This is a guest post by Lexie Lu, a designer and regular blogger at Design Roast.

As many as one-third of adults in the United States have “broken up” with a brand because they felt that the marketing wasn’t relevant to them or it was disruptive. When it comes to marketing, it can be difficult to fully understand what your customers truly want. If you can determine what customers want, you can figure out how to reach them and entice interest in your product or service.

Businesses can create user personas to discover what customers want. A user persona is simply a mock person who represents the target demographic of the company. For example, if you run a beauty salon, you might create one user persona for a thirty-year-old mom who is ready for a shorter, trendy hair style. You will likely create several different personas for your business to represent the different types of customers you’d likely attract to your business.

Only 10% of people feel that brands ask about their needs as customers. User personas can be one of the first steps to figuring out what customers want. Polling and questionnaires of current customers can fill in any additional gaps.

Here are a few tips to help connect customers to a brand and create loyalty.

Make It Personal

Customers like to feel like more than another face in the crowd. When you’re marketing to customers, a database can be invaluable. Send an email with a merge field that addresses the customer by his or her first name, for example.

Many shopping websites do an excellent job of making the customer feel that he or she is well known by the brand. For example, the customer may be greeted by name. Also, if the person has shopped on the site before, the company may track favorite items and recommend similar products the shopper might enjoy.

A terrific example of this type of personalization can be found on Kroger’s website. This grocery store website greets the customer by first name. You can add digital coupons to your account and create a shopping list. The store becomes personal through its new ClickList, an online shopping experience.

ClickList shows sale items the customer might be interested in, tracks favorite items that are purchased often, and shows recently ordered items. It makes the shopping experience flow quickly and smoothly, and it gives customers the feeling that Kroger ClickList truly knows them.

Show Them You Care

Customers also want to know that you care. This is different than personalization, which is still important. Showing the customer you care truly customizes the experience, so it meets the needs of the customer. This can be vital for service businesses.

12 Keys Rehab is an excellent example of customization. It uses an individualized approach to create treatment plans for clients. They call it the “non-cookie-cutter” approach. It shows its customers that it cares by allowing them to contact loved ones while going through rehab. This helps clients learn how to interact in healthy ways, which is important while in recovery.

Build Trust

Customers need to know that they can trust your brand to be dependable. Consistency is a key benefit that customers want in a company. If they can’t trust the quality to be the same every time they do business with you, they are likely to find a more reliable company.

When it comes to building trust, your reputation matters. One unhappy customer will tell multiple people about their poor experience. Build trust by listening to your customers, especially if they complain. They need to know they can rely on you to make things right.

Seamly is an interesting model in building brand trust. It takes surplus fabric and makes unique pieces of clothing. The company figured out what type of items and designs it would offer based on intensive customer feedback. Customers know the next designs will reflect what they most want. Seamly then takes the process further. It asks for feedback through production, such as preference in color choices or which side buttons should go on.

Just Ask

Survey your customers to find out how to make their experience better. Really listen to what the customer says. You also want to test drive your own website and walk through it as though you are a first-time customer. What can you do to make the experience better? Now, repeat this effort as though you are a returning customer. What can you do to make the experience more customized and show the customer you appreciate repeat business?

Polls, after-order surveys, and even simply sending out an email asking for input can all be effective to help you figure out how to better serve your customers.

Amazon offers a perfect example of how to meet the needs of customers. The website has evolved and changed over the years to become a better experience year after year. Just one example of how Amazon meets customer needs is in its one-click ordering process. Customers store their payment information, which means that when a customer is on a mobile device or in a hurry, he or she can click one button to make a purchase.

If you want to build a customer base that trusts you to meet their needs, it is important to pay attention to the personalities and specific features of your target demographic.

This is a guest post by Lexie Lu, a designer and regular blogger at Design Roast.

About Lexie Lu

Lexie Lu is a designer and blogger. She actively contributes to the design world and usually has a cup of coffee in close proximity. She writes weekly on Design Roast and can be followed on Twitter @lexieludesigner.