Collecting Consumer Insights
The process to collect consumer insights isn’t as simple as your standard market research. While market research helps you gain customer data points about the makeup and needs of an entire market, consumer insights dig deeper to find patterns in behaviour, sentiment, and motivations.
A good insight should always be new to you and highly actionable—a piece of information that can shape your marketing strategy and influence a shopper’s actions. To collect these great consumer insights, you need to gather more qualitative data than you would with simple market research. Here are three of the best digital sources you can look towards for insights:
1. Social media
With 79% of the Australian population having a profile on a social networking site, social media platforms are great places to find up-to-date consumer insights. Through social media, you can get insights about how people are reacting to your posts, products, and general brand, and compare those reactions to those from your competitors’ fans.
Social media comments and reactions are a particularly great source of customer opinions. More so than any other sources on our list, social media tends to provide real-time insights, so you can easily track changes over small and large periods of time.
2. Online reviews
The value of online reviews goes beyond building your online reputation. They also help you better understand what your consumers like and dislike about your business based on both quantitative data (star ratings) and qualitative data (comments and details).
Reviews can also tell you what factors will completely change a customer’s opinion. When looking at feedback on the online review sites you’re active on, look for patterns in what leads to a five-star rating, a four-star rating, and so forth. Also consider what actions you have personally taken, if any, that inspired consumers to change a negative rating.
If the amount of online reviews you have to work off of is scant, the good news is that 77% of consumers will leave a review if asked. Simply reach out to your customer base for their feedback or use a tool like Podium Reviews to automate your review invite process and expedite your consumer insight collection process.
3. Focus groups
A focus group is traditionally a small gathering of consumers who provide feedback about a given brand, new product, marketing message, and more. With plenty of online communication channels readily available, focus groups can easily be conducted through a digital screen.
Focus groups are a valuable source for insights because they start a conversation. You don’t just get a consumer’s final answers. From focus groups conducted over a video call or in person, you also get their full thought process as they think out loud to answer your prompts. From online forums, social media groups, audio-based studies, and other forms of focus groups, you’ll get more free-form responses that delve deeper into the subjects you want to learn about.
Many market researchers send out a customer survey prior to forming focus groups to gather demographic information and find people interested in taking part. This will help you choose participants who truly represent your target audience.