Under most circumstances, approximately 80% of your company’s profits will come from 20% of your customers. It’s essential to understand what your audience wants so they’ll continue to choose your brand.
Successful consumer market research comes from analyzing consumer insights. This drives product innovation and helps you deliver greater value. Not everyone understands how to use customer experience insights, though.
The process is simpler than it seems, and we’ve created a guide with the key details. Let’s get started.
Discover New Opportunities
Customer insights are an amazing way to discover new opportunities. You can use them to identify market needs you haven’t tapped into. In many cases, you’ll discover customer pain points you didn’t know about.
When you figure out problems you can solve, you’ll make your products more attractive. Not only does this help you acquire new customers, but it sets you apart from your competition.
Not every opportunity you discover will be actionable, though. You might not have the time or resources to capitalize on some you encounter. As long as you take advantage of the ones you can, you’re sure to deliver better products in the future.
Minimize Risk
Without consumer research, you risk falling short of your audience’s needs. It’s essential to gather feedback early in the product development process.
This helps you maximize the chance you offer your customers something useful. It also helps you create something unique that provides substantial value.
Keep in mind that some situations will require creative problem-solving. For example, you might discover that your consumers have a need for something your current products don’t offer.
You might have to come up with an actionable solution while dealing with a limited timeline or budget. It’s impossible to completely eliminate risk.
Product development inherently carries the risk of missing your mark. With enough research, you can make this scenario so unlikely that you’ll never experience complications.
Improve the Customer Experience
You can’t expect to hit your target metrics if your customers don’t have a good experience. Your products should be easy to use and access, and customers should achieve the results they want.
A common obstacle companies encounter is a lack of product intuitiveness. No matter what it’s capable of, people won’t use it to its full extent if there’s a high learning curve.
Consumer insights allow you to optimize user interfaces and refine features based on their needs. This goes a long way toward maximizing customer satisfaction.
Word-of-mouth advertising is a powerful way to build brand awareness. Putting customers first makes it more likely they’ll tell others about their experiences.
Improve Product Market Fit
Your current products might not fully align with your market. This can lead to lackluster sales performance even if your products are high-quality.
Consumer insights will help you redefine your value proposition. It’s worth noting that you may need to adapt and iterate multiple times. The process isn’t instantaneous.
As long as you’re willing to listen to customer feedback, you can tap into your market more effectively. This will also help your products stay relevant as time passes.
Strengthen Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty is one of the most important customer attributes to consider. Otherwise, you risk having them switch to a competitor at any time.
Customers are more likely to stay loyal to a brand when they feel understood, heard, and valued. You can increase the chance of them having these sentiments by considering their feedback.
Imagine a scenario where a company receives a large amount of backlash on a recent product. Over the next 12 months, they developed and released a superior version based on the criticism they got. Sales would likely increase substantially.
When customers see that their opinion matters, it makes them feel more connected to a brand. After all, no customer wants to feel like just another sales number.
Acquiring Consumer Insights
You can’t sit around and wait for customers to message you with their insights. You’ll need to go out and collect them yourself. Listed below are some of the most notable ways you can do so.
Online Reviews
Online reviews are an authentic resource you can leverage. Customers often have no issues giving their honest opinions. Take time to browse your online feedback and determine what customers like most about your products.
You can also look into the problems they have. Ideally, you won’t receive much criticism.
If you do, take it in stride and use this information to develop better products. Keep in mind you can also check competitor reviews for useful data.
See what customers enjoyed and disliked most. You can then make necessary changes to maximize the customer experience.
When responding to negative reviews, never be defensive or combative. This conveys that you’re willing to get hostile with your own audience if their opinions don’t align with yours. Potential customers might begin to question your overall feedback.
To clarify, they might assume people who would normally leave negative feedback didn’t do so to avoid retaliation. Instead, offer them a way to contact you so you can resolve the situation privately.
Website Analytics Data
The way your consumers use your website can provide key details on their product preferences. Web analytics data illuminates consumer behavior, such as what keywords they use to find your website.
Other behaviors to consider include the pages they’re exiting your site from, the content they’re most interested in, and how long they spend on your site. From here, you can figure out which product pages are generating the most leads and sales.
Customer Activity
One of the most powerful customer insights you can access is purchase activity. If your current products are successful, you can develop similar ones in the future.
You can also discard product development ideas that won’t meet your customers’ needs. Over time, it’s best to shift your focus away from products that don’t perform well.
Surveys
Surveys are a simple but efficient way to gain data on customer insights. Even a simple email blast can help take your product innovation to the next level.
It’s best to keep surveys brief and easy to interact with. People typically don’t want to spend more than a few minutes answering a survey.
You may also need to offer an incentive for survey completion. This could be a discount code or a similar promotion. Key topics to focus on during your survey include:
- The way your audience found your brand
- Issues they have with customer service
- How they feel about your product packaging
- Whether your products meet their needs
- Their opinion on your prices
- How likely they are to recommend your brand to others
These questions will help you understand the general attitude towards your company’s products. If most of your feedback is negative, you’ll know where to start making improvements. If your feedback is overwhelmingly positive, you’ll know you’re on the right track.
Case Studies
Case studies provide an in-depth look into how your customers use your products. They also shed light on the problems your products solve.
Case studies require extra time and resources. However, they can provide comprehensive results. The best time to consider case studies is if other methods of customer data acquisition don’t help you improve your products.
Social Media
Similar to online reviews, people on social media don’t hold back when speaking about brands. People who have an issue with a product will tell the entire story unfiltered.
Those who had a great experience with a brand are more than happy to share it with their followers. This type of feedback is particularly honest since consumers aren’t speaking to the brand directly. Many of them assume the brand won’t ever see what they post.
Spend time researching the context in which your brand appears on social media. You can also use your social media accounts to interact with your audience.
Asking them for their opinion or gauging their reaction to certain content could help you improve your products. Your social media accounts will help you understand the language your audience uses. From here, you can incorporate similar language in your marketing campaigns to better resonate with them.
Professional Outsourcing
Hiring a professional is an effective way to garner consumer insights. Experts have the necessary experience, tools, and resources to get the best results.
When searching for someone to work with, examine their industry reputation. Ideally, you’ll hire someone with plenty of positive feedback.
Ask for details about the methods they use. Their strategies should be refined and guaranteed to meet your goals. Do your due diligence so you can find the ideal candidate.
Don’t Neglect Consumer Insights
Researching consumer insights can help take your product innovation to the next level. Just be sure you work with the right professional. This will ensure you get the desired outcome.
Our team at 46Mile strives to exceed each of our clients’ expectations. We believe the best results come from comprehensive market research.
We’ll provide insight into your company’s channel responsiveness, target personas, trend analysis, and much more. Get in touch with us today to learn what we can do for your business.
