Why and how to do market research in digital products? |
The contemporary consumer wants an experience that is understood by the brand on a personal level. Below are some steps for making sure your business and products are able to do that.
Think about the last occasion you went with someone who went extremely well.
It felt as if someone else 'got' the other person, didn't they?
As if, before ever speaking, that person knew what you were thinking as if they were on the same level as you and perfectly in sync with your wants and requirements from your connection.
Then, consider the last time you interacted with a company you love.
Perhaps it was an experience similar to yours. They were able to anticipate your needs and provide solutions prior to you asked. They also made sure that you had the most seamless experience possible from the moment you met them until the current day.
Sure, competitors might occasionally offer you cheaper deals, but if you're similar to 70% of the population , the price point by itself isn't enough to sway your favor and cause customers to abandon your trusted brand.
As happens with the majority of customers would be willing to pay more with a business which has consistently delivered excellence throughout the duration of your partnership.
Are you pondering how to build that same sense of loyality with your customers? You are worried that it is something that's only known to business professionals?
Then take heart, because it's not.
The key is being aware of your clients more than your competition, and it's much easier than you think.
This week, we'll be discussing how you can conduct successful customer research on a shoestring budget. However, before we dig into that first, let's take a take a look at what's involved.
The importance of customer research in setting companies apart
Did you know the expression "it's a buyer's market"?
The term is typically used to define jobs and real estate the market becomes more buyer-centric in the event that the demand outweighs the need for the product. In those markets buyers rather than the company who has the best selection from the many.
After all, approximately 338 new websites develop every minute. There's no shortage of competitors competing for customers' attention. However, while that might sound daunting, it's actually a great idea.
Consumers will appreciate that they won't be faced with poor experiences and inadequate product offerings. Businesses, this allows them to set themselves distinct from other businesses in the sea of competition by delivering more enticing, more seamless interactions and interaction with their customers.
And, if you do distinguish yourself by a higher level of engagement, customers are willing to speak up for them , whether they're in the B2B or B2C crowd.
As the graph above indicates, it's not one that most businesses are successful to hit.
B2C companies are more successful than B2B however, 47% of people think brands could do better in increasing engagement.
It is clear that there's a gap in customer expectations and experiences, which can only be mended with efficient customer research.
After all, can you imagine a better method to satisfy the following demands without understanding the person that is behind them?
74% of customers would prefer to be treated as individuals, not as niches.
33% of consumers believe that a company must anticipate their needs before they do.
70 percent of your target audience expects the personalization in your marketing messages to cater specifically to them and only them.
This isn't a solitary statistic for clients who reside in the United States, by the fact that they're among the highest across the U.S.
72% of consumers within the UK indicate they won't think about a brand until they show that they are able to understand and care about the customer in a person-to-person way.
So, what's the bottom line?
Whatever the location the customers don't like companies that treat them as regular invoices.
They are expecting you to get to know their feelings, sympathize with them, and develop products and services that meet their needs as people.
and the only way to do that is to dig in deeply and conduct your research about your target public.
If you do this, you'll be in the crowd.
Skip it and you'll blend in.
As for getting started, there are a variety of ways to research your target audience. However, there's one you shouldn't skip.
(The first, obviously.)
#1. Record your research and your marketing objectives from the start
The process of recording your goals might seem like a superfluous step, however, it's the basis of your study, and while all other methods of research may be mixed and blended depending on your preference, this one has to be your first.
Why?
Two main reasons.
The first one is an analysis that was conducted in 2005 looking at the connection with goal-setting and whether or not these goals were not written down. In groups where people had written down their goals, versus those who kept it inside their heads, the performance rise was notable.
Look it up:
The other reason behind setting and capturing your objectives is less research and more about conserving your resources.
If you are aware of what your goals are, you'll shave off waste and concentrate to the essential information you need for understanding your audience and their marketing needs.
When your goal is aimless, you're more likely to waste hours and dollars trying to cut across the endless sea of data that you'll find when you conduct your research.
And this isn't just supposition in any by the way.
The process of establishing and capturing your goals, processes, research, and the methods that result from them are crucial to a successful operation of a modern-day product. Marketers who establish goals are significantly greater likely to report success over those who abandon their goals to the wilds.
This is likely why, for businesses hiring marketers , the top abilities that prospective employees can demonstrate include the management of projects along with data analysis and the capacity to gain knowledge from information about the customer.
As for how to set those goals, the framework SMART remains the most popular method of framing and test your objectives.
If you've not heard of it, here's how the acronym breaks down:
Let's go through an easy instance.
Say that your starting goal is to get your message across to the right audience. While that meets the first requirement -- namely, preciseness, it's still not measurable, time-based, or achievable without more details.
Therefore, if you return to scratch You could change your goals to include something similar to this:
You'll understand your audience's top three pain points with online marketing tools prior to designing your next book.
This is a fantastic goal because it helps us:
Limit the scope of the things we're trying to find during our investigation
Determine the significance of the study to the business need
Select a time frame for the completion of the task.
Use the information in a meaningful way in order to develop new products
This all answers concerns raised by the SMART system through providing specificity and measurability. It also provides achievability relevance, as well as time limitations.
If you're more interested in a aesthetic approach, the graphic below is a great outline of each section and other points to keep in mind as you run through your objectives.
Okay. Now that you're armed with your goals and understand what makes customer research so crucial, you can take the next step.
Spying on competitors' products.
#2. Review product reviews carefully for high-level summary
Let me explain.
If you're interested in learning more about who would benefit from those books, you can look at existing products in the marketplaces. In particular, take a look at the products which excel in this area to gather important information. .
These are reviews for a book with excellent reviews at Amazon, UX Strategy: How to Design innovative Digital products that people want . In a quick glance, you can check if there are any themes in these reviews.
Here's what I noticed:
Each review has mentioned how accessible it is for newcomers.
Two out of three of the critiques highlight how instances and the demonstrations are a reflection of the real world.
Every review points to the richness of the book and the detail level of the ideas contained within it.
On this basis it's possible that the audience for the same book would be looking for something accessible to new readers and relates ideas to actual instances, and has a lot of detail.
Let's see if it stands up to scrutiny when I check out another book in the same style with equivalent number of reviews. The Design of Everyday Things Redesigned and Expanded edition .
In these reviews, we may be able to observe:
Many customers have expressed their displeasure with the book's design and layout. A number of users complain about its poor (if ironically so) design choices, which may indicate problems with organizational that are not well-known to newcomers.
While the book's first reviews pointed out the author's use actual examples and insights the reviewers weren't as receptive to the same thing in this edition.
Inattention to detail damaged the author's credibility in the eyes of customers.
The third point is particularly interesting as it gives us the opportunity to dig into the depths of our research -- provided that it aligns with the goal we set -- and also compare the products. Why did one book excel and the other didn't?
Furthermore what can we do to make sure our products land at the correct end of this spectrum?
We don't have enough information to begin generating materials because all our information is just a bit of interpretation, but we've got a clear idea of what to look out for when we're creating our product and a great supplement for when we do find quantitative information.
This is in fact that's what we'll do next.
#3. Use keyword research to guide your search
They can help you connect to people and understand the potential clients you could be attracting by studying the number of searches and click-through-rate (CTR) of keywords.
The company has made a visual showing their rank against comparable SEO suites as well as, while any person is considered a pinch of salt, I've been able to confirm my experience with each of the tools listed and their scores.
So, why does keyword research make a perfect way to get customer insights?
Because volume tells you how many people are interested in it The way you phrase it will tell you what people are looking for at different stages of the buying process, the most common questions they have about the subject, and the type of content that appeals to them.
In the meantime, however there are two points that you should remember when doing the research of keywords:
Volume isn't a valid measurement for SEO in the real sense, however it's useful to gather data on customer satisfaction as it lets you know how customers look for the things they are looking for.
Keywords are then searched for and filter based on the perceived purpose of the user searching. Rankbrain , the AI behind the process of determining intent, actually quite good at what it does far better than humans and therefore you should put stock in its suggestions.
The Rankbrain website is an excellent source of information because it evaluates keywords in the same as we measure reviews. by the degree of levels of satisfaction with the users .
Combining the suggestions of its authors with the insights we gained from product reviews provides the most effective of both- organic and inorganic -- minds.
Integrating your insights from qualitative sources using Rankbrain's quantifiable insights is not just an easy method of working, but by the way, it's also the most data-driven type of marketing.
A solution that accomplishes both of its top goals -- providing you with the ability to make more decisions based on data and enriching the completeness of the data -- for professional marketers.
Whichever instrument you employ, however, the key is to find patterns within the data, and draw insights by analyzing the information that you have gathered in the previous step.
For instance, if users are consistently looking for free solutions to the problems that you're trying to address and have complain about the price in review of the product, this niche may not be lucrative enough for you or it could require you to overcome other objections to force them to pay.
If they're constantly looking for simple solutions or praised competitors products to make their lives easier You may be able to take advantage of an opportunity to provide them with a similar solution -- at a fee and with a thoughtfully designed product that meets their needs.
Naturally, there's only one way to guarantee the union of quantitative and qualitative information is a match that is perfect after you've created them This is the one last suggestion.
#4. Use surveys and real conversations to finish it off
All of our work up to this point has been about constructing and validating the assumptions we've made.
This final step However, it's about taking them apart and challenging the idea of challenging them.
Put simply, if you are looking to deepen the study of your audience and you ought to There's no better option for having real-time conversations and interaction with them.
Surveys, fortunately, relieve some stress off by collecting all the information for you. They're also one of the simplest and higher-value means to have these interactions.
Tech companies are more aware than the majority of companies. Based on Research Now, now Dynata , 76% of companies in the tech industry report that insights gleaned from surveys research were extremely or very valuable to their projects.
These aren't just to conduct research on customers prior to product creation, either.
Polls and surveys are suggested by professionals to keep your customer satisfaction high following the launch of your website as well.
They demonstrate that you care.
They can provide insight that no other form of research can.
Simply asking for feedback makes people more likely to stay faithful to your brand.
Another notable positives of using surveys for market research are the capacity to measure consumer sentiment and lead-generating research and gauge the market need for your products.
Just make sure that your survey is short and straight to the point. In general, the survey you conduct of market research ought to take no longer than 15 minutes The shorter the survey your survey, the more likely to have people complete the survey.
Better yet, if you would like to push your research to a higher stage and achieve higher completion rates, you shouldn't submit an email survey.
Do it in person or over an online meeting. The average response rate of in-person surveys nearly double the rate of response for online and email surveys.
This is beneficial for a few motives, but the most crucial is through webcams or even in person, you'll be able to discern signals you might otherwise miss in a static online survey.
After all, it is true that only 7 percent of all communication can be dictated through the exact words that are spoken. Other 93% of communication comes from nonverbal cues like the body language, facial expressions and the tone of voice.
Furthermore, when you meet people face-to–face, you'll get an opportunity to dig more deeply into their worries and thoughts than a simple answer box would allow.
In addition, the more in-depth you get further, the more you'll come closer to understanding your customers as individuals -- which, if you'll recall it's no less than what the modern buyer wants.
Do your research and talk to them.
There's only one solution to meet their- and your business -- needs.
It's not an easy road however it's an enjoyable one.
Understanding your clients is essential to creating a business that outshines the competition and delivers better experience for customers.
While it's not a simple process it's not difficult, either.
The steps are fairly easy in reality:
Start by determining your goals and capturing them. This process is important greater than what people usually believe it is.
Review the product of rivals to find patterns and opinions about your prospective customers.
Utilize the research on keywords to find out the things people are looking at in your business and the way they search for it.
Then, use surveys to discover why customers are searching for these identical things. The more specific information received from your customers the more valuable.
Better yet, make it even more enjoyable by incorporating authentic interactions. There will be more insight and higher rates of response, as well as a greater chance of knowing your customers.
Sounds easy, right?
This is because it is, which makes it an unanswerable reason why brands don't capitalize on customer research.
But then -- their loss is your opportunity.
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