Your customers are real people. Their needs, concerns and motivations are increasingly dynamic and changing in today's chaotic world of layoffs, budget cuts and other general concerns of the global economy.
This is why companies are trying to get to know their customers better: Some large companies can display complex profiles that describe their target customers, including information such as their jobs, needs and goals. Although this is useful and important information, it is currently not enough to establish effective relationships with their customers.
Today, it is necessary to understand what they are thinking on a daily basis, to understand what they need, why they need it, and the motivations they have to reach and meet their needs. This knowledge is crucial to navigate the stormy oceans of today's economy, but, perhaps even more importantly, this information can lead you to a safe harbor.
Many leading companies and SMEs are therefore aware of the importance of allocating resources to effectively analyse their market by actively listening to online communities and social networks. Market research can enable your company to discover new ways to connect with your customers, learn from them and obtain results more efficiently.
Executives today understand the importance of engineer data solid market research. More than ever, they understand that they need this valuable information to make sound decisions and innovate their products and services . That is why online consumer communities and social networks have long been used as effective methods of obtaining information.
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Below we present three of these proven methods to achieve similar goals in your company.
1- Social networks as a means to observe and understand.
Social media is an ideal environment to listen to the voice of consumers : useful information can be obtained from them about their ideas, concerns, desires and motivations. This can be achieved by interacting with enough members, simply motivating them to be part of the community and converse. However, in many cases, passive listening will be enough to clear up any doubts about our business processes, products or services.
In addition to these unstructured conversations, it is also possible to explore with targeted activities, such as blogger articles, consumer panels, videos, infographics, etc., all of which can supplement or even replace other activities with a greater cost in time and resources, such as focus groups or advanced market research.
Structured conversations provide a rich aspect to the company’s social environment, and guided activities provide active information gathering. Both can give us a broader view of our consumers…and do so very quickly.