Market analysis starting from the company's internal database
Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2024 7:20 am
Market analyses are a very valuable tool for developing effective marketing strategies: they australia phone number list provide in-depth information on your target, reveal their purchasing habits, and make it clear which characteristics of the product/service are considered strong points or, on the contrary, which are the weak points or resistances encountered by customers in the conversion process.
However, they are a decidedly underused tool for a simple reason: they are generally very expensive.
Indeed…
It is expensive to identify a sufficiently large and representative audience
It is expensive to prepare specific questionnaires, which must be written by sociologists or psychologists and in any case specialized professionals (the risk is to write questions that, even without intending to, direct the answer, or that are not significant enough)
The administration of questionnaires is expensive, whether it is done electronically or traditionally.
Finally, the analysis and reporting of the results must be carried out by specialized figures, to avoid drawing wrong conclusions that would lead to important strategic errors.
The overall cost generally amounts to several tens of thousands of euros, a cost that can generally only be sustained by large companies.
Yet there is an alternative route that allows you to significantly reduce costs: using your own customer database as a basis for surveys.
Obviously, a large-scale survey can investigate aspects that are different and broader than those that can emerge by focusing only on those who are already customers; however, even such a targeted analysis can prove invaluable and allow you to better calibrate your offer.
In this way, even a small to medium sized business or an e-commerce company can access the benefits of market research.
What to find out directly from our customers?
When we decide to address those who already use our products as the basis for a survey, we will be able to investigate slightly different areas than those found in a classic market research on a random sample.
In particular, we will be able to better understand their relationship with the product and their user experience: why they prefer it over the competition, what they consider a strong point and what they would like to improve, why they prefer a certain purchasing channel, and much more.
This information can become an important basis capable of confirming, to begin with, the SWOT analyses that have been carried out internally within the company and allow us to answer, for example, the question " Are the strengths and weaknesses of the company actually perceived as such by our market?"
If the answer is “yes”, the company is probably working well in terms of communication aspects and can focus on improving the offer starting from those weak points that customers cite or on improving the purchase funnel.
Otherwise, it is evidently necessary to intervene by modifying the marketing strategies. For example, we could discover that there are strengths recognized by the clientele but that we had neglected in communication, or on the contrary that there are elements on which the company has focused a lot but that are not perceived as important by the clientele.
In other words, you can understand whether the brand identity that the company is trying to build and the customer's perception coincide or not.
Customer segmentation
The customer database is a precious treasure, the treasure that every company has but that is rarely fully exploited. A market survey starting from this database is, in fact, one of the ways to make it profitable.
Among the advantages of an operation of this type, it is also worth mentioning the possibility of better investigating market segmentation. Let's ask ourselves if there is the possibility of segmenting our customers, or of segmenting them more effectively than we are already doing: market research will give us the answer.
Generally, each database contains at least the customer's personal data; if well managed, then, over time it will have integrated this type of information with the transaction history. A survey is the right opportunity to delve more deeply into the habits of use and purchase of the product, so as to arrive at a more effective segmentation:
Is the product purchased for oneself or for others (for example as a gift, or as part of the care of other family members)?
However, they are a decidedly underused tool for a simple reason: they are generally very expensive.
Indeed…
It is expensive to identify a sufficiently large and representative audience
It is expensive to prepare specific questionnaires, which must be written by sociologists or psychologists and in any case specialized professionals (the risk is to write questions that, even without intending to, direct the answer, or that are not significant enough)
The administration of questionnaires is expensive, whether it is done electronically or traditionally.
Finally, the analysis and reporting of the results must be carried out by specialized figures, to avoid drawing wrong conclusions that would lead to important strategic errors.
The overall cost generally amounts to several tens of thousands of euros, a cost that can generally only be sustained by large companies.
Yet there is an alternative route that allows you to significantly reduce costs: using your own customer database as a basis for surveys.
Obviously, a large-scale survey can investigate aspects that are different and broader than those that can emerge by focusing only on those who are already customers; however, even such a targeted analysis can prove invaluable and allow you to better calibrate your offer.
In this way, even a small to medium sized business or an e-commerce company can access the benefits of market research.
What to find out directly from our customers?
When we decide to address those who already use our products as the basis for a survey, we will be able to investigate slightly different areas than those found in a classic market research on a random sample.
In particular, we will be able to better understand their relationship with the product and their user experience: why they prefer it over the competition, what they consider a strong point and what they would like to improve, why they prefer a certain purchasing channel, and much more.
This information can become an important basis capable of confirming, to begin with, the SWOT analyses that have been carried out internally within the company and allow us to answer, for example, the question " Are the strengths and weaknesses of the company actually perceived as such by our market?"
If the answer is “yes”, the company is probably working well in terms of communication aspects and can focus on improving the offer starting from those weak points that customers cite or on improving the purchase funnel.
Otherwise, it is evidently necessary to intervene by modifying the marketing strategies. For example, we could discover that there are strengths recognized by the clientele but that we had neglected in communication, or on the contrary that there are elements on which the company has focused a lot but that are not perceived as important by the clientele.
In other words, you can understand whether the brand identity that the company is trying to build and the customer's perception coincide or not.
Customer segmentation
The customer database is a precious treasure, the treasure that every company has but that is rarely fully exploited. A market survey starting from this database is, in fact, one of the ways to make it profitable.
Among the advantages of an operation of this type, it is also worth mentioning the possibility of better investigating market segmentation. Let's ask ourselves if there is the possibility of segmenting our customers, or of segmenting them more effectively than we are already doing: market research will give us the answer.
Generally, each database contains at least the customer's personal data; if well managed, then, over time it will have integrated this type of information with the transaction history. A survey is the right opportunity to delve more deeply into the habits of use and purchase of the product, so as to arrive at a more effective segmentation:
Is the product purchased for oneself or for others (for example as a gift, or as part of the care of other family members)?