Consumer Research: How to Do It Quickly and Effectively

Many companies who appreciate the benefits of customer research incorporate it into their marketing strategies. They use the information obtained from their customer research to better understand their customers and create advertising campaigns that increase brand loyalty, sales, and market share.

With that in mind, here are some suggestions and strategies to excel at finding out more about your customers and how to serve them better:

Software for Customer Research

The latest technologies for researching a customer base include predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing. These tools allow companies to track the behavior of their customers and predict buyer responses. The insights gained from this type of data will benefit your company’s marketing strategy.

Here are three examples of software that you can use:

* Survey software can help your company create and manage online surveys. They are useful for creating in-depth online surveys with the ability to import and export data, text, and images.

* Keyword tools can give you a sense of what people are interested in at any given time. They allow you to discover keywords trending in your niche and help you grow your brand awareness and visibility on Google.

* Social listening tools provide real-time analytics for social networks. Social listening, the act of monitoring conversations about your brand, products, and industry on social media platforms, can help your company identify potential customers or gauge interest in your products or services. These tools can, for instance, help you monitor and track your company’s content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn

4 Tips for Better Consumer Research

Use following steps for collecting and interpreting consumer research:

1. Define the questions that need to be answered to get accurate data. When you’re a researcher, focus on asking the right questions. Questions are powerful. Ask the right questions so that you can get the information you need.

2. Create a questionnaire and a list of potential respondents. Make sure that your list represents a diverse group of people. Remember, customers today are more sophisticated and demanding because they have access to more information, are more educated about assorted brands, and are becoming more vocal about their preferences on social media.

3. Decide on your research strategy. Decide who will collect data and how many people will be interviewed. Gather enough information to create qualitative and quantitative insights. Qualitative insights help you analyze customer behavior and create new campaigns. Quantitative insights are useful for comparing competitors, deciding on the smartest strategies, and choosing the best tactics for marketing. When researching the opinion of subject matter experts, call them on the phone; also, browse free and paid websites, government and corporate websites, and academic and commercial websites. When researching the opinion of consumers who take part in your research offer incentives, such as prizes or discounts.

4. Create a schedule. Decide when you need the interviews completed and for when you plan to collect, organize, and interpret data. This will help you schedule your work and make sure that everything is done by the deadline.

What to Avoid When Collecting or Interpreting Consumer Research

Finally, the following are examples of steps of what you should not do when collecting and interpreting consumer research:

• Skipping research completely.

• Asking the wrong questions and gathering inaccurate or irrelevant content.

• Avoid conducting a thorough competitive analysis.

• Failing to track all your metrics.

.Only using a small research sample of people or sources.

How Consumer Research Improves Your Company’s Bottom Line

Using your results from consumer research can empower your company to create accurate behavior profiles which uncover purchasing behavior.

For many brands, a buyer persona is a useful tool to gain insight into how their ideal customer thinks, feels, and behaves. They are essential to any marketing strategy because they represent real people who would be interested in your product or service.

Once you understand what your customers want and how they’re likely to respond to your new products or services, you’ll improve your company’s product development, marketing, and sales.