BaoNgocGroup salesforcemarketingcloud_agilemarketresearch_ebook_update

Community Ebook / September 2012 / www.radian6.com / 1 888 6radian
Market Research
with Social Media
Gives you the direction and tools you
need to use social media to become
a more agile, engaged, profitable and
productive IT or software company .
Copyright © 2012 Salesforce Radian6
Author Marian Cramers / Social Media Analyst

Community Ebook / September 2012
Agile Market Research with Social Media
Agile Market Research
with Social Media
Introduction
1. Optimize Market Research Goals
2. Focus on Product
3. Focus on Price
4. Focus on Place
5. Focus on Promotion
conclusion
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1 888 6RADIAN 1 888 672-3426 / community@radian6.com Copyright © 2012 Salesforce Radian6 [ 2 ]

What the Icons In Radian6 Ebooks Mean:
Quick, handy information designed to
on-ramp you quickly
Extra, relevant information that deserved to be
called out for more attention
Software, website or other tool that will help
you get a job done well
A story about a brand illustrating a concept in
the book
Helpful hints to keep you from making a
mistake online
Relevant stats to support the facts and best
practices outlined in the book
Where to find other resources and further
information about this topic
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Introduction
Brands used to assume that market research was only the
purview of companies that could afford to hire expensive firms. If
your business had the budget for this in-depth market research,
you assumed that the price tag would be astronomical and the
research might stretch on for months or years. Social media market
research changes this completely.
Social media has become the great equalizer when it comes to market research. Because it
allows brands of all sizes to pivot equally based on feedback from the crowd and intelligent
online research and relationships, social media has put market research into the hands of every
business. Not only that, it has shortened the time from research to market for many types of
market research (some exceptions include medical studies or scientific research).
The purpose of market research is simple. Excellent market research has a wide variety
of applications:
• Help your business have a deeper understanding of your customer’s needs
• Help you gather relevant opinions and data from your customer in real-time
• Help you figure out market trends before they happen
• Help you quickly create the products that your customer truly wants
• Help you avoid missteps in product design and development that can be costly
• Help you track and optimize your marketing to reach a broader market and save cost
This is only the tip of the iceberg for what market research can do for your business. This book
will show you how to optimize social media for the kind of deep market research designed to
help you reach a number of common business goals efficiently. I’ve included a chart below that
should help you navigate the social media market research process step-by-step.
Click here to view the chart to help you navigate the market research process
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1. Optimize Market Research Goals
The very first question that you want to ask yourself before
embarking on market research using social media and online tools
is why. Determining the goal of your research first will help your
research produce stronger results and shorten the time frame with
which they are obtained. It also helps you answer the questions “Is
this market research needed?” and “Is this goal a solid one that will
lead to measurable results?” before you even start.
Next you need to figure out if your social media market research is going to help you identify a
problem or solve a problem. This is the fundamental difference between researching something
for qualitative marketing (exploration based) and quantitative marketing (conclusion based).
You might think that social media would automatically lend itself to qualitative marketing only;
however, you will find that social media is flexible enough to help you with both types.
Chances are good that you’re already conducting social media market research in an organic
way. If you have tried to solve market research problems with traditional web search, an online
questionnaire, or a feedback form, for example, you have done organic market research to gather
information about your customers, your product, or your market. The trick is to learn to make
it planned and structured. Turn these habits into something you can measure and use! For an
example of this in action take a look at this case study about Hungry Jack.
Some tools and techniques that you can implement right away to make your online
market research better include:
• online surveys and questionnaires
• competitive intelligence using your analytics
• sentiment analysis of blogs and blog comments
• traditional web searches and keyword searches
• keyword reporting from within your analytics
• attaching product development goals to your analytics
• landing page metrics
• using social media metrics programs like Salesforce Radian6 to:
• conduct audience research
• conduct brand analysis
• create topic profiles designed to track a combination of relevant keywords &
sentiment around the potential product or service goal
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• using social media engagement with your customers to determine customer satisfaction
• loyalty card reporting
• studying the metrics of your demographics
• determining the profitability of your market
• market segmentation
• packaging, pricing and advertising research
• market demand demographics
Click here to view the checklist of tools for competitive intelligence and segmentation
You want your community to support your brand since support leads to new and long-lasting
customer relationships.
2. Focus on Product
Let’s focus for a moment on market research for product
development, packaging and pricing. This topic is advanced
enough to be an eBook of its own, so look for us to publish that in
the next few months. Meanwhile, let’s go over a few best practices
you can implement right now.
Once you have established your overall goal for your social media market research you’re
going to need to fine-tune it. One of the first things you should do after establishing the main
goal is conduct preliminary research that is designed to discover which products are already
available in the marketplace. This will help you flush out your competition early on. Once you
know who your competition is you can better study them to make a more competitive and
more successful product.
Set up goals in analytics for each element of your market research. Each web site analytics
program offers ways to do this. Google Analytics is one of the most widely used. To get to the
goals area of Google Analytics, simply navigate to your Admin tab inside analytics. Choose the
account you wish to associate the goal with, then the name of the website landing page that
will be attached to the goal. Find the correct profile in the Profile tab. Navigate to the Goals tab,
then click +Goal to add a goal. Give your goal a name that is easy to remember, then select
Active to activate the goal upon saving it. Give your goal a type (Event or Page is usually the
most appropriate for market research), then save the goal.
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After identifying your
competition, perform
competitive intelligence on
the sentiment surrounding
their brands and products.
Look for holes in their
customer satisfaction
and designs, analyze
their price structures and
delivery mechanisms, and do competitive pricing research. You can set any of these goals up
in your social media analytics program as well as through a traditional web search. For more in-depth
study you may want to conduct an online survey in user engagement and follow-up more
deeply on customer responses that trigger pain points.
Another element of discovery and product development research is the study of the websites
that surround each product. Look at their profit margins and online web rankings as well as
customer reviews. Look for gaps in their armor where your product can answer a customer
need and be a success where theirs is not.
Occasionally the market research will quickly tell you that your market is saturated and
that your product is not viable. If this happens, congratulations! You may just save yourself
hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in wasted product development, time and
packaging by doing some simple market research right from the start.
3. Focus on Price
Using the competitive intelligence tools that we discussed you can
easily determine what price point works best for your product or
service. Social media market research will give you data not only on
what your competition is doing but on similar prices in the market.
It will also gather data around the income and demographic
information of your target customer and your target market region.
This research is invaluable and used to be far out of reach for small to medium brands. More
than that, the real time feedback on pricing and bird’s eye view of real time sentiment around
price, coupled with demographic data from analytics and insights that shows customer income
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ranges and analysis, helps you
reach a price point that is more
immediately in tune with your target
market. Hitting the right price right
out of the gate means your time
from launch to profitability shortens
considerably.
Frontier Air used Radian6 to conduct market research that helped them better serve
their passengers
When it comes to using market research to establish price, it’s key to differentiate market
research from simple social media crowdsourcing. Because crowdsourcing often uses
incentives to obtain answers to questions and is limited to public forums, as well as getting left
behind in deep analytics tracking practices, you should approach the question of price with
more gravity. Set up thorough analytics campaigns and careful topic, keyword and hashtag
tracking as you conduct your research. Use your spreadsheet dashboards to collect your data
for deeper analysis later. Determining the right price point can make or break your success, so
it’s important to get the data right the first time.
4. Focus on Place
Congratulations on getting over the first few hurdles! You
determined whether or not your product is viable and what your
competition is doing and you have established a price that will work
for your product or service in your target market. Now it’s time to
narrow the field even further.
Using the demographics found in your market research, competitive intelligence, and
location data gathered via your web forms and website as well as your analytics can help you
determine the best place to launch your product or service.
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Wunderman and Nokia
Creative agency Wunderman
used extensive market research
to help Nokia use real data from
developers that create phone
apps to create a better Windows phone that would appeal to its target customer base. By
doing extensive research from the start, Nokia is better able to compete against phone
giants Apple and Samsung, increasing the success of its product launch.
Market segmentation is going to play a large part in determining place. Keep in mind as you
perform your market segmentation research that this research should not be used to shape
your market but rather to expose any buried faults, defects, gaps and needs in the market that
you can fill to leverage more profit.
Avoid overlooking tools already at your disposal, such as loyalty cards, location-based search
traffic data or Facebook page demographics. Instead, leverage the online tools you already
have in place to save cost and to narrow the research window.
5. Focus on Promotion
Excellent social media market research and planning coupled
with a great product or service can make your promotions much
more targeted and effective. The last thing you want to do in social
media is become just another voice lost in the chorus. As a brand
you don’t want to throw away your advertising dollar with no
results. A starting point of great market research on advertising
will keep you from sounding like a blowhard or talking into the
wind with no results.
Use your metrics analysis to help you determine the best time of day to conduct your
research. There is no one-size-fits all “best time” that fits all verticals and products. Once
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you have established when
your target audience is
online, establish where they
are online to maximize your
results and get more accurate
data. Salesforce Radian6
can help you determine the
answers to the questions
when and where with our
Insights platform.
Don’t overlook the value of your social media market research data in developing your
promotional voice and promotional message. You have access to a wealth of information
on the questions your customers want answered and the needs they want fulfilled - your
promotion should fill those gaps and avoid being “fluff” or noise.
Conclusion
This newly agile discovery environment that comes from social media market research means
that you no longer have an excuse not to succeed. The customer and market information you
need is right at your fingertips, ready to gather, sort and learn from. Use this access to build
products and services that stand out and to build an entire customer experience that keeps
people coming back to your brand time and again - not just another widget.
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How to Navigate the Market Research Process
DEFINE
1
Define the challenge, problem
or goal. Use the resulting
“elevator pitch” to direct
your research and make it
actionable and tight.
2 3
DEVELOP
Develop the plan for your
research. Determine what
tools you need, where your
potential data pool is, and
what questions to ask. Set us
the measurement tools you
need to track the data you
get and get your spreadsheet
dashboards prepared.
RESEARCH
Research and collect data
over a set period of time using
the criteria you outlined in
the Definition process. This
is where you will see the data
flow into your spreadsheets
and metrics reports from all of
the platforms and places you
are conducting research. Tag
and track everything.
STUDY &
ANALYZE
4
Study and Analyze the data you
have collected. That will help
you determine the strengths
and weaknesses of your
product, service, marketing plan
or competitor in a space. Be
comprehensive and thorough
as you sift through the data.
Pay attention to detail, nuance
and sentiment to better predict
the success of your goal.
REPORT
5
Report your findings to your
team. Be as complete as
possible, and cite your sources
where you can. Be prepared
to defend how you conducted
your research and to show the
integrity of your data.
DECIDE
6
Decide! Remember, the
decision may be how to launch
or package a product but
your research might also lead
you to table an idea before
losing money and time on
development. Look at the
research with an analytical,
open mind.
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Checklist of Simple Market Research Tools
Spreadsheet(s) - the good old fashioned spreadsheet is going to be your number
one tool for getting a deeper look at the vast piles of data your research will generate.
Make sure you have one set up and ready to collect and analyze data.
Radian6 - an excellent tool for doing topic-based research. Especially useful for
sentiment or topic-based market research and competitive intelligence-gathering.
Google Analytics - Set up goals for the landing pages that you create to
support your market research so you can track the answers you receive and layer in
demographic data that includes location, SERPs, keyword data, conversion and more.
Landing Page - be sure to support your market research with a landing page
specific to the target audience.
Hashtag or keyword list - hashtags and keywords add another layer of
tracking to complex data sets. Your research shouldn’t leave home without it.
Legal disclaimer - have your legal department work with you on the legal
disclaimers you might need to ask certain questions. It’s easy to avoid a crisis by being
proactive here. Be sure to also disclose how the information gathered will be used.
Social tools - which tools depend on which platforms you will be engaging with for
your research (Survey Monkey? Twitter? etc). Be sure to brand the tools and be clear
on your purpose for conducting the research, and on any time limits set around your
data gathering.
Sales department - share your data with sales! You never know what will lead to
a great case study to give your customers more value in their initial outreach sessions.
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BaoNgocGroup salesforcemarketingcloud_agilemarketresearch_ebook_update