**
Introduction
“Ask: The Counterintuitive Online Formula to Discover Exactly What Your Customers Want to Buy… Create a Mass of Raving Fans… and Take Any Business to the Next Level” by Ryan Levesque is a transformative guide for businesses to use customer insights to drive engagement and sales. Levesque, through personal anecdotes, case studies, and step-by-step instructions, introduces the ASK Method—a structured approach to uncovering and addressing the specific needs of customers through strategic questioning. Below is a summary of the book’s key concepts along with actionable advice for implementation.

1. The Power of Asking
Major Point: Levesque emphasizes that instead of assuming what customers want, businesses should ask their customers directly. This approach ensures that the products or services developed are tailored to meet real demands.

Example: Levesque uses his own experience of entering the orchid care market to illustrate this point. By administering surveys and deeply analyzing the responses, he identified the precise problems his target audience faced, which informed his product development.

Actionable Advice: Begin by developing an open-ended survey to understand the language, needs, and desires of your target market. A simple question, “What’s your biggest challenge with [product/service]?” can reveal invaluable insights.

Action Step: Design and distribute a survey to your customers, focusing on open-ended questions to elicit detailed responses.

2. Building the Deep Dive Survey
Major Point: The Deep Dive Survey is a central element of the ASK Method. It seeks to uncover the deepest desires and pain points of customers by asking them to describe their biggest challenges in their own words.

Example: In his campaigns, Levesque segments his audience based on their responses to ensure that he can address specific needs more effectively. For instance, he segmented orchid enthusiasts based on their skill levels and specific problems they encountered with growing orchids.

Actionable Advice: Craft a Deep Dive Survey utilizing open-ended questions. Analyze the responses to identify key themes and segments within your audience.

Action Step: Create and send out a Deep Dive Survey to gather detailed feedback from your audience. Use tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms for this purpose.

3. Segmenting the Market

Major Point: Once the survey data is collected, segment the market into distinct groups based on the responses. This allows for more personalized and relevant communication with different customer segments.

Example: In the book, Levesque mentions how in his orchid business, he identified different segments such as beginners struggling with basic care, intermediate growers wanting advanced techniques, and those interested in orchid breeding. Each group has unique needs and wants.

Actionable Advice: Use survey responses to segment your market and tailor your messaging and product offerings to meet the specific needs of each group.

Action Step: Analyze survey responses to identify natural breaks and patterns in your data. Create specific communication strategies for each segment.

4. Developing the Marketing Funnel
Major Point: The ASK Method emphasizes building a marketing funnel based on the insights gathered from the surveys. This helps to guide customers through a personalized journey from awareness to conversion.

Example: Levesque describes how he tailored his landing pages, email sequences, and marketing messages for each segment of his orchid business, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates.

Actionable Advice: Develop a marketing funnel that addresses the specific pain points and questions of each customer segment identified through your survey.

Action Step: Map out a customer journey for each segment and create tailored content for each stage of the funnel.

5. Crafting the Squeeze Page
Major Point: A squeeze page is a crucial part of the ASK Method. It’s designed to convert visitors into subscribers by offering something valuable in exchange for their contact information.

Example: In his example of the orchid business, Levesque used a squeeze page offering a free report or a guide that addressed the most common problems faced by orchid growers, which he identified from his surveys.

Actionable Advice: Create a squeeze page that addresses a specific need or problem of your audience and offers a valuable resource in exchange for their email address.

Action Step: Use a tool like Leadpages or Unbounce to design a squeeze page that is clear and focused on a single call-to-action (CTA).

6. The Importance of Nurturing Leads
Major Point: Nurturing leads through targeted and relevant content is essential to build trust and lead them through the sales funnel.

Example: Levesque’s email sequences to different segments in his orchid business contained tailored educational content, tips, and offers, which kept his audience engaged and built trust over time.

Actionable Advice: Develop an automated email series that nurtures leads by providing valuable and relevant information based on their specific interests and needs identified from your surveys.

Action Step: Use email marketing software (like Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign) to automate an email sequence tailored to each segment’s needs and journey stages.

7. Creating Irresistible Offers
Major Point: Offers should be directly aligned with the needs and desires uncovered in your surveys. By doing so, products become much more compelling to prospective customers.

Example: Levesque talks about how he created different product offerings for each segment in the orchid business, such as beginner guides, advanced techniques, and breeding kits, ensuring that each product directly addressed the respective segment’s pain points.

Actionable Advice: Develop product offerings that are tailored to the specific needs of each customer segment.

Action Step: Create multiple product lines or bundles that cater to the distinct needs of each segment identified from your survey responses.

8. Optimizing and Iterating
Major Point: Continuously optimize and iterate based on feedback and performance data. The ASK Method relies heavily on constant refinement and adaptation.

Example: Levesque explains how he regularly revisits his surveys and customer feedback to keep refining his messaging, offerings, and marketing strategies.

Actionable Advice: Regularly review the performance of your campaigns and gather ongoing feedback from your customers to make necessary adjustments.

Action Step: Establish a routine for reviewing performance metrics and collecting ongoing customer feedback. Use tools like Google Analytics and customer feedback forms to gather data.

Conclusion
Ryan Levesque’s “Ask” provides a comprehensive and step-by-step approach to understanding and serving your customers more effectively. By actively engaging with your audience through surveys, segmenting based on detailed responses, and tailoring your marketing messages and product offerings, businesses can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and drive higher conversions. Implementing the actionable advice from each major point can set businesses on a path to deeper customer insights and greater market success.

Action Plan:
1. Develop and distribute an open-ended survey to understand your customers’ needs.
2. Segment your audience based on survey responses and tailor communication accordingly.
3. Design a targeted marketing funnel for each customer segment.
4. Create a compelling squeeze page with a valuable offer.
5. Nurture leads with an automated email sequence providing relevant content.
6. Develop product offerings that align with each segment’s specific needs.
7. Continuously optimize and iterate your strategies based on feedback and performance data.

Through methodical implementation of these steps, one can transform their approach to marketing and customer engagement, leading to a more successful and customer-centric business.