How Brands Can Leverage Consumer Insights

The source of customer insights is data. Consumers spend a great deal of time on the internet, and activity online, from commenting on a social media post to shopping for groceries and leaving reviews all provide a footprint of data. This data is an invaluable tool for creating consumer insights and drafting strategies to improve product development and marketing.

How major brands are using consumer insights

Amazon is the pioneer of leveraging consumer insights. For many people, they’re the first brand that began featuring recommended items, and when online customer reviews are mentioned, Amazon often comes to mind. Many consumers even consult Amazon’s reviews before purchasing items elsewhere.

To prevent this from happening, Amazon has developed their own private label. This pus the company in a position of prominence, as they have all of the information on their clients’ traffic and a treasure trove or reviews at their internal disposal.

Given the multiplicity of data Amazon has, its private label products are in many cases outperforming mainstream brands that use Amazon’s ecommerce platform. The brand’s clothing, electronics, food, beverage and automotive products are winning customers from well-established brands.

Most companies can’t become as powerful as Amazon, but all brands can learn from the retail giant’s example of how to use customer data. Here are a few ways you can implement their product and marketing strategies.

Upgrade products according to emerging trends

It’s important to keep track of larger trends, but the harbinger of these trends is in customer data. Getting ahead of published trends is key to having an edge over your competition.

Consumer insights allow businesses to get a head start on developing and upgrading products. If the data indicates customers are engaging in specific behaviors on a large scale, it’s possible to develop a product that fits the trend before rival companies have even gotten the memo. Situations like these prove listening to your customers is just as important as researching larger market trends.

Improve products to suit customer’s needs

Behind the glowing reviews there may be consistent comments about features that need to be fixed. It’s essential not to miss these details in customer feedback. If a dozen reviews are mainly positive but some add that they’d be happier if there were a selection of colors, responding to this request and providing more options will give customers the feeling that they’re being heard.

This is a great way to win brand loyalty, which is particularly important as more revenue is generated from existing customers than new ones. One way to think about looking at reviews is as though they’re an unstructured guide to improving your products. After sorting through and analyzing data, consumer insights can provide guidance on the next direction you should take your products and offerings.

Improve messaging with feature marketing techniques

Feature marketing is effective in day-to-day interactions and is also influential in other contexts. Highlighting a specific feature of a product can be a decisive factor in influencing consumer purchasing decisions.

Consumer insights are the key to deciding which features to focus on. When customers write reviews stating that they wish a particular item had an extra feature or when reviews for competing products mention these features, it’s essential to use that data for consumer insights.

Fine-tune marketing communication

Analyzing consumer sentiment provides clues on how customers feel about a product or brand, Just as people tend to sense what kind of mood someone is in before attempting communication, knowing how customers feel before marketing products to them will improve your chance of conversions.

Customers are more likely to respond to business communication if it feels personal. Consumer insights help focus emails, chat and social media interaction on customers and reflect the way they feel. This can increase sales and create a positive relationship.

Strengthen the brand

If a brand message seems less than compelling, perhaps it isn’t landing according to expectations. The way to measure this before sales are impacted is to find out what consumers are saying about your brand and its products. Listening to social media, analyzing reviews and getting a sense of how visitors feel about your customer service are powerful ways to collect information that will make your brand stronger.

Making an impression

You may not have the time to wait for sales data to help you discover how customers see your brand. Thankfully, social media and review sites provide sufficient information so businesses can implement strategies for product innovation, marketing and customer service. Consumer insights are the key to competing and gaining market share while retaining brand loyalty and keeping tabs on customers.