What if you knew your customer’s needs even before they did themselves? What would that do for your business reputation for having products or services people wanted? You would quickly become a key player in your industry sector. And customers would know that you could quickly and easily solve their problems. We don’t often write at an online tactical level, but in this article entitled How to do market Research: A 6-step Guide. We will offer our thoughts on knowing what your customers want before they know themselves.
1. What do your customers want?
So, what do your customers want? Well, this is a significant question. And with all their choices, it’s getting harder to answer it. You can look at all the data in the world, but there appears to be no pattern as to why certain products sell well and others don’t. Customers used to rely on salespeople to advise them on the best product or service. In many cases, the salesperson is now called Amazon, Google, Bing, eBay, YouTube, social media and review sites. However, these sites are not just shops for your product or a place to show how great your company is. For instance, an amazon review agency is a valuable platform to conduct market research. And there are also valuable tools to conduct market research. Most of these tools available are free.
Identifying your ideal customer is one of the most important things you can do. And it is not just about gender, age and general interests. It’s about getting to know them inside and out. You should be able to answer questions like:
- What do they struggle with?
- Their goals and aspirations?
- What truly makes them happy?
- And what causes them frustration?
- How do they feel about specific topics?
2. Google Trends
Google Trends tracks your popular keywords and suggests other popular search terms. Although it is not a widely used tool, if you use it, you’ll gain valuable insights that your competitors don’t know about.
3. Keyword planner
You will need to set up a Google Ads free account. You don’t need to advertise with them, but an account allows you to use their keyword planner tool for free. Enter a keyword and receive the number of searches for the keyword and a list of other keywords that people are searching.
4. Facebook Insights
Facebook Insights is a resource that helps people find out what works. Sign up for a Facebook Business page, and you will be able to see what kind of service, products, and content is attractive to your target market. To use Facebook insights by posting different content on your business page and then see which posts get the most likes, shares, and comments. Then, you can see the type of content that attracts your potential market. So, you can then start to create more similar content to promote your products and services around.
5. Twitter
Twitter allows you to see which Tweets get the best engagement. Again, use this tool to test your content and headlines that get the most response from your audience. Twitter has a tool called Audiences that allows you to see what interests your followers. Twitter Audiences has more detailed datasets, and you can get a better and more in-depth understanding of your potential customers.
6. Google Alerts
Google Alerts and Talkwalker monitor what’s happening with your customers in real-time. Place a keyword to track into the search bar; then, you will get an email from Google when this keyword is seen online. We use this (and others) to track our company name, “Octopus Intelligence”, but we get many daily hits. 99.9% telling us how smart octopuses are. So, like everything, it’s not perfect and will need occasional refining.
Summary
Combining all six will enable you to develop a clear and compelling picture of your customer’s wants, needs, and behaviours. And the better you understand them, the better you can create value. Providing services and solutions to their problems. In this article entitled How to do Market Research: A 6-step Guide, we discussed our thoughts on knowing what your customers want before they even know themselves—using tactical tools from Google, Twitter and Facebook. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg regarding Market Research and Competitive Intelligence and associated drivers.
We are Octopus. The Global People-Powered Competitive Intelligence Agency.
Outsmart your competition. Make the unknown known. Octopus helps you gain clarity in complex markets. With clients and tentacles around the world, we deliver sharp, actionable competitive intelligence through a blend of deep primary (HUMINT) and secondary research. If you’re looking to make smarter decisions, beat the competition, and reduce uncertainty, we’re the partner you want on your side.
