For marketers, understanding customers is an essential part of the creative process. How do you connect with consumers? What do they value? What captures their interest? Market research is the obvious go-to, but I still see marketers grumbling when they need to gather customer insights. There's really no need for that!
Common Sense
Beyond numerical data from Google Analytics, GFK market data, and spontaneous customer feedback in reviews or to customer service, there is a regular need among marketers (in the broadest sense of the word) for in-depth, qualitative insights that reveal the underlying motivations, emotions, and needs of consumers. By better understanding why consumers make certain choices and how they feel about a product, brand, or experience, you can gain inspiration for more effective and empathetic marketing campaigns, better align products with market needs, and refine retention strategies. Quantitative research methods, like online surveys, provide valuable information but often fall short when it comes to uncovering the underlying motivations and emotions of consumers. Qualitative research, such as focus groups and in-depth interviews, allows you to dig deeper into the thoughts and feelings of consumers, but it is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and often limited to a small number of respondents, which sometimes causes the results to be taken less seriously within an organization. Companies with relatively small budgets, in particular, find it challenging to allocate a significant portion to market research. It often feels more logical and quicker to rely on common sense (which, by the way, isn’t a bad thing).
Facing the Music
When results disappoint, questions inevitably arise from the board: How did this happen? Why did we choose A over B, etc.? And as a marketer, it's very inconvenient if you don't have a rationale (data, consumer insights) to back up your decisions. Without hard data or solid insights to support your choices, you're left empty-handed and find it difficult to justify why certain strategic decisions were made. In the fast-paced environment where marketers often have to make decisions quickly, it’s helpful to have access to reliable and valuable consumer insights so that decisions can be made not only faster but also with more confidence. Such data not only serves as direct evidence for the choices made but is also relevant for proactively anticipating changes and adjusting strategies before they negatively impact results.
Yeah, yeah, here we go: AI again, right?
Let’s not talk about AI itself, but rather the opportunities available to marketers to easily access valuable insights. Here are three ways to quickly and efficiently gather valuable consumer insights:
AI AGENTS
What are they? AI agents are the future of artificial intelligence and are gaining popularity as the technology advances. These software programs perform tasks for users, automate processes, make decisions, and communicate intelligently with their environment. Unlike traditional chatbots, AI agents are capable of executing more complex and advanced functions.
What’s the benefit? AI agents save you time by automatically collecting large amounts of data from various sources (such as social media, customer reviews, and online surveys), recognizing patterns and trends that might remain unseen by human analysts, rapidly analyzing data, developing marketing campaigns, and assisting in making data-driven decisions.
Effort or ease? It's helpful to use expert agents to guide your AI agents with the right prompts and input. The power lies in combining multiple agents to work together on a task, such as an Insights Expert Agent, a Creative Ideation Agent, and a Content Creator Agent. The effort is mainly in the initial setup (which is still manageable in terms of cost and time), and then it’s smooth sailing.
UNMODERATED CONSUMER INSIGHTS
What is it? Without the intervention of a researcher (moderator), hundreds or even thousands of consumers can be interviewed simultaneously. Consumers can respond via text, video, or voice, and not only are their responses recorded, but follow-up questions can also be asked to delve deeper into underlying motivations.
What’s the benefit? You want to gain a deeper understanding of responses and the underlying motivations without spending too much budget on qualitative research.
Effort or ease? Based on a few key questions and the research goal, AI can pose relevant follow-up questions. This requires little effort and delivers fast and valuable results. The purchase of such a tool can be somewhat costly, but you can access it through research agencies.
ONLINE QUAL & QUANT INSIGHTS
What is it? In online surveys, you can also ask many open-ended questions, allowing you to combine quantitative data with qualitative insights.
What’s the benefit? You can ask precisely the questions you want and receive a thorough analysis of all the responses. If you use AI agents, they can also inspire you with new insights.
Effort or ease? Especially when targeting a mainstream audience, you often have hundreds of completed responses within a day that can be immediately analyzed. So, “overnight insights” is not a fantasy. It requires little effort on your part, and small-scale research is now always cost-efficient.
In short, if you’re feeling a bit reluctant, it’s actually quite easy to gather customer insights. You can experiment on your own or collaborate with a good consumer insights partner to handle it for you. It doesn’t hurt, and it’s done in no time!
I promise.
Marjolein van Ballegooij [Source: https://www.marketingtribune.nl/algemeen/weblog/2024/08/column-klantkennis-van-mokken-naar-makkie/index.xml]
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