4 Benefits of Seeking Expert Opinion from your Target Audiences
Marketing technology is expanding rapidly as new products and services continue to launch at increasingly shorter intervals of time. However, irrespective of the industry they belong to, companies have been historically slow and reluctant towards adoption of new solutions. Marketers therefore need to find innovative ways to build confidence among the audience regarding their offerings.
An interesting way to do this is to treat target individuals or audiences as experts, and seek their feedback. Asking them relevant questions to understand their problems and their response to another same or similar offering can do wonders for a brand.
Seeking expert opinion from target audiences can therefore help in:
1. Creating a list of promising customers
One of the most obvious benefits of engaging target audiences through a formal feedback practice is the ability to create a list of the most promising customers. Based on the feedback of individuals, marketers can categorize respondents on the basis of their likelihood to further engage with the brand and buy. Marketers need to engage with respondents to gain deeper insights into the issues they face. This allows brands to identify which of their solutions address the target audiences’ requirements, and eventually introduce it to them.
More importantly, this benefit is common to both B2B and B2C sectors.
2. Generating marketing collateral
The default advantage of engaging target audiences is the supply of organic data that can be used to generate marketing collaterals. The feedback from individual customers provide insights into their concerns, expectations and demands without investing in proper research. Once substantial amount audiences’ response is gathered, marketers can present it in appealing ways to educate people internally or externally.
However, lengthy surveys are repulsive and less likely to be completed. The focus should be on creating short surveys that have only a few but vital questions. Besides, rewarding the respondents is a great way to increase and ensure participation.
3. Expanding social influence
This is where treating audiences like experts really pays off. It makes them feel valued, and the subsequent offering of solutions shows they are cared for. If done correctly, this can lead to social advocacy, which can be a differentiating factor for the brands.
It is a known fact that people trust third-party words the most, especially that of individuals. Therefore, a positive feedback from an individual or an agency on social media can build a strong image for the brand without even spending on social marketing directly. Marketers can incentivize social sharing to ensure wider organic reach of the audiences’ feedback. However, brands must not influence the audiences’ opinion in the process, lest the effect be otherwise.
4. Driving product improvement
The opportunity to improve a product with every new launch is another important benefit of considering target audiences’ as experts. The best way to leverage feedback for product improvement, especially for B2B providers, is to allow complimentary use of certain products and/or services. The users are naturally inclined to provide feedback about their experience, which is essential for enhancement of offerings.
However, marketers will have to make sure that their target audiences are not only offered complimentary use of solutions but also made to give feedback for the same.
Do you wish to analyze your target audience’s opinions and ensure it translates into a wider outreach? Then, join experts Joseph Coughlin, Director Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab; Connie Weaver, Executive Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer at TIAA; Jody Bilney, Chief Consumer Officer at Humana with Charlotte Howard, Consumer Goods and Marketing Correspondent for ‘The Economist’ at ‘Marketing Unbound’ – the marketing conference to learn ‘Is your audience always right?’ at their session on March 24 in New York.
What tools are chief marketers at established brands like the NFL, JetBlue, Hilton, Moet Hennessy and SAP using to increase revenue? How are innovators like Tinder and PayPal managing to acquire a plethora of users – 50 million and 179 million, respectively? At The Economist’s Marketing Unbound, you’ll have the opportunity to ask the pros themselves. The event will go behind the scenes of great campaigns – discussing what it took to create and deliver them. Save 15% on tickets with the code MARTECH. Sign up here.
