When you’re setting up your new brand, and you have an amazing product or service you want to market, you need to conduct audience research so you can identify your target audience.
Consumer research is key to finding more about your potential consumer. You will probably have a rough idea of who you want to sell your product or service to, but research will be able to confirm whether they’re interested or not, and how they normally interact with brands on a regular basis.
Keep reading to learn more about the different types of market research you ought to be conducting along with the benefits of what this research can bring.
What are the benefits of conducting audience research?
Conducting audience research allows brands to collect valuable insights about their intended target audience, and with this knowledge, it can bring businesses a whole host of benefits including:
Clearly defined buyer personas
By conducting audience research you can clearly define your buyer persona. This research allows you to truly understand your audience – what they think, how they act, what they like and dislike for example. This then allows you to streamline your business strategy and tailor your marketing efforts for your ideal audience.
Tailored marketing comms
With a clearly defined buyer persona, you can create bespoke marketing campaigns and specifically target those who are more likely to be interested in your products or services. Tailoring your comms means your leads are more likely to turn to conversions because you’re delivering content they want and like, and allows you to resonate more with your audience.
Provide a better customer experience
Because you’ve taken the time to truly understand your target audience, you’re able to provide a better customer experience at every touch point from purchasing, to shipping, to after sales. Through the consumer research you’ll have conducted, you’ll understand your customers’ pain points, meaning you can deliver a positive experience that exceeds your customers expectations, leaving them with a positive impression of your company.
What are the different types of market research methods?
Primary research is going to be the most beneficial method of research. This simply means that you will be conducting the research first hand rather than using a source that already has been collated. Secondary research can be great for wider insights, but it’s not going to be as specific to what you may be looking for and you also need to be careful that it’s from a reliable source. So, what market research methods can you use to find out more about your audience?
Interviews & focus groups
Hosting interviews and focus groups are a great way to find consumer insights. Interviews are great if you plan to ask personable questions when you’re focusing on just finding information purely about that person.
For a more in-depth discussion, focus groups are better to conduct as people often become more open and relaxed. People also tend to bounce off each other’s comments and are encouraged to think of things they may not have before. During focus groups, you can ask questions about brand experiences they have enjoyed in the past, what they would like to see from brands and more. You aren’t just limited to questions, you can get them to test out experiences and see what they think or watch how they interact.
Surveys & feedback
Posting surveys and asking for feedback can bring you quick results, but keep the questions to multiple choice as people tend to be very vague in any questions they may have to start typing out.
With surveys, you can ask general questions about the person like what they enjoy doing or what their age or occupation is for example. You can also add questions about whether they enjoy shopping in a certain way or even questions about the products and services you’re offering. Once you’ve pulled some data, you should be able to see what type of people will actually want to use your product or service.
Feedback is something you should be asking for once you’re already offering out your service and products. Your consumer won’t always stay the same, as trends may make their buying habits or daily life errands change. You can ask questions like where they found you and what device they used to shop with you. These types of questions are going to help you with finding out where your consumer is finding you and whether they’re enjoying their experience with your brand or not.
Create a buyer persona
We’ve already mentioned this, but a buyer persona is simply a profile of your ideal consumer, almost like making a Facebook profile by including their details and interests. These help you to visualise what your ideal consumer is like.
When it comes to creating a persona, you can either use a real person that you have interviewed, or you could even make up your ideal customer. You want to be making at least 5 different buyer personas to create some variety. Some information you could include could be:
- A name
- Age
- Gender
- What they do for a living
- What their hobbies are
- Where they shop
- What they read
- What they like to do at the weekend
- What they like to eat or drink
- What tech they use
Alongside this information, you could also create a mood board to make the persona come to life. If you’ve interviewed someone previously, you could take a photo of them in their personal space (with permission, of course) or get them to write a ‘day-in-the-life’ blog to coincide it.
Once you’ve conducted some of these market research methods, and have created your personas, you should understand your consumer, how they interact with brands and what they do on a daily basis. You’ll even learn the basic things like what age group or demographic they sit in. This type of information means you can alter your marketing comms, styles and placements to target your audience.
Let us help you conduct your audience research
If you need help conducting your audience research, be sure to get in touch with us today. We can do all the hard work for you and help you find your target audience. We can help you understand who they are, what they do and how to reach them as well as devise a digital marketing strategy so you can market your product or service.