6 min read
Consumer behavior analysis involves collecting and analyzing data to know how your customers feel and behave when interacting with your brand.
Doing so will help you make smarter decisions, increase customer retention and improve their experience with your products or services. Discover how to run a consumer behavior analysis in 6 steps!
Define your Research Objectives
First things first: what is the objective of your research?
A high-level goal will help you stay on track and focus on meaningful insights.
For instance, are you looking to make your marketing campaigns more effective? Or would you like to test a new value proposition?
The answer will dictate the research methods and tools you should use.
Strategic Customer Segmentation
Do you believe there are gaps in your customer segments? If so, this will serve as a great starting point.
Before you tap into new audiences, ensure you have a deep knowledge of users already in your funnel.
Grouping customers by certain criteria will help you make your marketing strategies more effective.
So, how can you do it?
There are many ways to segment your audience depending on your goals and context.
For example, you can group them based on:
- Demographics (age, gender identity, income, education, etc.)
- Job roles (what is their position, who do they report to, etc.)
- Geographic data (countries, regions, cities)
- Behavioral patterns (how your customers interact with your products or services)
- Buying decision behavior (what is their role in the decision-making process)
- Psychographic data (their opinions, interests and beliefs)
- Communication preferences (which media and channels they prefer to interact with)
Quantitative Research Strategies
Whether you are trying to analyze your existing customers or find new opportunities, quantitative research is your number one tool.
It involves working with various types of numerical data.
For instance, you can use:
- Surveys
- Website analytics (e.g., Google Analytics)
- e-commerce analytics (e.g., Shopify store analytics)
- Social media analytics
- CRM data
You can save a lot of time and resources with smart insights platforms like Zinklar.
Simply choose the survey type you’d like to run, select the target audience, and get the results delivered in less than a day.
The Impact of Qualitative Research
Qualitative research is useful for understanding what your customers think and how they feel.
It lets you uncover hidden motivations and challenges and get valuable feedback on your strategy.
You can do this with:
- In-depth interviews
- Focus groups
Ideally, you should combine qualitative and quantitative research.
Customer Analysis for Improvement
There are also ways to integrate customer analysis into your daily operations.
How?
By analyzing conversations your customers have with your brand.
Your clients already reach out to your business—via feedback forms, customer support, and by interacting with Sales and Customer Success specialists.
You can benefit from it by continuously analyzing and acting on these insights. This way, you can spot potential issues and find new market opportunities.
For instance, you can create a Slack channel for Sales and CSM teams to share feedback and questions they receive from customers.
You can also automate parts of this process by designing brand tracking, customer feedback, and customer satisfaction studies with Zinklar.
Finally, brand monitoring and social listening tools are another great way to learn what people say about your company online.
Customer Profiles, Personas, and Journeys
Once your data is collected and segmented, you can build your customer profiles, create personas, and map the buyer’s journey.
- A customer profile is a fictional description of your ideal client.
- A buyer persona is a closely connected concept that lets you describe various types of customers with different characteristics.
Finally, you can also use your customer data to design the customer’s journey. It visualizes different stages a potential buyer goes through when researching and buying your products.
It’ll help you understand your brand’s touchpoints with its customers and create effective communication strategies for each of them.
