The Power of Consumer Research – when done right

How well do you really know your customers? Sure, you might be familiar with their buying habits, but understanding their deepest needs, desires, and aspirations is a different ballgame.  

Arming yourself with these answers gives you clarity and conviction to support your strategy and business decision-making.  

But what does this look like in action? Take Sportsbet's transformation as an example. Initially hampered by limited visibility, their approach relied on broad, high-engagement campaigns. Transitioning to a data-driven strategy, they began to measure success with more precision and nuance.  

This was grounded in a thorough analysis of customer behaviours, preferences, and feedback, which enabled Sportsbet to shift to a data-driven strategy, resulting in more meaningful and personalised customer interactions.

Effective consumer research is about going beyond the surface level and unlocking the true potential of customer insights.  

So how can good consumer research help your business?  

The benefits:

1. Profound Insights to Fuel Growth Opportunities: Understanding customer experiences can reveal pain points, preferences, and expectations. This can lead to identifying category opportunities, moments of customer delight or brand weaknesses that can be addressed.
   
   
2. Data-Driven Decision Making: With customer research, decision-making becomes informed and strategic, minimising guesswork and increasing the likelihood of success (ROI) in the marketplace. Business decision-making is rooted in data and insights from your brand’s biggest asset— its customers.
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3. Informs Existing and New Strategies: When planned well, research can optimise efforts toward marketing strategies, improve product development by providing customer feedback and sentiment and increase customer loyalty by identifying their key drivers. Additionally, if you leverage customer research, the insights uncovered can help craft personalised experiences, allowing for tailored messaging and product development that directly addresses the customers’ needs.
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4. Keeps You on Brand to Reflect Your Target Customer’s Realities: By aligning your brand’s messaging, positioning, and personality with what truly matters to your customers, you can establish authentic and stronger connections with them. This authenticity not only sets the business apart from competitors but also attracts and retains customers who share similar values, leading to lasting and more profound relationships. It's about shaping a brand that mirrors the realities and expectations of its customers.

Bottom line: It’s important to recognise that customer experience is the heart and soul of any brand. From the customer’s initial touchpoint to post-purchase support, their experience forms a crucial part of their journey, offering insights and an opportunity to better the brand and connect.  

Another thing, is don’t discount the reach and impact of customer insights. Customer insights are not limited to marketing or product development; they can influence decisions across many functions in your organisation.  

Brands that prioritise customer insights create a positive (and strategic) decision-making cycle.  

How to Leverage Customer Insights to Boost Your Sales?

The benefits to customer research do not solely exist internally but also externally, providing a sharp edge against competitors in your category. Where consumers are inundated with choices, you must do everything to stand out.

Customers who feel understood and valued develop loyalty and trust, making them more likely to choose your brand over your competitors.  

The good news is that The Lumery offers the expertise and platform to empower your team to tackle customer research in-house confidently and effectively.  

We can support brands through end-to-end design, implementation, recommendations, and customer research insights. This can be in the form of observational research conducted for a client in their physical stores, conducting focus groups or customer surveys to understand website or product sentiment, useability, and to test messaging.

By capturing and understanding the customers' experience, your business can make informed decisions that resonate with your target audience, setting you apart from the competition and forging stronger connections with your customers.  

By consistently capturing and analysing customer feedback, you can identify areas for improvement, iterate on offerings, and provide exceptional customer experiences. This, in turn, leads to increased customer satisfaction, positive word-of-mouth, and business growth.  

The Lumery’s quick Customer Experience Capability Tool is a great way to get started. This tool helps our team understand your organisation's current maturity levels in delivering seamless, connected, and relevant customer experiences, and identify any gaps that require attention. Once completed a member of our team will be in touch to discuss how we can help.