The most effective way to successfully connect with your target market is to get out of the building and talk to your customers. I've been hooked on this fact over the past 11 years working as a solutions consultant, developer advocate, and marketing professional in the computer vision/start-up SaaS space.As an effective marketer, we need to be focused on the customer's needs. The only true way to accomplish this is to step into their shoes, spend a day - even a week - shadowing their actions and seeing their frustrations up front.As a solutions consultant for Stockpile Reports, I traveled to nearly every state in the US and had the opportunity to learn about my customers at a deeply personal level. I would leave a customer engagement and the client would say: "I was not expecting you to know so much about my business, usually you guys show up with a bunch of unrealistic ideas because you have no idea how we work". The personal connections you make determine your overall lifetime success with a customer.My passion for marketing stemmed from my frustrations of seeing past marketers unable to connect with their audiences because they never spent a day in their audience's shoes. Whether I am focused on customer discovery for a new product, launching a go-to-market campaign, or writing a technical article, I always remember who my audience is and put their needs first.---My core focuses are:-Exploring novel market opportunities through customer and market development-Crafting compelling messaging that communicates our company's vision-Fostering community around our customers through social channels-PR through industry articles and traditional media relationships-Data analytics - because sometimes the data is more telling than the customer's voice-Building customer experiences