than two decades of sitting across from women in business. During strategy sessions. Over coffee. At networking events. Sometimes after everyone else had gone home.
It’s funny how often the real conversation begins when someone thinks the meeting is over.
Listening to what they say right after and hearing what’s really happening. That’s where the real information lives.
You cannot get that from a spreadsheet. You get it by paying attention long enough that someone trusts you with the unpolished version of their problem.
Every piece of content. Every blog. Every email. Every social media post. Every offer. Every headline should be written for that person. Not the audience persona. The actual person.

Know the person, not the persona.

A niche helps you find people.

Knowing people helps you serve them.

Because people don’t buy from businesses that understand demographics.

They buy from businesses that make them feel understood.

Lisa Carmichael is the author of Marketing Dopamine: What Your Brain Is Really Doing When You Think You’re Building a Business. Learn more at lisarcarmichael.com