Identifying what your customers really want and need matters, regardless of the size of your business or the industry sector you serve.
Running a business based on your own ideas and assumptions about your target market simply shouldn’t be done. By establishing your customer base’s exact wants and needs, you can successfully provide solutions to their problems and grow the loyal following every business strives for. The right research can help you effectively communicate with and support new and existing customers to up your chances of gaining repeat business.
Getting into the minds of your core demographic, however, can be a minefield. With different customers buying your products or using your services, it can be difficult to define a formula that works for all. Read on to discover how you can identify your customer needs and give your target audience exactly what they want.
Go straight to the source
Asking your existing customers for feedback directly is the simplest route to understanding your customers’ most basic wants and needs. This is a strategy that’s relied on by big and small brands alike, and although time consuming, can help you reap the rewards of having a better understanding of your core demographic.
There are many ways to gather customer feedback, measure satisfaction, and gain insights to influence your business roadmap. You can even talk to customers direct via individual interviews and focus groups to gather opinions and understand the motivations of your target audience as a whole.
Use technology to your advantage
Sending emails to customers who have already interacted with your brand is the most common way to request feedback and get to know your customer needs on a deeper level. There’s much value in a personal email, with the response tending to be more candid and the feedback more constructive as a result.
You can also encourage customers to complete surveys on-site and via social media to collect data appropriately. When conducting online surveys, keep it short and sweet for maximum engagement.
Conduct your own social experiment
Social listening is the monitoring of your social media channels. You’ll monitor and analyse mentions of your brand, your products or services, your competitors, and specific keywords and topics to listen intently to what your customer base has to say.
These mentions, comments and responses can be tracked and studied to gather incredible, readily available market research in real time and effectively drive your business forward.
Look to your competitors
Competitor analysis is a vital part of market research, and for good reason. By keeping a beady eye on competitors, you can better understand what customers expect and need. Using this information, you can take steps to better serve your own customers and even go one better than your competitors.
In addition to conducting your competitor research manually, there are tons of helpful tools to undertake competitor analysis on your behalf meaning you can discover what makes your target market tick at the click of a button.
Need some help with growing your business?
The team at TEDCO Business Support has helped thousands of businesses to grow, supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), so we’re here to support you as your team grows.
Get in touch with our team today to see how we can help you. Give us a call on 0191 516 61 02 or drop us an email at hello@tedco.org.