Market Research Vs Market Reality – A #DigitalMarketing
Insight
I am focusing on Consumer #Marketing Research, its
traditional methodologies and how it has evolved in the digital era.
Why do we need to do market research? #MarketResearch can enable one to identify the
target consumer, find out what they think about on certain ideas, products or
brand and gather insights to help you target the right market. Through market
research we gather information to identify and define marketing opportunities
and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor
marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process. (Source:
Wikipedia)
Traditional #Marketers may recall every time we
intend to do all or some of the activities mentioned above, we used to spend precious
time in meeting couple of market research agencies and short listing the best (?)
Then you go through those briefing, discussions, brainstorming sessions with
the internal and market research team. Going back and forth the questionnaire,
identifying the target audience so on and so forth… finally you will probably
get some results 3-4 months down the line and even more. When the results shows
up… some agree some doesn’t; some are satisfied and some are not. In some cases
by the time the results are out the data and information may become irrelevant.
Then we are not quite sure whether the research results and samples were
accurate or not. We spend lot of time and money and yet remain skeptical on the
results…
In my opinion in this digital era the relevance of
traditional consumer market research and its methodologies have significantly
reduced. Those cumbersome methods for collecting information, managing and
implementing the data collection process, analyzing the results etc seems to be
thing of the past…
What is Market Reality?
Constraints of market research are that it is hypothetical
and not real. In Digital space all the data and information on what customers
actually doing online is captured. Thus Digital marketing relies on market
reality. Entire process starts with the consumer and start backwards. There are
many analytical tools available to understand, know and gauge the market reality.
Digital analytical tool such as #KeywordResearch tool, listening tools for #SocialMedia
channels and Analytical tools enables you gather enormous data and information about
your prospective consumers and what they think about your product, brand and
business. Marketers can gather ocean of valuable market information across
various #digitalmarketing channels. The variety and kind of data we can gather
is humongous and mindboggling. Very
briefly, I have attempted to give
you a flavor of what on how we can make use of Market Reality.
Through keyword Research find out which are the #keywords
that are driving traffic to your site, it throws invaluable information on
audience interest. Generating content around what audience need increases the
engagement levels. Relevant content drives more traffic thus increasing engagement
levels which leads to conversions. Keyword analysis can offer you insights into
marketing behavior and trends. Keywords tell you what is on the mind of your
current and potential customers. You
will be finding out what is important and popular among your audience and you
may use this information to stay relevant. You will be able to grasp the trends that are constantly changing and use this opportunity
for your business.
#SocialAnalytics
lets you track the performance on each social network (#Facebook, #Twitter,
Pinterest, #Google Plus, #LinkedIn etc) all in single dashboard. This saves you
a lot of time and efforts. You will be able to track the ROI from of social
media marketing campaigns, measure the impact of your social engagement, Find
out which social networking site is giving you good results and which are not. Modify
your social marketing plan accordingly while making necessary changes to your
activities in social channels which were not yielding good results. #SocialMedia analysis throws out tremendous
information on perceptions of the brand, favorable or otherwise. Monitoring
conversations about product/brand/organization will provide sentiments of
consumers. You will be able to get better insights about your target market and
possible new markets. What next? Identify new product/service opportunities.
Get the feedback about potential product or service problems.
You will be able to track various advertising
channels (search, social, Banner and display ads), affiliate networks, and email
campaigns through analytics. You can see the conversion rates of different ads
placement and the conversion rate of your landing pages. The data provides
useful information for remarketing campaigns. You will be able effectively
target prospects who have shown signs of interests on your products through
your ads with appropriate alignment to their interests.
I have not even scratched the surface on the possibilities of data and information we can gather.
Summary:
Thus, it is time to tap in to ‘Market Reality’ and make best use of it for marketing. Your consumers are talking about your brand, product and organization. And it is all online. The digital space and age has given them more power to speak their mind. This is good news for marketers… you can collect, process and analyze this invaluable information. It is more accurate, Real Time, fast and in some cases does not cost money. There are many analytical tools available some are basic and some advanced, paid and free. #GoogleAnalytics is one amazing tool one can explore. No matter what tool you use, key is using them effectively and realizing the fact that ‘Market Reality’ provides great opportunity for marketer how marketers can capitalize on this goldmine of information.
Your Feedback is important:
I would appreciate if you can give your honest feedback on the topic.
Do you agree with me and like this?
Also, please share your suggestions so that I can include that in my blog.
Twitter: @shenoyhs
LinkedIn: http://in.linkedin.com/in/shenoyhs/
I would appreciate if you can give your honest feedback on the topic.
Do you agree with me and like this?
Also, please share your suggestions so that I can include that in my blog.
Twitter: @shenoyhs
LinkedIn: http://in.linkedin.com/in/shenoyhs/