Customer analysis, and how it can shape your marketing campaigns
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Customer analysis is all about looking inward. It’s about taking customer feedback and using it to better refine and improve what you’re selling. For content marketing then, customer analysis is absolutely critical in ensuring you’re crafting the right messaging, promoting it on the right channels, and targeting the right audience to get results.
In this guide, we’ll talk you through the steps worth taking to put together a user-focused marketing strategy that will stick its landing.
At Embryo, we put customer analysis at the heart of our campaigns. By doing this we can make smarter decisions and create work that speaks directly to your audience. To learn more, get in touch with us today by phone on 0161 327 2635 or email info@embryo.com.
What is customer analysis?
Customer analysis is the process of analysing data to gain insights into customer behaviour. This may be qualitative or quantitative data about existing customers, lost customers, potential customers – you name it. It serves to give you a firm understanding of how to better speak to them through marketing and drive certain actions – the core one being: purchasing your products and services.
As such, any marketing strategy that goes ahead without clear customer analysis will likely miss the mark. Without these meaty details of what customers want, need, and respond to, campaigns fall short of engaging the right audience in the right way.
Benefits of customer analysis
- Improved personalisation: Campaign messaging that is made bespoke to the target audience has a better chance of compelling them to convert.
- Smarter resource allocation: With more customer insights, you’ll be able to allocate your marketing budget to ensure the right channels and demographics that resonate with your brand are being prioritised.
- Boost in customer loyalty: By taking the time to better understand what makes your customers tick, you can ensure your business can accommodate and address their needs.
- Fine-tune your product/services: Brands that regularly review customer data stand a better chance at sustaining themselves, especially in comparison to competitors that don’t. This is because they can evolve what they sell in line with what their customers actually want.
How to approach your customer analysis marketing plan
Okay, so you’re building your marketing strategy and want to ensure you’re putting the best foot forward to reach the right crowd. The first thing you will need to do…
1. Define your objectives
Now, this may seem like an obvious step, but you’d be surprised how often it’s overlooked. Oftentimes, brands can err towards vague – ‘we want to increase sales’ or ‘we’d love more traffic on our site’, for example. In themselves, these objectives are fine and common, but, in order to properly measure the success of what you’re doing, you should try to get specific.
When setting your marketing objectives, a popular model to follow, designed to bring in better results, is the SMART model.
Specific
Outline in plain terms precisely what you intend to achieve (tip: be concise with your intentions; you can elaborate with details and the ins and outs further down the line)
Measurable
Provide a marketing metric for how you intend to measure the results (tip: use quantifiable data targets, such as an increase in organic brand searches or social media mentions)
Achievable
Ensure the resources you have at your disposal and means for achieving your goals are realistic (tip: at this stage, we recommend a likely scenario – a realistic expectation – and a best-case scenario – an ambitious expectation)
Relevant
Demonstrate in what way these goals will tie in with your own personal objectives or the wider business targets (tip: in order to be relevant, you must have a clear understanding of how you’re currently performing in the same league you intend to now improve upon – be sure to have data to back up the current status of things, which will be useful as a reference to compare to at a later stage)
Timely
Set a clear deadline for when you intend for your marketing objectives to be met (tip: though long-term plans are fine, having objectives with no deadline can cause efficiency to stall. Adding a fixed date – or series of dates for different elements – gives your team a clear timeline to follow).
2. Do a data haul of the resources at your disposal
Perhaps you already have a backlog of customer data at your disposal – great! If not, this is the time to rustle up the troops and look into pooling your customer insights.
What might this look like? Depending on the objectives you’ve set, relevant customer data could range across many different types. Examples include:
- Customer feedback and reviews (either in-store or online)
- Sales records (what’s selling, returns, trends)
- Social media analytics (demographic of following, engagement rate, shares, brand mentions)
- Website traffic (organic traffic demographic, enquiries through contact forms and calls)
- Or any other relevant sources that hold information about your customers
Useful tools for data collection
Here, there are plenty of tools that you could use to help with the intake of customer data. Some are free, others with a subscription attached.
Some helpful tools: Hotjar, Ahrefs, Google Analytics, Brandwatch, Sprout Social.
Note: If you don’t yet have a customer feedback system in place, do not be afraid to ask! 77% of customers appreciate brands that ask for feedback – so, for better or worse, whether they absolutely love your products or have had a negative experience, which you can use to improve your service, getting your customers’ thoughts will only serve to evolve your business.
3. Segment your customer base
Now that you have a good bank of data, it’s time to get organised. If you’ve initially cast the net wide, and pooled together customer insights from multiple different sources – for example, people who have purchased your products in-store and those who have shown interest via an organic post – you will now need to devise a system for segmenting these customers into groups.
From there, you can define various audience profiles, which you can use across different multi-channel campaigns – such as when targeting your paid social campaigns or building ‘helpful content’ for your website’s blog.
The benefit of segmenting your audience is that you’re working with the wins that your business has already experienced. When you analyse the customers your products/services already attract, you can better understand the customers you would like to expand or refine to.
Some ways to segment your audience:
- Geographic (location, urban or rural, etc.)
- Demographic (age, gender identity, sexuality, religion, etc.)
- Behavioural (also known as customer behaviour analysis)
- Media (where and how they consume content)
- Psychographic (opinions, interests, political leanings, etc.)
However, this list is by no means extensive, and there are plenty of other customer segmentation options out there so you may want to delve deeper.
Once you’ve reviewed your customer analysis and better defined your audience profiles, you can establish the buyer persona(s) to target. You’ll then have a stronger foundation when it comes to your campaign messaging.
With this setup, you will have an easier time when deciding the right language and creativity to best resonate with the specific people you’re hoping to compel into action.
4. Put your user-focused strategy to the test (and test and test again)
With customer analysis directing the winds of your marketing efforts, your campaigns should have better luck in finding land – by that, reaching the customers (new or with the intention to retain) you were aiming for.
When putting your user-focused strategy into action and developing your marketing materials, good questions to ask include:
What problem are we solving for our customers?
Identifying the pain points or challenges your customers face.
What sets our brand apart?
Highlight your unique value proposition.
How does our audience prefer to be addressed/what emotions to evoke?
Consider the language, tone, and communication style to ensure that the message feels relatable and engaging.
What action do we want our audience to take?
Define the desired action, whether it’s making a purchase, signing up, sharing content, etc.
What feedback have we received from customers?
Incorporate insights from customer feedback, reviews, or surveys – note: in Google’s Messy Middle, this ‘social proof’ can be persuasive.
Integrating your customer data into your marketing campaign is not a one-and-done task but an ongoing process that involves continuous testing and refinement.
Looking to drive greater marketing success with customer analysis? Let’s talk
User-centricity is on the rise, with value-driven content that caters to customer needs being a prevailing 2023 trend that’s likely to stick around. Recent algorithm updates, like Google’s Helpful Content system, are clear indicators of the direction search engines are going, so if you’re not yet making use of customer analysis, we’d recommend a pivot.
Here at Embryo, crafting high-quality content that resonates with audiences is what we do. Whether you need to boost traffic on your website with effective SEO, increase conversions on your landing page with better CTAs, or raise engagement on your social media channels, our team of professional copywriters is here to help.
If you’re looking to connect with your audience on a deeper level, contact our team today and we’ll talk you through our customer-led marketing strategies to get the ball rolling.
Deeper insights
- How to use content marketing to grow your business
- 30 insightful customer behaviour stats
- Different types of user intent
FAQS
Should customer analysis be a one-off?
Regular customer analysis is crucial, especially if you want to stay competitive in today’s digital landscape. Instead of doing a one-off sweep, by continually evaluating your customer base and making sure that your business can keep up with your audience’s preferences and demands, your resources can be used for maximum efficiency.
That means less time spent rehashing your existing plans to match the latest findings, and more time experimenting with exciting trends, developing new products. Why? Because you know what is appealing to your customers in the first place.
As such, keeping your finger on changing consumer trends and applying these insights throughout the customer journey has its perks, including:
- Boosted visibility for potential customers
- Building trust with your audience
- Improved satisfaction rates among existing clients
This approach doesn’t just help you attract new business, but retain and improve relationships with your most important clients: your current customer base.
What should a customer analysis include?
When you’re starting out with a customer analysis, make a point of gathering data about how your customers are interacting with your product or service, what their needs are, which demographics they belong to – and also get feedback directly from them.
The more accurate analysis you can get, the more useful your insights can be.
