A past Wall Street Journal article discussed how Dr. Pepper used social media (Facebook) to research their customers and, in turn, taking what they find to help them shape their marketing messages. According to the article, the company sends out daily messages and then “listens” to the reactions of their “fans.” Using readily-available tools, they analyze how many times a message is viewed, how many times it is shared with other users and the content of the messages. “We mine the data to understand what is appreciated, and what is not,” said their director of interactive media services.
As designers, architects and showrooms, you can do the same thing too, and you do not need social media. For example, you can put a question on your website…send out a short survey to your customers… make some phone calls to prospects asking them what they like and don’t like about their kitchen. In a survey for a client on a new product, Interline not only found what designers liked about it, in their own words, they gave the copy points to use when we market it to them!
In a different piece of research for another client, phone interviews were used to bring out the pros and cons of not only the client, but their competitors. Interline was able to shape a concise marketing strategy using this technique.
You can too.