Use your website to research your customers

Author: Fred Schebesta

Any marketer worth their salt will tell you a long-term competitive advantage is gained only through the continual collection of information about your customers' wants and needs.

You could pay to get this information from a market research firm. But these customer intelligence reports are often either not specific enough for your firm's niche market, or too general, with an overwhelming amount of information. You could commission a specific market research project, but these are often incredibly expensive. So why not use a readily available resource - your company's website - to collect and automatically analyse that market information?

You will often find that customers are willing and happy to provide all types of non-sensitive information about themselves if it means you will potentially be able to build a better relationship with them by more closely matching their needs. Or if you provide a strong incentive for them to give you that information, such as a perceivably valuable prize. Some of the most important things to ask your customers include:
- Their experience with your company so far
- Their experience with your competitors
- How your products/services could be improved to better suit their needs
- Lifestyle demographics

Based on this collected information, you are able to build a much clearer picture of your customers, and their relationship with your company. Make sure this information is effectively utilised in your marketing plan.

Three ways this can be done:

1. Develop new products/services that respond to what your customers asked for. Tell them when you make changes based on their feedback.

2. Take the best strategies used by your competitors, that were reported by your customers, and look for ways to incorporate them in your own activities.

3. Conduct marketing campaigns around the same demographics reported by your customers. E.g., if your customers say they always go out to a bar on a Saturday night, perhaps you should organise a party/nightclub event when launching your next product. It would only cost your company between $1,000- $5,000 (depending on the level of analytical sophisticated you wanted), to add a customised information collection, analysis and reporting tool on to your website. But the impact of the increased level of customer knowledge on your business's bottom line is likely to be huge.

By Fred Schebesta - Freestylemedia - www.freestylemedia.com.au

'Copyright 2003 Youth 2 Youth'

Disclaimer: This article is for your information, but it may not apply to or be suitable for your situation, so seek professional advice. Youth 2 Youth cannot be held liable for anything resulting from how you use the information provided in this article.