Do you know your audience?

It’s more important than ever before to know who your clients and customers are. In knowing them, you can begin to understand what influences them to make a purchase. But, how do you go about getting this information? Well, through market research!

What is Market research?

To put it simply, market research is the process by which you collect information about your target audience in order to ensure your brand is communicating effectively with them. But, it’s not an easy task. Unfortunately, there’s no crystal ball that provides immediate answers. Instead, you have to spend the time investigating and researching various aspects of the market in order to reach conclusions.

Why does this matter?

Market research can deliver some valuable insight into your audience. By uncovering their pain points and desired solutions, you can tweak your product and services –and the communication around them—to better appeal to your audience. As a result, you have a better chance of speaking directly to a customer in your marketing. They will feel seen and heard and more likely to make a purchase.

So, how do I get market research?

Well, there are many types of market research that can all reveal insights. Some of the most popular methods are as follows:

• Interviews
  These allow for real-time discussions, where you can assess not only what is being said, but also the body language around it. This is helpful in building buyer personas.
• Focus groups
  Focus groups allow you to have a small number of people demo your product or service and then provide honest feedback.
• Personas
  Personas give you the chance to humanize your audience by developing “people” who make up your target audience. This allows you to better relate to your audience as individuals.
• Customer surveys
  Similar to focus groups, this is a great way to glean feedback on products or services. But unlike focus groups, these come from actual customers who paid for your services, so you will get more insight into the value of your product.

That’s just a small selection of the many ways you can find out about your target audience. However you go about it, you will likely get helpful information that can help you when crafting your brand communication.