How well do you know your customers? You might be surprised. Recently, I sat on a team of experts tasked with choosing one of three marketing brochure designs, all of them outstanding. The goal was to present a high-priced product to a very choosy audience. I had my favorite from the get go: it was everything I ever wanted in brochure: it was fun to read; informative; completely original; and so slick I would put it on my coffee table. The team all agreed: this could be the one. But for one nagging inclination: we weren’t entirely sure our persnickety target demo would like it.

I threw together a couple focus groups consisting of college freshman, who are anything if not distracted and way too tired to be “marketed at.” I was sure that reviewing these three design proposals would perk them up and they be nuts for #3, my personal favorite. I was right – they were very opinionated. Not only did they hate it, one even used the word “insulting.”

How could we have been so out of touch with our market?

It doesn’t take long for your target demo to grow out of your scope of understanding. It’s an unbelievably fast-paced world we are living in. Communication is more vital than ever, whether your personal multimedia repertoire includes web marketing, web site maintenance, blogging, tweeting, RSS feeds, or the other many tools out there. Every once in a while, it’s okay to check in with your customers and just ask,” hey, what do you think about this idea?”

Encourage two-way conversations whenever possible by asking timely questions, such as, “what is the most important decision you made this week?” or other queries that will encourage customers to spill a bit of insight into their daily lives and priorities. Keep at it, and keep talking!