Posts Tagged ‘consumer insight’
Sometimes The Best Research Requires No Questions At All
Have you seen the ads for Hefty’s new kitchen garbage bag? It’s black instead of white.
Not a big deal you say?
A black kitchen bag may seem odd (most are white), but it is amazing in its simplicity because it solves a consumer need – it hides the mess.
In their research efforts, Hefty likely had people document their kitchens and observed what frustrated them most.
I’m sure the list included breaking bags, handles that break as you pull the bag out of the trash can, and bags that smell. And there are many bags that solve those problems on the market today, thanks to required R&D, time and money.
But even with all these innovations, one problem persisted – the trash mess seen on a white bag. Creating a black bag for kitchen use to hide the mess was almost too easy to answer.
All too often we spend time probing and asking questions when sometimes the best solution is to sit back, watch and listen. Doing so may provide you with a big idea that is simple to execute.
Chicken Diapers
Ten years ago, I doubt analytical chemist Ruth Haldeman would have ever dreamed she’d be selling diapers for chickens, but she is now the founder of ChickenDiapers.com.
Haldeman created this product so people “could spend quality time” with their chickens and not have to worry about the chicken poop.
As featured in this month’s Entrepreneur magazine, this successful company (revenues were not disclosed) was born out of consumer insight she observed on forums for chicken owners. In this case, people wanted to spend time with their chickens in their homes, but were frustrated by the mess.
What’s the lesson?
Consumer or customer insight is the key to developing or positioning products/services that people truly want, yet many companies rely on their often-too-knowledgeable opinions to evolve their product offering. Worse yet, they don’t evolve their product offering at all.
Years ago when consumers were frustrated with always having to be home for their pest control, companies like Orkin started offering outside-only treatments because they were more convenient for the consumer. The treatments were just as effective, but it wasn’t until consumers had become too busy to wait for the pest control technician that they were willing to try the more convenient service.
So how do you gain valuable insight without spending a lot of money on research? Look for forums or blogs that are written by your target audience.
A simple Google search or search on Technorati.com or Blogsearch.Google.com can provide you access to what is important to your audience. All you need to do is listen and determine how best to meet their needs.
Who knows, maybe you’ll invent the next chicken diaper.
How would you grade your marketing?
As business owners we often get too close to our product, our operations and our marketing that we lose the outsider’s perspective. We forget to think about how the audience is going to react to a specific innovation or marketing campaign even if we think it is the best thing since sliced bread.
A recent example of being too close is a campaign developed by Drake University.
The campaign promotes the Drake Advantage “your passion + our experience” and “your potential + our opportunities”. The Drake Advantage was concisely summed up as D+.
Oddly, D+ is not something I would want associated with an institution of higher learning nor receive from any educational environment.
Drake’s response was they wanted something “edgy and intriguing”.
One thing is for certain the campaign certainly has people talking about Drake University, just not the way they might have intended.
Business owners need to take risks and trust their guts, but even the greatest ideas should be vetted with an outside perspective.
If we get too close to our own thinking we often lose the ability to think objectively. And doing so can result in a failing grade.
Are You Listening?
Listening to the customer is the core of every sales training manual and customer service seminar, yet companies often fail to hear what is being said.
I recently attended the IIR Social Media conference, and heard many times over that corporate leadership didn’t want to hear about negative feedback from customers.
With social media playing a greater role as a resource to provide instant feedback, the customer voice is becoming more and more difficult to ignore.
- Betty White appeared on SNL two weeks ago due to an outpouring of support from fans on Facebook (probably the most entertaining SNL episode this season).
- Nestle recently announced a zero deforestation policy, after ignoring organizations like Greenpeace regarding their sourcing of palm oil
- IKEA’s typeface change caused an uproar that IKEA wasn’t aware of until Lisa Abend, a reporter for TIME International (and my sister), brought it to their attention
Even if your company is not actively participating in social media, here are some ideas to monitor what your customers think of your company, your industry and your competitors:
- Yelp, Kudzu, Citysearch – Regularly monitor these rating sites
- Search.Twitter.com – Twitter’s search engine. Just type in what you are interested in or use hashtags (#) before your word to see what comes up
- Social Mention, Alterian SM2 – free tools that give you a nice snap shot of what it is being said across social media channels
- Ripoff Report – when people are very unhappy, they’ll post it here
Social media may not be the right marketing tool for your business, but it is the right tool to help you listen to what your customers are saying.
Why March Madness and Vasectomies are a Perfect Match
When an idea speaks to its audience so clearly, it catches your attention.
It doesn’t have to come from an international ad agency or global ideation company. In fact, an idea that resonates with its audience can come from anywhere.
Case in point: The VAS MADNESS promotion from The Urology Team in Austin, TX. They have extended their hours during March to encourage men who may be considering a vasectomy to do it during the NCAA’s March Madness so they can recover while watching basketball all weekend.
While the creative execution might be lacking, you can’t argue with the idea. The number of men looking for any excuse to sit and watch basketball all weekend is significant. The Urology Team just tapped into that desire and gave men who were considering the procedure a reason to have it now.
With so many ways to tap into your audience like social media, surveys, blogs, forums and good old-fashioned conversations, I am sure there are many ideas that you can develop to connect with your customer base.
Who knows – maybe it will come to you during March Madness.
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To learn more about using social media for greater consumer insight attend IIR’s Social Media & Community 2.0 Strategies conference. To learn more visit http://bit.ly/d7mUWG and use code XM2205SMB to save 15%.
How Do You Handle Online Criticism?
We’ve discussed the role of Passive Social Media (monitoring social media) as a way to gain consumer insight about your company. The most difficult part (by far) is hearing criticism, but one that is important to your overall growth.
The February issue of Inc. has a great story on the social review site Yelp and the impact of consumer reviews on business. Inc. senior writer Max Chafkin lists the five steps in handling online criticism:
- Register – “Registering [on sites like Yelp] allows you to correct inaccuracies, receive alerts when you are reviewed and respond to your critics.”
- Breathe – “If there’s no way to respond to a review without being angry, profane or aggressive, don’t do it at all.”
- Be Gracious – “Apologize for what the customer didn’t like and offer to make it right.”
- Complain – “[Yelp] removes reviews in cases where there is a conflict of interest.”
- Avoid The Courts – “If you decide to sue, be ready for more attacks”.
The points Chafkin makes are great for handling negative reviews. It is equally important that you are not so blind to your business that you classify every negative review as wrong.
If you are a restaurant and you get negative reviews every Monday night, is there a staffing issue that needs to be addressed?
Are people frustrated with your return policy? If so, determine if you need to change your policy or just communicate it better at point of purchase.
If you see the same point come up review after review, recognize the trend and correct it quickly. When you communicate your changes, be sure to give credit to the people who brought it to your attention.
Doing so will go a long way to endear your audience and have them defend you against unwarranted negative comments.
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IIR’s Social Media & Community 2.0 Strategies conference will address “Cashing in on the Conversation”. To learn more visit http://bit.ly/d7mUWG and use code XM2205SMB to save 15%.
How Will New Consumer Habits Impact Your Business?
Many experts predict that new habits created in this current economic downturn will be long lasting. A recent article in US News by Rick Newman highlights the 17 ways consumer habits have changed. The impact is far reaching in regard to what people buy as well as how they buy.
The consumer is volunteering more, becoming more self-sufficient and doing away with the excesses they once “had to have”. Now is the time for you to rethink how you connect with consumers in your effort to meet their needs.
Here are Newman’s 17 Ways Consumers Are Changing:
- Less credit, more cash
- It is no longer about the monthly payment, but the total cost
- Greater suspicion of banks and business
- Being more resourceful
- Less brand loyalty
- Smaller is bigger
- Renting is popular again
- Less window shopping
- More closet shopping
- Decluttering
- Food frugality
- More gardening
- Less waste
- Less healthcare
- More negotiating
- More volunteering
- Redefining success
Consider how you can help simplify the consumer’s life. For example, proactively call your customers when it’s time for their next appointment or service, instead of sending them a reminder notice and waiting for them to reach out to you.
The more you can do to make that connection, the better your business will adjust to this new consumer.
FYI – lowering your price is not the answer.
Is Your Brand Indispensable?
Two years ago, who would have thought Coke and Energizer could ever be cast aside by retailers?
Well – it’s happening.
Costco recently announced it was no longer selling Coca-Cola products as a result of a price battle. CVS is dropping most Energizer products and will only carry Duracell and its private label. Following this trend, Wal-Mart continues to move towards its product mix goal of one top brand, one value brand and its private label.
Costco is betting people will continue to come to Costco and buy alternatives to Coke. CVS has used its customer shopping data to predict a minimal sales drop if they no longer sell Energizer.
What should all businesses take away from this?
Few brands are indispensable to the customer. In fact, you know your customers could find a pretty good alternative if you were no longer in business.
So what can you do to become as close to indispensable as possible?
Know your customers
- Why do they choose to buy your product/service?
- What do you offer them that they can’t get anywhere else?
- Why do they buy from your competitors if you aren’t available?
- What do your competitors offer that you don’t?
- How are they using your product or service?
- How do they use your competitor’s product or service?
(These questions can be easily answered through one-on-one interviews and quantified through online research.)
Know your competition
- What are they offering that you don’t?
- What makes them unique in the market?
- Do they partner with other companies?
Upon learning about your customers, develop service offerings that they can only get from your company. Some ideas could be:
- Guarantees
- Special hours
- Rewards programs
- Loyal customer specials
- Packaged service offering
- Something extra every time they do business with you (for example, a local Chinese restaurant gives you an extra appetizer as their way of saying thank you)
Why no mention of lowering prices on these lists? Making your brand indispensable is not about price; it is about creating value that your audience can not receive anywhere else.
How are you creating value to make your brand indispensable?
Post your comments so others can learn from what you are doing.
The Power Of Being Passive In Social Media
To me, marketing through social media falls into two camps: Active and Passive.
Active is when a company disseminates information through channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs.
Passive is about spending time listening to what consumers are saying about your company, your products, your competitors and your industry via social media.
In their efforts toward active social media marketing, companies post press releases on Facebook, put commercials on YouTube and talk about how great their service is on their company blog.
The greatest challenge, however, is making sure you have a large enough audience to warrant implementing a social media marketing plan. Spending hours on your company’s Facebook page to market to 75 “fans” is not a good use of your time.
Creating a strong passive social media strategy, on the other hand, can provide you endless insight into your audience and help you develop a more strategic active strategy.
Tools like Tweefind, Technorati, BlogSearch, plus searching YouTube and Facebook, can help you find out what is being said about your company in social media.
Passive strategy is also monitoring your competition. Techrigy and Vitrue can provide you a picture of what your competition is doing in social media.
This type of social media monitoring will bring you closer to the consumer. You see trends being created, identify problem areas and monitor consumer reaction to product changes.
This information allows you to improve your products and will drive your active strategy when, for example, you respond to consumers to help educate them on why you may do certain things.
Passive social media marketing in action:
A client of mine manufactured clay poker chips, so we monitored blogs, forums, etc. and found out people liked the chips, but didn’t like the powdery residue on the chips. The powder was there to protect the chips during shipping and went away after playing with the chips a few times. Upon our recommendation, they began including a note in the poker chip case explaining the residue and those comments went away.
If your company wants to develop a social media strategy, start with a passive strategy first. Figure out what is being said and who’s saying it. Once you have that knowledge your active strategy will be more compelling and successful.
Listening To Your Customers – Now Made Easier
This month I was introduced to Techrigy, a new marketing tool that measures your brand’s mentions in social media – blogs, twittter, facebook, message boards, etc.
Why use a tool like this? While you may use social media to proactively market your company, they are also accessible tools for your customers to talk about your company online. Monitoring these mentions can help you understand what is important to your customers, and help you learn from their experiences.
Techrigy will monitor your brand activity online and lets you dissect your data by demographics, sentiment (positive or negative comments), geography, days of the week and other metrics. It also identifies who writes about your brand the most; this can be helpful for marketing and customer service purposes.
It’s important that you know what people are saying about your company. Check out Techrigy. Free and Premium subscriptions are available.
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