Who is your customer? Perhaps the better question is, who isn’t? As a longtime marketer, strategic communications expert, and brand identity specialist, Mary Lou Quinlan has noticed that most people think a customer is only the person who plunks down money to buy a product. That’s much too narrow a view, she asserts. In truth, there are many “invisible” customers making and breaking your success. To reach these silent persuaders and build loyalty for a brand, your integrated marketing communication efforts need to go way beyond advertising, says Quinlan, founder and CEO of Just Ask a Woman, a New York consultancy dedicated to helping businesses connect with female customers. Here, she explains how to reach your sphere of customers:

“Think back to a recent shopping experience. I’ll bet that while you were perusing the aisles of the store, or talking to a sales representative, you weren’t thinking about the store’s most recent TV commercial. Rather, you were focusing on the condition of a particular product or the behavior of the salesperson. You might even have been weighing your buying decision on the basis of a product’s instructions, the packaging, or the opinions of friends, a newspaper columnist, or members of an Internet chat room. How about an article you read on the financial health of the company? This kind of espionage can happen in an instant, but it affects your actions as a customer.

“I listen to women for a living. You know why? Women are innately good at noticing the subtle elements of the customer experience, because they have an ability to absorb and remember details that surround brands. Just as moms joke that they have eyes in the back of their head, female consumers possess peripheral customer vision that picks up on all the ways a brand communicates.

“Based on lessons I’ve learned from women, here’s how to get a 360–degree view of all your brand’s customers: Start with an audit of the ways you connect with your end customer. I call it a conference room check. Gather every piece of paper related to your brand, from business cards, press releases, and annual reports to the more obvious like advertising and customer brochures. Assemble recent news clippings, online reviews from consumer Web sites, internal employee communications, and even pictures of your headquarters or your retail environments. (You’ll need a pretty big room to do this.)

“Next, step back and ask yourself, ‘What am I saying to all of these constituencies? Are there contradictions?’ Does your brand seem warm and accessible to your trade partners yet all-business to your employees? Customers are able to pick up on this kind of brand schizophrenia.

“Once you look at all of your audiences as potential customers, you might feel overwhelmed by the challenge of connecting with each of them. Not to worry. Don’t try to be different things to different people. Instead, decide exactly what you stand for and be true to that. Who is your customer? It’s pretty much everyone. But there’s only one you.”

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