Emerging technological advancements are transforming market research forever. As many consumers move online, the way brands identify and understand consumer needs is being reimagined.

Many technology trends disrupt the market research industry —from data collection and new product launches to tracking brand performance. This blog post will focus on the breakthroughs in technology impacting brand tracking and product performance tracking.

Stay ahead

Get regular insights

Keep up to date with the latest insights from our research as well as all our company news in our free monthly newsletter.

Brand and performance tracking refers to the process of continually measuring brand health over a period within the target audience. It allows brands to measure the performance of a product in relation to its competition. After a new product is launched, market research helps brands gauge performance to stay competitive. 

With consumers increasingly moving online, brands can tap into new, vast, and reliable consumer behavior data in real-time. This has also made Direct to Consumer marketing much more common. Brands like Happy Human (Singapore), Dime Beauty (U.S.A.), Joi (Malaysia), Sleepy Owl (India), Recess (Philipines), Adopt a Cow (China), and Knot (Japan) have eliminated the middleman to create, develop, sell, and distribute their products directly to the end-user. The absence of middlemen and brick-and-mortar stores allows them to maintain quality and reduce prices. But this is not all. These brands also have the added advantage of measuring performance directly without employing market research across several retail outlets. They can discover brand sentiment directly, making them more agile, nimble, and competitive. 

While there is still a place for traditional research methodologies, technologies like machine learning, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, and chatbots continue to reinvent the market research industry. 

Let’s look at the primary technologies in brand tracking and competition analysis that are changing the face of market research. 

E-commerce brands utilize price monitoring software technology to track competitor pricing.

In the fiercely competitive E-commerce world, the key to outperforming the competition is tracking and monitoring the price competing brands charge for similar products and services. Brands need to keep a keen eye on their competitor’s pricing strategy and price changes over several products to stay competitive, and that’s not an easy task even for larger companies. 

This is where e-commerce price monitoring technology comes into play. 

Ecommerce price monitoring software allows brands to track their competitor’s price changes and dynamically adjust their pricing. 

By employing this type of software, brands can stay abreast with competitor pricing and adjust pricing based on demand, competition, and inventory levels. 

Many such tools are available in the market, including Minderest, Price2Spy, and Prisync, with sophisticated matching technology and high levels of accuracy. 

Market research utilizes machine learning and A.I. for brand and performance tracking to revamp advertising and messaging. 

While some grey areas are associated with A.I. in other fields, the market research industry has embraced this technology.

One of the things brands need to track constantly is how their messaging is resonating with the target audience and how the market perceives their brand. This is because a brand is not just the logo and tagline. It is a sum of all parts and is an overall feeling that tells a narrative and evokes sentiment and emotion in the audience. 

Technology helps brands better understand brand performance and perception to inform better decision-making. It allows brands to measure and bridge the gaps between their intent and how the audiences interpret and perceive their message.

The use of A.I. in brand tracking has allowed market researchers to analyze qualitative surveys at a fraction of the time taken by manual data collection methods. Furthermore, this enables them to ask more open-ended and follow-up questions, find the right panelists faster, eliminate bias, write reports quickly, and significantly improve the quality of their surveys and reports. 

In today’s dynamic digital marketplaces, A.I. is powering brand tracking to gauge the changing consumer perceptions. 

Sentiment analysis is a sub-category of A.I. and N.L.P., which automatically uncovers feelings, emotions, and sentiments behind plain blocks of text. It is extensively used in brand tracking because it is efficient, reliable, and accurate. 

Over 45 percent of the world is on social media. There are about 500 million tweets per day, and about 1.96 billion people worldwide use Facebook every day. Consumers constantly call out brands on these social media platforms and review sites. It would be overwhelming and near impossible to collect data manually. Brands can effectively gauge overall brand sentiment across platforms and channels online using automated tools. 

For instance, when the popular ride-sharing service, UBER, launched a new version of its app, it used social media monitoring and text analytics to measure user sentiment about the new version of the app. Eye-tracking technology works similarly and can track users’ engagement scores and emotions on a website. 

There are several brand tracking tools available for brands. Candymaker Mars used one such tool that combines the standard digital video metrics, like view-through rates and skip rates, with facial expression tracking of the viewers while watching the ad using an A.I. algorithm.

While the tool measures digital behaviors, it puts enormous weight on gauging emotion and sentiment. This technology is essential to track brand performance in a world plagued with minuscule attention spans. It allows brands to obtain a complete picture of consumer perception. 

Many technologies use participants’ webcams to track their facial and emotional responses while viewing ads, providing invaluable data used to inform sales forecasts. 

Chatbots are aggregating vast amounts of consumer data.

The usage of chatbots as a communication channel between brands and consumers has increased by 92 percent since 2019. 

As many consumers shop online, they engage with chatbots, making them the fastest-growing brand communication channel.  

A survey found that up to 80 percent of users answered questions, three times higher than responses from email surveys. 

Brands like IKEA are using chatbots to gather valuable consumer feedback. Companies use Whatsapp and Facebook messenger to measure consumer sentiment and feedback efficiently. 

The use of brand tracking cannot be overemphasized. It allows brands to understand how their current audience perceives the brand. It can also lead brands to uncover until now undiscovered target audiences. 

With brand tracking software, brands can see the true impact of their campaigns. Brand tracking holds the key to insights any brand needs to thrive. Using the right tools and technology, brands can obtain actionable information about the brand perception among the target audience and how it scores against the competition.

A brand is one of the most valuable assets of an organization. It is, therefore, critical to continually measure satisfaction, awareness, and perception. Incorporating brand tracking into their marketing strategy can help brands understand their target audiences and consumer needs and make more profitable marketing decisions. Technology has made it easier to uncover massive data sets to monitor a brand effectively and accurately. By combining this technology with digital metrics, brands can increase their competitive advantage.

Just like we need a GPS to take us from point A to Point B, businesses need to intuitively map their customer’s journey to ensure they are moving through the process. But instead of plotting it physically on a map, brands need to use technology to visualize each touchpoint the customers interact with when they engage with them. 

Today, customers interact with brands multiple times on various platforms, and brands need to funnel them to continue moving forward. 

Stay ahead

Get regular insights

Keep up to date with the latest insights from our research as well as all our company news in our free monthly newsletter.

What is customer journey mapping?

A customer journey map is a visual plotting or representation of customers’ experiences and touchpoints with a brand. It tells the complete story of a brand’s relationship with a customer, starting with the first engagement and moving toward a path to purchase and becoming a loyal customer. 

Journey mapping is not a single instance or solution; it is a process that integrates every facet of an organization, from marketing to sales to customer service.

Why Customer Journey Mapping is Invaluable for Brands

Today, customers expect a lot from each interaction with a given brand. Personalization, consistency at each touchpoint, and relevance are not just “good to have” anymore; they are necessary to drive conversions and brand loyalty. 

Customer Journey Mapping is beneficial not only for sales and marketing but also for the creative team. Armed with this information, content creators can develop timely, relevant, personalized copy and speaks to the customer at each touchpoint. Designers can derive context from this information and design an elevated customer experience. 

Customer Journey Mapping is helpful for many reasons, and it primarily helps with the following three steps:

1. Identify all touchpoints to understand the customer experience better.

Customer Journey Mapping helps you construct a seamless and intuitive customer experience through every touchpoint. This is often missed by quantitative research.

For instance, a journey map may uncover a tremendous amount of online research in the discovery phase of a particular product or service. This would lead a brand to question how it appears on search engines and the content customers find when researching the product online. 

2. Get in tune with your customers at every step of the way.

Customer Journey Maps are visual aids that help understand the customers better at each touchpoint. It visually reveals patterns in customer behavior and emotions, and once these are identified, brands have an account of the steps that are working and those with gaps.

3. Identify gaps in your CX and lead your customers intuitively through the funnel.

Customer Journey Mapping aims to understand each touchpoint and ensure measurement tools are in place to help monitor each customer interaction. 

For instance, for a travel website, a customer’s journey starts when they search for airline tickets and cover all the steps through research, queries, finding tickets, booking them, making a payment, and receiving confirmations and other travel-related information. It includes signing up for a newsletter, recommendations to book hotels, prompting the user to check-in, and offering additional information. In a retail setting, Customer Journey Mapping would include the signage, lighting, store layout, temperature, smell, comfort, and other physical elements in addition to interactions with the employees. 

Customer Journey Mapping helps you fill gaps and focus on areas that need improvement for an intuitive and seamless customer experience. 

How to Get the Most out of Your Customer Journey Map

The ultimate goal of a Customer Journey Map is to improve the customer journey and move prospects through the funnel. This is because inefficient systems and interactions cause frustration amongst users and prospects, impeding conversions and sales. 

Below are a few tips to keep in mind when researching your customer journey.

  • Some brands do a great job acquiring customers but are not good at activating. Therefore, brands should include every touchpoint, like packaging, labels, messaging and ads, and social voice.
  • A Customer Journey Map should be a combination of analytics and customer feedback. Therefore, brands must gather quantitative data from multiple sources, including call center and CRM software, QR codes scanned, website and social media analytics, and other metrics.
  • It is essential to include post-purchase components into the Customer Journey Map. The relationship with the customer continues long after they purchase something. This helps you get repeat business, loyal customers, favorable reviews, and raving fans who will refer the product or service to others. 

How Market Research can help brands build Customer Journey Maps

So how do you use market research to help improve the customer experience? 

Let’s examine this with the example of a retail shoe store. You identified the salesperson as a critical touchpoint. You can use a focus group to experience the store just as they would if shopping for shoes. 

Ask them to identify the experiential element of each touchpoint, including what they see, smell, hear, and feel. The focus group will then prioritize what parts of the journey need improvement. They will provide insights on how easy it was to find what they were looking for, the annoying details, how the store stacks up to a competitor, and the customer satisfaction score. The brand can then build an action plan to improve the customer experience at their store. 

This is how the brand identifies gaps, determines development priorities, builds a plan to remedy the issues and bottlenecks, and allocates funds to optimize sales and Return on Investment (ROI). 

Customer Journey Mapping should be a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. 

Market research and building Customer Journey Maps allow brands to compare what they believe the customer journey looks like and what it is like in reality. When you combine the metrics and data with sensory components, you can experience the journey through your customer’s eyes. This “outside looking in” approach will significantly improve the customer experience and revenues.

Trusted by

Opponents of cannabis legalization often cite concerns about cannabis’s effect on public health, warning that increased accessibility will likely result in an increase in the abuse of cannabis and other substances. However, for a country in the midst of an opioid crisis, with an estimated 47,600 opioid-related deaths in 2017, research is needed to understand the relationship between cannabis and pharmaceutical use, as cannabis is often cited as an alternative to opioids for pain management. Research conducted by Kadence International, a global boutique market research agency, indicates a nation-wide increase, in the past year, in adult use of cannabis to treat pain and other medical issues, often as a substitute for pharmaceuticals or alcohol.

In a national survey with over 2,000 adults, Kadence found that one in five (20%) adults report they have used cannabis in the last 12 months. Of those cannabis consumers, eight in ten (81%) use cannabis for at least one medical reason, an increase from 72% in 2018. Compared to 2018, significantly more adult cannabis users reported using cannabis to help treat anxiety (48% to 58%), sleep issues (39% to 53%) and pain or inflammation (40% to 49%). Many say they use cannabis for more than one of these therapeutic reasons.

While the vast majority of adult cannabis consumers believe that consumption of cannabis is safer than alcohol (92%), people who say they use cannabis for at least one therapeutic reason are more likely to state that their alcohol consumption has decreased as a result of their cannabis use (51% pain users, 48% anxiety users, 49% sleep users vs. 42% average). They are drinking less because they perceive cannabis to be less harmful, healthier and state that cannabis helps them feel better than alcohol. When asked whether they would prefer to consume cannabis or alcohol while doing different popular activities, the vast majority of these users would prefer cannabis over alcohol in nearly all situations. How else do these therapeutic users differ from the average cannabis consumer?

More than 1 in 4 (27%) adult cannabis consumers report that they use cannabis as a substitute for at least one prescription or over-the-counter medication. They are most commonly replacing pain medications with cannabis (21%), followed by sleep aids (17%) and anxiety medications (17%). Many choose cannabis over traditional pharmaceuticals because they feel it effectively relieves a combination of their symptoms. A notable 14% of adult cannabis consumers are using cannabis as a substitute for prescription pain killers/opioids, largely due to perceptions that cannabis is a “much safer”, “more natural” way to treat pain with “fewer side effects”. Interestingly, although there is no difference between opioid replacers and other cannabis consumers, with three in four living in states where cannabis is at least medically legal, opioid replacers may be obtaining their cannabis from the black market more than the average US cannabis consumer, as 61% said they usually buy from somewhere other than a dispensary, compared to 52% of total cannabis consumers.

Kadence’s data indicates there may be an opportunity for medical professionals and dispensaries to help combat the opioid crisis by targeting these black market cannabis purchasers, particularly in light of the recent vaping illnesses, thought to be coming more from black market products than regulated products available in dispensaries.

Stay ahead

Get regular insights

Keep up to date with the latest insights from our research as well as all our company news in our free monthly newsletter.

Across all of these findings, there are no significant differences between cannabis consumers in medically or recreationally legal and non-legal states. Furthermore, the research found that not only cannabis consumers but the majority of adults nationwide believe that we are just beginning to discover the power of the cannabis plant for medicinal purposes (69%) and state that cannabis should be taken off the schedule 1 drug list so that its medical benefits can be explored more freely (69%).

The key point is this: regardless of whether or not they live in legal states, the data shows that adult consumers are already turning to cannabis for symptom relief, often choosing cannabis over pharmaceutical treatments or alcohol.  With increased accessibility, product sales could be more effectively converted from the black market into legal channels where they can be regulated appropriately and taxed handsomely. This also makes more thorough research possible for pharmaceutical companies, medical professionals and public health researchers, and expands product innovation opportunities for brands and manufacturers across a wide range of categories. After due diligence, ultimately, the potential health and well-being benefits of cannabis can be made available, through appropriate channels, to more adult consumers in need.

 Download the full research to learn more about trends in cannabis usage in the US. 

Big data and advanced analytics are hot. Voluminous sets of data can be processed automatically using technology. But the data becomes useful only when it is converted into meaningful information. While Big Data has become the buzzword today, it is of little use if it’s not profitably analyzed.

The global Big Data and Analytics market is worth USD 274 billion. Around 2.5 quintillion bytes worth of data is generated each day. There are currently over 44 zettabytes of data in the entire digital universe.

So what is big data exactly, and how does it impact companies?

Stay ahead

Get regular insights

Keep up to date with the latest insights from our research as well as all our company news in our free monthly newsletter.

Big data refers to large sets of data obtained from multiple sources, like medical records, government records, customer databases, mobile applications, search engines, business transactions, social networks, and other massive data sources. Big data may be structured or unstructured, allowing brands to manage large amounts of data more efficiently. Many organizations are moving away from legacy systems and consolidating data to make the research process seamless, cost-effective, and efficient. 

Technologies like text analytics help market researchers examine large amounts of information and data in real-time to track consumers’ sentiments and detect potential brand reputation issues before they become serious. 

Big data market research is invaluable for brands as it combines consumer and behavioral data with advanced analytics to enable faster decision-making that yields improved business outcomes. When big data and market research converge, everyone wins because it results in better, more relevant products and services for the consumer and a competitive advantage for the brand.

Big data and market research convergence allow brands to dig into data to uncover the “why” behind the numbers. Let’s say, for instance, a brand uses data mining to discover a sudden decline in the market share for a high-end product in a specific market. Using market research methodologies, it studies a sample of consumers that have exhibited a change in buying behavior to unearth what led to the change. Was it a new product that entered the market, or did they reduce spending due to the economic climate?

These reasons are not presented in the data, and market research can help uncover the “why” behind a data set. 

Today, the digital consumption of information, products, and media makes everything measurable on a large scale. Social media analytics is an example of big data used on a massive scale globally. 

How does big data impact business?

A 2020 study showed that around 94 percent of organizations believe data and analytics are essential to growing their brand and supporting digital transformation. The study also found that the financial, hospitality, telecoms, and retail industries invest the most in big data and analytics. 

Big data in the Banking and Financial Services sector

The application of big data analytics has allowed financial services companies and banks to become more efficient, customer-centric, and competitive. This industry utilizes big data to make transactions, trading, and financial activities seamless for their employees and customers.

Retail and eCommerce

The eCommerce and retail industries collect data through their Point of Sale (POS) systems, loyalty programs, and website browsing behavior. It also helps with inventory replenishments. 

In the eCommerce industry, knowing your customers can unlock conversions and profits. Big data on real-time consumer behavior, purchase history, and consumer preferences can help online stores recommend the most relevant products and offer them to consumers at the right time. Big data enables e-stores to conduct competitive analyses and pricing to lure consumers. Above all, technology allows online retailers to offer personalization, superior customer service, and experience.

While these industries invest heavily in big data, they are not the only ones. Many sectors like manufacturing, logistics, media, oil and gas, and healthcare are investing large sums of money in adopting this technology to manage their data efficiently. 

Big Data analytics for the healthcare industry is expected to reach USD79.23 billion by 2028. 

For most companies, data is fragmented, and brands are looking for people who can analyze and use data to optimize all business processes and functions. 

Big data impacts not only the private sector but also the public sector. For governments, big data has many applications, including health-related research, financial markets research, fraud detection, public safety, transportation, and environmental protection, to name a few. 

Advantages of Big Data 

Massive organizations like Google, Facebook, and Amazon have proved how big data can build big brands. These organizations have capitalized on big data mining and analytics to grow their brands and boost market valuations. 

One of the most significant advantages of big data is the ability to make informed decisions based on hard data and facts. 

Big data is valuable for consumers too. In the information age, the consumer can access ratings, product reviews, and an easier means of providing instant real-time feedback. This allows consumers to make informed choices. 

What are the challenges with big data and analytics?

As recently as last year, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Jack Dorsey of Twitter had to testify before Congress about the steps they have taken to deal with data privacy. 

Consumers have become more data savvy and are concerned with privacy issues and breaches. <add stats on #s ready to share data for more relevant messaging)

Business outcomes are only as good as the data; high-quality data (link) is of utmost importance. Researchers and brands must be cautious about the data sources and methodologies to obtain the most accurate, reliable, and relevant data. 

The big data market is poised for phenomenal growth in the coming years. With the development of technology penetration across all areas of life, digitization, and the widespread use of smartphones globally, large amounts of data are produced every second. This has led to the need for data analysis and big data. 

As brands apply big data, they make data-driven decisions faster and can respond quickly to market changes. This has a direct impact on their bottom line. But data is not enough; there has to be a fusion of data science with marketing science to help market research become more effective.

Kadence International helps leading brands make game-changing decisions. If you are looking for a research partner to help better understand your customers, we would love to help. Fill out our Request for a Proposal here.

Understanding your customer is key to business success. Learn how to make your products or services meet customer pain points along the customer journey.

Customers make or break businesses. Companies that meet buyers’ needs are more profitable, while those that don’t will lose buyers and may fail.

Even so, some businesses pay little to no attention to customers’ expectations. Instead, they chase trends or pursue ideas from their top brass, assuming that they know what interests buyers. And companies that check on customer needs often don’t do so frequently enough to keep up with the rapidly changing world.

This guide is about understanding customer needs—what they are, why they matter, how to identify them, and how to use them to win more customers.

What are Customer Needs?

Simply put, customer needs are the physical or psychological factors that motivate a person to purchase a particular product or service. These can be as varied as the hundreds or millions of customers in your marketplace.

Physical motivators are anything that has a measurable or tangible cause. If a person is hungry, they’ll buy food. If they’re cold, they’ll buy a coat. If their car breaks down, they’ll have it repaired.

Psychological needs are emotional reasons for purchase, and they’re almost always more important than physical needs. Any food, coat, or repair shop would solve the problems above, so how does someone pick where to make their purchase?

Opinions, desires, and preferences shape most purchasing. That’s why things like convenience, pricing, reliability, reputation, service, and values often lead a customer to choose one company over the competition.

“Customer needs” are often called “pain points.” While not all marketing professionals agree that these terms are interchangeable, they are indeed similar. Customer pain points are specific problems that people need help solving. Pain points can happen all along the customer journey and can include any physical or psychological issues that stand in the way of their happiness, growth, or success.

No matter what term you use, understanding what motivates buyers in your marketplace is key to winning new business and keeping loyal customers.

Importance of Understanding Customer Needs
customer profiles

As the saying goes, the customer is king because they’re a company’s most valuable asset. Without a solid customer base, a business will eventually die.

Unfortunately, many sales and marketing leaders take for granted that they know what their customers need. These assumptions can be costly, resulting in lost business and lower customer retention rates.

Other organizations view customer feedback as criticism, which may have a negative connotation. Leaning into their critiques, however, allows you to flip problems into opportunities.

When a business takes the time to identify, anticipate, and meet customer needs regularly, it can expect to:

● Improve products/services: Understanding the motivations behind your prospective customers’ purchasing decisions will help you refine your offers. You can identify gaps in your offer stack or enhance existing offers with only limited development costs.

● Generate more sales: The better you know your customer base, the easier it will be to identify relevant marketing channels and cost-effectively promote targeted offers, increasing the likelihood of high-conversion sales.

● Deliver expected results: When you know what your customers need, you can plan appropriately to meet their expectations.

● Improve customer service: Customer service channels constantly evolve, so it’s imperative to keep up with customer preferences. Being available to customers where and when they prefer makes them feel valued and can give your company a distinct competitive edge.

● Boost customer retention: Anticipating, meeting, and even exceeding customers’ needs establishes trust and makes them feel valued and engaged in your business. This, in turn, creates loyal and repeat customers.

● Survive long term: Agile adaptation is key to long-term success in a fast-paced world where the customer needs frequently change. When your offers suit current needs, you’ll develop a reputation that attracts and retains more customers than the competition.

Managing Rapid Change

Another significant benefit of customer needs analysis is ensuring that your company keeps pace in a rapidly changing world.

One of the biggest challenges any company faces is remaining relevant to its target market in the modern world. Customer mindsets and behaviors change so quickly because they have more choice and opportunity than ever.

When consumers can easily switch to a new company with better products or services, it’s imperative to anticipate, predict, and plan for the future. Falling a step behind is a quick path to losing market share.

For example, the recent shift to mass homeworking and the international uptick in tech solutions to support the change has created entirely new pain points for millions of people.

In a short amount of time, the pandemic taught nearly everyone how to communicate online. Zoom has made tech-deficient industries like food service more accessible and shifted many consumers’ preferences from in-person or in-home to virtual options (even in once digital-resistant markets like Asia).

These types of changes have far-reaching tentacles that can affect consumer needs across a wide range of industries.

Avoid the temptation to use customer research as a tool for reflection. Instead, bring a wide-angle lens to work and examine what’s happening in your industry now and in the months and years ahead.

Stay ahead

Get regular insights

Keep up to date with the latest insights from our research as well as all our company news in our free monthly newsletter.

How to Identify Customer Needs

Understanding your customers shouldn’t be a guessing game based on experience or hunches. To get inside your customer’s mindset, you need to learn who they are and exactly why they need your product or service. The best way to do this is by asking them directly.

A customer needs analysis helps determine a company’s position in their market or how they stack up against the competition at meeting customer needs.The insights can be used to make changes to offers, marketing, and customer service to deliver the best possible value.

The first step in this process is to conduct customer research to understand customer behavior. You’ll use this information to create personas that provide a detailed description of your target audience.

There are several tried-and-true methods for gathering helpful customer feedback. While any one of them can be beneficial, you’ll get the most robust picture of customer needs by using more than one.

Conducting Customer Needs Research

The easiest way to identify your customers’ needs is to ask them. The goal of market research is to learn about your best customers’ backgrounds, what drives their purchasing decisions, their expectations for your product or service, and what challenges may get in the way of their satisfaction.

The most common tools for this type of research include:

1. Customer interviews

The most direct way to collect data is by having one-on-one conversations with existing customers. Interviews typically elicit the most detailed answers, but customers may be less forthcoming without the promise of anonymity.

2. Focus groups

Pulling together a small group of handpicked customers is a quick way to get more feedback. Hiring a market research firm allows participants to speak candidly. On the downside, individuals can sometimes become influenced by the opinions of others in the group.

Focus group research

3. Surveys

The fastest and most cost-effective method for gathering information from a large group of customers is a survey, typically using an online tool. On the downside, response rates tend to drop if the survey is too long or detailed, limiting how much information they provide.

With any of these methods, you’ll first need to craft questions that elicit the type of feedback you’re seeking. After gathering demographic information (age, marital status, location, occupation, etc.), it’s best to devise open-ended questions that allow the customer freedom to say anything without outside influence.

A few examples of helpful market-research questions include:

● What specific problem were you trying to solve when you chose our product/service?

● What made you choose us over a competitor?

● How well does our product/service meet your needs?

● What do you like most/least about our product/service?

● What challenges have you encountered with our product/service?

● What do you wish our product/service could do?

● How would you rate your experience with us?

● Would you recommend us to others (why/why not)?

Questions should primarily focus on your brand, competitors, and customers’ buying behavior and mindset. This may also include asking broader questions about their overall values, interests, and opinions.

While there’s nothing quite as valuable as a customer’s own words, it’s possible to get valuable insights without speaking directly with a person using social media listening or keyword research.

Social media listening is the process of analyzing online conversations and trends related to your brand and to your industry as a whole. It goes beyond monitoring basic metrics like mentions and followers to consider the mood behind the data instead.

People frequently head to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to candidly speak about products and services. Watching for this real-time feedback about what they like and don’t about your company or your competitors is a great way to identify opportunities for change or growth.

Keyword research looks at the popular keywords and terms related to your product or service that people type into search engines. For example, try typing an industry-related question into Google’s search bar and see what auto-suggestions pop up. This is a good glimpse into what problems your customers are trying to solve.

Also, use a tool like Moz Keyword Explorer or SEMrush to research words related to your offer and find similar keywords. Check the average search volume to determine what language your customers and prospects use to describe their needs.

Creating Customer Personas

target personnas

It’s a good idea to turn data you collect during customer research into a customer or buyer persona. This fictional representation of your ideal customer will ensure that every part of the customer experience is tailored to their needs.

Focus on your best, most loyal customers. What are the patterns and commonalities among them? What demographics do they share? What are their similar experiences, motivations, and opinions?

Distill all the data into one profile that includes the most common demographics and interests. Include answers to what needs, and pain points brought them to your solution, what considerations went into their purchasing decision, what objections they had, the competitors they considered, and what made them purchase from you.

If you serve multiple market segments or different types of customers, you may need more than one persona to address each group.

This fictional profile provides a simple, actionable snapshot of your prospective customers’ mindset and behaviors. It reveals the specific needs that drive them to choose you, a competitor, or no solution at all.

Customer personas typically include a fake name, stock photo, and beautiful design, but it’s unnecessary. Sharing the same information as a “customer needs statement” in a basic text document is also perfectly acceptable.

Either way, share the profile with your team to give everyone a deeper understanding of your customers’ needs. These profiles should guide everything from product development to prioritizing projects and marketing campaigns to customer service solutions.

Understanding Customer Behavior

Good customer research should uncover the many factors influencing your ideal customers’ purchasing decisions. The best research is robust enough to determine how customer mindset and behaviors change at various points along the customer journey.

The strategic practice of detailing these changes is called journey mapping. The goal is to outline the exact steps that customers take as they move from awareness to research and consideration, purchase and delivery, and finally (hopefully) to loyalty and brand advocacy.

If your research sample is large enough, segment the results based on where participants fall along the journey map. This allows you to analyze how your customer’s mindset and behavior changes over time.

Look for recurring trends or common roadblocks for each of the different stages. This added context can help you make more specific improvements to the entire customer experience.

How to Deliver on Customer Needs

Once you have all the necessary insights to identify your ideal customer and their needs along the buying journey, it’s time to put the information to good use.

First, review the research for any glaring problems that need a quick solution, especially anything driving customers away. Prioritize these issues and assign the appropriate staff to implement changes.

For example, if multiple customers expressed frustration about long wait times for answers to simple questions, you may decide to add a FAQ section or a live chat option to your website.

Customer research is about more than finding problems. Just as important is using the information to make proactive changes that allow your company to grow. Every part of your company can benefit from the insights of a customer needs analysis.

The key is to look for gaps between your business and customer needs. Finding innovative ways to reduce even minor gaps can make a significant difference in customer acquisition and retention.

Marketing

A customer needs analysis almost always offers insights for optimizing marketing efforts. The better you understand customer mindset and customer behavior, the more effectively you can tweak your marketing messages.

Use the data to speak specifically to the needs of customers at every point along the journey map. Your research should tell you exactly what will motivate them to make a purchase.

In addition to understanding what content will resonate best with customers, you’ll also know their preferred social media or other marketing channels.

Offer development

Asking questions about what customers wish your product or service did can help you discover areas for improvement or create an entirely new offer.

Examining the data to determine a need before taking action dramatically improves the success rate of new product or service offers.

Also, when you repeatedly and consistently conduct customer needs research, you’ll be more likely to notice a shift in market trends early. This can help you be the first to address a burgeoning need and capture market share before the competition.

Customer service

Identifying the varying needs of customers along the journey map can help you better tailor good service solutions. It’s easier to capture questions, comments, and suggestions when you know the preferred social media channels.

Knowing where roadblocks tend to occur along your customer journey map also allows the customer service team to provide perfectly timed help. This includes upsell and cross-sell offers that solve the exact problem that your customers face.

Customer retention

Studies have shown that acquiring a new customer costs at least 5x more than retaining one. The best use of a customer needs analysis is to devise methods for reducing customer churn and creating repeat, loyal buyers and brand advocates.

Customers’ expectations include special recognition when they’re a “good customer,” according to Accenture. Use your research to ask about ways your customers would like to be acknowledged (handwritten notes, social media shoutouts, discounts, etc.).

You can also ask questions to test whether a referral program might be beneficial in growing your market share.

Ongoing Market Research

Ongoing market research

After making changes based on customer research, communicate them to your customer base. Share the story of how you identified customer pain points and the efforts you took to resolve them. It demonstrates that you care about customer experience, which builds trust and increases engagement with your brand.

It’s also essential to ask for customer feedback on how well those efforts meet their needs. This is an excellent opportunity to send another survey and collect more data.

Your research shouldn’t end there, however. It should never end. Build feedback loops into your business operation so that you are constantly revalidating your unique selling proposition (USP) and always striving to understand your customers’ needs.

Keep a pulse on how your customers feel with interviews, surveys, and social media polls. Also, frequently review metrics like conversion rate, acquisition cost, and customer lifetime value to track how well you’re meeting customer needs.

Some businesses may assign a dedicated team to collect customer insights, while others may prefer to add it to the responsibilities of existing departments. Either way, develop a system for discovering, analyzing, and delivering on customer needs.

By creating a repeatable process, you’ll shine a bright light on customer experience and stay one step ahead of the competition on addressing customer needs.

According to research from Dentsu, understanding what represents a permanent shift in behavior versus a temporary change is the top challenge facing marketers right now. Our latest research study sought to answer this question and separate the long-term trends from the short-term fads. In this blog post, we’ll summarize the key trends from the full report: Which behaviors will stick and which will subside in a world without restrictions?

The report identified 4 key behaviors that will stick in a world without restrictions, as well outlining areas that represent opportunity for innovation and those behaviors that are less likely to become lasting changes.

The 4 key behaviors from the report are:

  • Cooking from scratch
  • Creating special occasions at home with food and drink
  • Learning new skills online
  • Online shopping.

Read the summary below or download the full report to learn where behaviors across a range of categories placed. The report also explores how the key behaviors and areas of innovation explored in this blog post will develop in future, pinpointing trends for brands to capitalize on.

Our approach to understanding sticking power

The research was carried out with 3,400 consumers across 10 markets (US, UK, Singapore, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam). The approach combined consumer views about the future, with metrics to assess long-term sticking power, namely how well different activities deliver against a range of attributes that are important to consumers when adopting and sustaining new behaviors.

Key behaviors for the future

1) Cooking from scratch

In the food and drink space, the existing trend towards cooking from scratch has been further accelerated and should be considered a key behavior for the future. When asked what activities they planned to continue doing as a result of doing them more during the pandemic, 85% of consumers said cooking from scratch.

2) Creating special occasions at home with food and drink

Interestingly, the research also found that creating special occasions at home with food is another behavior that is set to last, suggesting an opportunity for indulgent supermarket dine-in deals and DIY restaurant meal kits well beyond the pandemic. These behaviors have clear implications for hospitality. 57% of consumers say that in a world without restrictions, they expect to be going out for drinks less than before the pandemic and we see a similar picture when it comes to eating out (53%).

3) Learning new skills online

Lockdowns saw consumers learning new skills online as a way to keep themselves entertained. Interestingly, this is key behavior for the future, although this is a trend that has most potential in Asia. In APAC and South East Asia, online behaviors such as learning new skills digitally and gaming increased to a greater extent than in the US and the UK, despite living under restrictions for a shorter period of time.

Chart showing how the pandemic has impacted digital behaviours

4) Online shopping

Unsurprisingly, online shopping for products other than groceries is another key behavior for the future. The impact of this on bricks and mortar stores will be significant, with over half of consumers (51%) telling us that in a world without restrictions, they expect to be physically browsing stores less frequently than before the pandemic. There are other challenges for retailers to navigate. With 22% of consumers across the 10 markets we surveyed having moved further away from work since the start of the pandemic (with the exception of Singapore) and 52% saying they intend to use public transport less than before COVID, companies will have to reconsider their retail footprint.

Opportunities for innovation

The research also revealed opportunities for innovation. These include better supporting consumers with:

  • Their mental health
  • Eating healthily
  • Online video streaming.

These are areas where there is a strong desire amongst consumers to continue the activity, but it doesn’t deliver as strongly against the key attributes that matter to consumers when adopting and sustaining new behaviors. As such, improvement with the existing products and services is needed to see sustained behavioral change, representing an opportunity for brands.

Free report

Which behaviours will stick and which will subside in a world without restrictions?

Download the full report to see where behaviours across a range of categories placed and to learn more about how key behaviours will develop in future.

Download now

Short-term solutions for Covid-only

Activities such as domestic holidays and working from home are likely to be short-term solutions for Covid-only. In some cases, working from home was an enforced behavior and is not feasible in the long term. Only 62% of consumers say that they are likely to continue working from home in future. Whilst working from home is perceived to be time saving and convenient, some consumers don’t find it very rewarding or enjoyable, reflecting much of the current discourse in the media about workers being zoomed out and missing social interaction. As such, flexible, rather than fully remote working is likely to have a more lasting impact.

Stay ahead

Get regular insights

Keep up to date with the latest insights from our research as well as all our company news in our free monthly newsletter.

Low potential for lasting behavioral change

There’s also low potential for lasting behavioral change in the areas of socializing online, drinking alcohol at home and ordering takeout, which consumers are less likely to want to continue versus other behaviors in the study, and don’t deliver as strongly against the key attributes for adopting and sustaining behaviors.

Download the full report

To read the full findings, download the full report.

Trusted by