Being able to crawl inside the heads of your customers is one sure way to get your business going in the right direction and to anticipate their future needs. It's a process best not left to chance. Here are seven ways you can stalk your customers without getting slapped with a restraining order.
1. 
Get customer reviews. Depending on your business, reviews can come through a variety of channels. You might have a box for comments at your physical location. You can incorporate reviews on your website. Finally, your business may be included on a site such as Yelp.
The more honest reviews you receive, the more you'll come to understand your customers. If you can encourage reviews without steering customers toward making positive comments, do it. Restaurants that direct customers to do online reviews by offering small discounts on future orders are doing a good job at this.
Tabulate, categorize, and prioritize the input you receive through reviews.
2. Survey your customers or visitors. Surveys can be useful as well. You can email a follow-up survey to customers, ask customers that visit your location to answer a few brief questions ,or query website visitors.
It's tempting to put together a half dozen questions that can all be answered by choosing a number between one and five. However, if you really want to get to know your customers, devise three to five short answer questions. (Yes, you can still put in a few "rate from 1-5" questions if they will serve your purposes.)
3. Mine the depths of Quora. If you have kids or a significant other, you've had those moments when you say to yourself, "I wish I knew what he/she is thinking." People post the questions that are eating at them on Quora. I just looked up "business cards." If I sold business cards I would see what questions people have on the topic. Check out your product or service and related topics.
4. Engage in social media conversations. Use Twitter and Facebook to converse with your customers. When a topic comes up that sparks interest, mine it for all its worth. As with your personal social media accounts, most posts will garner a comment or two and then suddenly, without notice, you post something that goes viral within your circle.
You can expect similar reactions with your business accounts. When a topic generates interest – along with digesting the responses – ask yourself "why" that topic became so popular.
5. Hold an event. If you have a physical location in a community, state an event or participate in an appropriate community event. Get out and meet people outside of the confines of your business. If your business is entirely web-based, hold a webinar. Whether you do it "in person" or in the virtual world, some kind of tutorial would work well as a topic. Make sure you take some time to let people introduce themselves without forcing the process on everyone. Be sure to field questions since that's how you get to know people.
6. Do more keyword research. Use Google's free keyword planning tool to expand your understanding of your customers. You need to establish an Adwords account to gain access to the tool – but you don't have to spend any money or buy any ads. The Google keyword tool will suggest groups of words and it will probably guide you into areas related to your primary search terms. These may suggest others things that interest your customers. And while you're searching keywords, look at the websites of your competitors and get their keywords.
7. Explore Consumer Barometer. If you take time to learn how Consumer Barometer works, you'll gain insights into retail customers' relationships to web research, buying on the Internet, and buying at a physical location. Also, if you're giving thought to expanding to another country, this site provides breakdowns.
Business owners are always on the prowl for cost-effective marketing ideas. These tools and strategies should gain you additional insights into your current customers and some will give you a decent picture about others who should be your customers.
