You know your product, but do you know your audience?
It's an important distinction. You can know your product inside and out, and pitch so well as to sell fire to the devil. That's all well and good; you know exactly what's good for your product.
But do you know what's good for your audience?
A Matter of Perspective
It's your product, you know it intimately. You know its strengths and its weaknesses (or at least you should). You know exactly what to say to highlight the product's best and most appealing features; how to talk it up to the point where it's downright magical.
But if it's not relevant to your audiences, it'll flop.
Yes, there's always the allure of novelty, and some people buy things just to be early adopters. But like content that's all-fluff-no-meat people will eventually tire of it and forget about the product. If the product doesn't fulfill some need, either actual or construed, then people won't have a reason to keep using it. Or just as worse, to not bother getting it after seeing early reviews.
Your product, your pitch, shouldn't be designed to sell. It should be designed to make people want.
Defining Use
Usually a product or service is invented because there is a need for it, and it is assumed that by offering this product people will buy into it because they want to fulfill that need. Simple business. Sometimes this need already exists, and sometimes it is artificially established.
Nevertheless in the end it's the audience who decides to buy. So in order to better see what makes an person decide to buy, or not, it's important to understand where that individual is coming from.
What can a person do with your product? What can they do with it better/faster/easier compared to other similar products? Why should they use your product?
Notice these questions are oriented around the user and their relationship with the product. Not about the product itself.
Playing Matchmaker
You could have a spectacular product, but marketed towards the wrong audience and the whole thing will flop. The right audience, at the right time, is crucial. Rather than try to make the perfect product it is far easier to understand the audience and craft an appeal based on the findings.
This is why we have demographics, and why they are so important. This is all basic stuff, as any advertiser will tell you.
If anything, it's best to have a better grasp of the audience than even the product. Because with the right understanding the more efficient pitch can be made, and then the audience can be convinced that the product is right for them.
By knowing what makes people tick then the seller can choose which of their products will align best with the consumer, thereby increasing the chances of a purchase/conversion.
What are some of your techniques for better understanding your audiences?