Developing a deep understanding of your customer is critical for engaging and converting them into sales. Many business owners are drowning in a sea of data they don't know how to pull valuable insights out of. They know that they must get information on their audience in order to engage them, they just don't know what that information should look like. This summary takes you through the most useful market research methods to use to get the vital insights you need to succeed in growing revenue.
1. Surveys
You literally cannot mention market research without also discussing surveys. Surveys are versatile and you can literally ask almost anything to build up a profile of an individual customer or create a view of your entire base. The key to gaining valuable insights is in asking the right types of questions, try the following:
Two simple choice questions like ‘yes’ or ‘no’
Choices where people can select multiple options or check one
Letting people select a rating scale on a scale
Likert scale where you offer five options between ‘strongly agree’ and ‘strongly disagree’
Demographic questions that focus on details such as gender, age, income or occupation etc;
The better your questions the better your insights will be, so prioritise clarity and don't leave anything up to interpretation.
2. Reports
If your budget allows, you may benefit from investing in a consumer research report that provides in-depth insights into consumer behaviour. You can find tools like statista.com often provide deeply insightful reports for specific industries and sectors so you can gain valuable information about how consumers buy or use services that your business offers. This can help you build a picture if you are yet to develop a large enough base to collet insights from. Statista does also offer some free options.
3. Social Media Listening
Collecting insights from social media is a powerful way to tap into what are the key conversations happening that your brand can leverage to connect with your audience. Using social media listening tools like Khoros or Semrush can help you track conversations but also assess how people are talking about your brand, competitors and give you guidance on what to post.
4. Interviews
There is nothing like getting your consumer insight straight from the horse's mouth. Sitting with a customer and collecting information directly from them on their experience, their preferences, thoughts on competitors and so on can empower you to make impactful transformations. It is key here to think carefully about taking everything with a pinch of salt, for example, one customer doesn't speak for everyone. Taking a sample size and including in a focus group may prove a valuable way to track customer perspectives and get valuable product feedback.
5. Sales Analysis
Sales data can offer the most valuable insights for our business yet is so often overlooked. It is a treasure trove of value and can help you understand critical information about your customer's needs and preferences. For example how many people that make a purchase do so on mobile vs desktop and what might this tell you about your customer's preferences round devices. How can you leverage that insight to create better experiences and convert more shoppers into sales? Is there a specific product you sell more of that you can develop more iterations of to boost sales?
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