When making strategic brand development decisions, market research is an invaluable asset. It provides insights and perspectives from the outside looking in, which is something we can’t get anywhere else. It establishes a framework for developing truly meaningful products, services, and experiences because customers are directly telling us what they want, need, and expect. It also enables us to challenge internal assumptions and test hypotheses so that our decisions are driven by facts and data-driven knowledge.
That said, with such wide-ranging impact and potential, it’s easy for market research projects to become overly broad in their scope. We often see brands get caught up in wanting to learn everything about everything – and trying to do so all at once within a single market research survey. While this may seem like the most effective and efficient approach, addressing too many topics at once can lead to confusion, uncertainty, and “paralysis by analysis.” Due to the sheer volume of information gathered and the limited depth of each topic covered, lengthy one-time surveys can hinder more than they help.
To make strategic decisions we need strategic insights. And those strategic insights come from a strategic approach to market research. At the end of the day, it’s about asking the right people the right questions at the right time – while staying focused on your specific brand development objectives.
If you’re considering a market research project to help guide strategic decisions, a great place to start is clarifying which topics are most relevant to your objectives. Think about your desired outcomes and work backwards through the information you’ll need at each step along the way. This helps refine and focus your efforts on capturing actionable insights that directly align with key decision scenarios. Here I’ve outlined a few market research topics that every brand should be considering to support brand development in 2025.
Getting to Know You Surveys – Watch Video
In our personal lives, relationship building is all about getting to know the other person and learning who they are. So, why not approach customer relationship building the same way?
After spending so much time and energy acquiring new customers, getting to know them on a personal level is a great next step. Dig beneath the surface level demographics and impersonal behavior data to find out what makes them unique. Seek to understand the things that make them unique, and explore how your brand fits into their daily life. Not only does this show the individual how much they are valued beyond the money they spend, but it also equips your brand with insights for targeted marketing, experience personalization, and – of course – authentic relationship building. Regardless of your business goals, understanding the people behind the purchases is a must for staying relevant in an ever-changing world.
Awareness and Perception – Watch Video
Too often we see brand awareness and brand perception set aside to a “we already know that stuff” mentality. But chances are, things have changed since you last checked.
While seemingly basic and straight-forward concepts compared to other topics in the world of customer insights, awareness and perception studies produce incredibly valuable knowledge that has ongoing strategic applications. From sales and marketing to brand identity and culture, complacency in this area risks missing out on some pivotal growth opportunities.
A great example is the brand which launched a new product last year and committed a lot of resources to promotional campaigns. After conducting a brand awareness study, it was learned that despite those marketing efforts, most consumers were still unaware of their new product. And among the consumers who were aware, there were inaccurate perceptions of the new product’s benefits. These insights enabled the brand to adjust their product marketing strategy in ways that reached a wider audience and addressed the most relevant perception issues. Without having conducted that market research project, they would have continued forward under false assumptions and been wasting valuable resources.
Customer Satisfaction – Watch Video
Before launching a Customer Experience & Satisfaction survey, there’s one important question that needs to be answered; What do YOU want the customer’s experience to be?
Without defining the intended customer experience upfront, any survey results will be missing the context needed to produce actionable insights. Instead, there will be “interesting observations” which spark meaningful discussions but miss the mark in terms of providing actionable insights to guide decision making.
Furthermore, asking the question of intended customer experience will identify any misalignment or confusion that exists internally. If there are inter-departmental differences in opinions or objectives, those areas need to be addressed before customer feedback is collected. Often, we find there are a few steps and actions brands need to take within their own world before the full benefits of customer insights are realized.
Lost Customers – Watch Video
Losing customers is an inevitable part of business. So, we can either cut the loss and move on, or we can dig in looking for ways to learn and grow our brand. We prefer the latter.
First and foremost, we must recognize that customers are lost for a reason. Whether that reason is related to a brand experience, the result of an emerging competitor, or something different altogether, something drove the customer’s decision to leave. Unless we explicitly ask, we will never know the specific reason. If left unaddressed, that reason could impact current and future customers in the same way leading to the same result.
While it may be uncomfortable to hear and hard to stomach, listening to why customers don’t plan on returning is one of the best ways to grow.
Overall Brand Health – Watch Video
Stepping back for a holistic view of your brand’s awareness levels, perception, customer satisfaction, and other feedback survey results is how we monitor Brand Health.
It’s common, and easy, to keep survey results in siloes or fragmented data files. But the big-picture realities become clear when bringing all of our customer insights together. This is an important aspect of maximizing the impact of customer insights because more detailed and complex storylines emerge when we gain a holistic view. Dots can be connected, and opportunities can be identified that otherwise may have gone overlooked when data is kept on its own.
As new data, feedback, and insights come in, we revisit our Brand Health assessment to ensure things are trending in the right direction. If they’re not, we have established a data-driven foundation that will help pinpoint areas in need of attention, and we have the customer insights needed to make corrective decisions.
Bonus Topic: Survey Incentives – Watch Video
A common question I get is, what’s the best incentive to boost survey response rates? My answer is, follow up with respondents. Yes, it’s counter-intuitive to think of an incentive happening after the survey is already taken. But customer insights are a marathon, not a sprint.
The most common approach to survey incentives is buying participation with a gift card or a chance to win prizes. Not only is this very expensive, but it also lowers confidence in the survey results because some people will click through just to get the reward – not putting much thought into the questions being asked. A much more efficient and cost-effective way to motivate participation in your survey is to show customers how much their feedback matters with follow up communication. Go beyond thanking them for their participation to reiterate the purpose and importance of conducting that survey. Share a few high-level details about how the results will be used and why their input is so important to the brand development process.
When respondents hear back from a brand after completing a survey, they know their feedback has been received. When they understand how their feedback will be used and how their voice fits into the brand’s long-term plans, they will likely continue providing feedback when requested in the future.
Final Thoughts
The keys to a successful customer feedback project are having a clearly defined purpose and set plans for action once the survey results have been analyzed. If either of these aspects are missing, or even underdeveloped, the insights gained are likely to be more observational than they are actionable.
For more customer feedback tips and videos, follow me on LinkedIn. Also, please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or to review projects you’re currently working on.
