Do you know why market research is important to digital marketing?
To understand the differences and similarities between market research and digital marketing, it helps to first define them.
Market research is the process of acquiring useful information about the preferences of consumers, market trends, and statistical data. Because of the potential business insights about consumer behaviors and necessary data that will help them in making decisions, Market research is a key part in marketing a product and service and in developing a business.
Digital marketing is the actual method of promoting a brand, product, or service, through the use of digital technologies. This mainly revolves around the internet, but also takes other digital mediums into consideration. Using digital technologies to promote products and services gives businesses the ability to analyze new trends in real-time and faster basis.
Market research can either be conducted digitally and can assist specifically with digital marketing efforts.
Let’s take a closer look at why market research is important to digital marketing.
Market Research Has Gone Digital
In the past, market research used to be a time-consuming and expensive business practice, but with the development of artificial intelligence, there has been a shift. These factors had a lot to do with the methods used to collect data: manual surveys, in-person interviews, and on-site observations. Even if a person and observer were not required to be in the same physical space, there was still a cost associated with sending and receiving mail (and factoring in a low response rate). Surveys via telephone were also not without high costs and low response rates.
The inclusion of digital marketing technologies to conduct market research has taken outdated market research methods of the past and has transformed them into a more convenient, real-time and instant process. Mobile market research methods were a response to the widespread usage of digital devices, such as smartphones and computers. Now, surveys are being conducted through online polls, social media surveys, and other accessible and convenient methods.
Learning the Language of Your Audience
The best way to connect to your target audience is to learn the nuances of the language they use. When you know how to speak to your audience, you will be able to gain their trust. Without trust, there is no sale, which is why this step is so important for digital marketing where there often is no personal one-to-one connection to your prospect.
Market research conducted through social media channels is the best way to learn the language of your audience. Learning your audience’s language and using this to create promotions is a great way to boost clicks and conversions. Digital marketing agencies are now starting to step more into market research.
Learning About Consumer Behaviors
It’s amazing how much people give away about themselves on social media channels. A person’s online identity has gone from several closely guarded secrets to a wide-open diary for all to peruse. Potential prospects openly use social media to share their daily activities and their thoughts – there’s a lot of useful data to be mined if done correctly. Using social media to understand consumer behavior will help you understand trends and common activities which can be put up to your digital marketing efforts.
Learning from Competitors
Since social media is transparent and a seemingly open source of information, conducting market research will also help you understand your competitors. Whenever they upload or share something online, you have the access to view it, just like a normal follower. You can use this information to conduct further research and compare what they’re doing to your own methods. Doing this will help you gain valuable insights and identify the strengths and weaknesses of your current digital marketing strategy.
Ability to Follow Your Consumers
Market research using social media can easily be set up to pick up on specific words, mentions of your own social media account, certain keywords or phrases, or your competitors. By setting smart alerts through a program like Mention, you will have the ability to scan and monitor these consumer activities, and understand the popular trends and topics on these platforms. There are many other social media tools you can use to be effective once you know more about what you should be posting.
Obviously, following the activities of consumers and understanding what makes them tick will help you to make relevant choices in your own digital marketing efforts. Implementing what you’ve learned should also increase engagements and social sharing on your social media channels.
So how relevant is market research to digital marketing?
There are some pretty clear signs that without it, digital marketing efforts would be wasted. Knowing the relevance of market research to digital marketing will help you be effective in everything you do.
How do you use market research to be more relevant in your digital marketing efforts? Tweet @MabblyTribe to continue the conversation!
