Consumer Insights should be the foundation of your company’s marketing strategy. Many advertising agencies include this as a service to their clients. They create a unique strategy to collect pertinent data before working on a large new campaign or for a yearend consumer review.
An online survey is a great way to start initial research. This can be done with anonymously through an online source to a blanket or targeted audience. From there, data can be easily analyzed. If you have room in your marketing budget, have your agency add some type of consumer research to the list of services they will be providing you in 2016.
Copy or strategy testing is also a tactic we advise. Agencies will use a focus group to test the proposed creative/copy to get real world feedback. You might think, I have this great idea, or not agree with the creative approach your agency is pitching at all. By acquiring a focus group you can have a real-world copy test to see how it will actually be perceived by consumers.
If you don’t have the budget to include hiring a marketing expert to do this for you, consider reaching out to your local high school or university to see if they have a marketing research project or intern that may be available to assist you in surveying in person. Even deploying a simple street team to take interviews on their smartphone or tablet, this way you can actually see your consumer’s reactions and find out about their pain points. Even researching simple media trends for your target market is helpful to find out about their media buying habits and their lifestyle/spending habits by generation usually leads to information that you will be surprised by.
If you’re looking to know your consumer better than they know themselves, contact the team at Midwest Marketing, we have the insights that will blow your mind!
