One of the biggest marketing obstacles facing businesses in today’s marketplace is that they think, well, like businesses. The conventional wisdom was that businesses told people what to think and what to buy. A business would look at its products or services and tell prospective customers why their product or service was the best choice. The business was in control of the process.

Social Media has turned marketing on its head. The customer is now in charge. Customers now say: “This is want I want or need. Can you meet that need?”

When companies began using the Internet to reach customers, they basically took their old way of thinking and transferred it to a new format. What we ended up with were electronic versions of printed brochures. That approach no longer works, because it’s business-oriented (“Here’s what we think you need.”) instead of customer-oriented (“How can we help you find what you need?”).

This even extends to how your potential customers look for you. When you post things on your website, are you assuming your customers will search for you using the same criteria you use? If you want to capture their attention, you need to think like a customer and describe your products and services using terms that your customers use—not your own in-house lingo.

Here’s a helpful article about how to search Google like an expert. If you learn how to search like an expert, you can set up your business links so that people can find you.

What helps you to “think like a customer”?

A shovel is a great tool—if you want to dig a hole. It’s not such a great tool f you try to use it to paint the wall in your living room. That doesn’t make the shovel a bad tool—it’s just not the right tool for that application.

Sometimes we get a little bit too hung up on tools. And it’s not just men wandering around hardware stores, either. There are all kinds of cool new tools available for businesses to use to promote themselves.  A few years ago, corporate websites were the hot new tool. The conventional wisdom was that your business couldn’t survive if it didn’t have a website. E-mail marketing was a really cool deal when it first came out (and when spam was something that only came in a can). Now there are landing pages, Twitter®, LinkedIn®, Facebook®, YouTube®, Flickr®, and a host of other platforms you can use to get your message out.

The thing is, they’re all just tools! You still have to have something to say. And in today’s marketplace, your message better be clear and it better be compelling.  Just because you have a new tool, that doesn’t necessarily make it the right tool to use. Some of these new tools may really appeal to you, but do they appeal to the people you’re trying to reach?

Marketing today is all about empowering consumers to make good decisions (and that means decisions that are in their best interests). Do your customers (current or prospective) feel empowered—or do they feel overpowered by a barrage of information? Are you providing them with what they want to know, or are you burying them with your “shovel”?

So before you trot out you latest hot new tool, think about what your customers really want and need. Then think about the right way to get that information to them. Don’t just automatically grab the shovel. Pick the right tool to get the job done.

Which tools have you used successfully? Are there tools you’re still trying to figure out?