OCALA, FL (352today.com) – You know what makes your business worth choosing, but does a potential customer?

It’s easy to evaluate your marketing with everything you already know about your business. You know where to find information, which services you offer and what separates you from the competition. Someone discovering your business for the first time doesn’t have that context.

It’s worth putting that knowledge aside and seeing the experience from the other side.

1. Search without using your business name

Think about someone who needs what you offer but has never heard of your business. What might they search for?

Try it yourself and pay attention to the results. Does your business appear? Is the information accurate? And what other options appear alongside you?

Your competition isn’t necessarily who you consider your biggest competitor. In that moment, it’s every business the customer is considering. Look at the reviews, information and first impressions and ask yourself, “If I knew nothing about these businesses, which one would I choose?”

2. Follow the customer journey

Once you find your business, keep going.

Visit your website without navigating from memory. Is it immediately clear what you do and where you operate? Is the information someone needs easy to find? Is the next step obvious?

Then actually take it. Call the number. Submit the form. Request an estimate.

Marketing can successfully get someone interested and still fail to produce a customer if the experience breaks down when that person is ready to act.

3. Look at the whole experience

Think about everything you just did. You searched, compared, visited a website and potentially called or submitted a form.

That’s much closer to how people choose a business.

Good marketing has to create a reason for someone to want your business. Make sure you’re there when they go looking and give them confidence when it’s time to make a decision.

Be Wanted. Be Found. Be Chosen.

See how those pieces work together throughout the customer journey.

Before you spend more money bringing people into the customer journey, take 20 minutes and experience it yourself.

You may find a marketing problem, a customer-service problem or something surprisingly simple to fix.

Either way, you’ll learn something a report alone can’t tell you: what it’s truly like to choose your business.