Many marketers make it their primary goal to increase the quantity of their users, and the amount of data they collect about those users. What those marketers are not taking into consideration, however, is that the quality of the data being collected is equally important. It’s important to be able to communicate well with the people that interact with you and your brand. We’ve listed some important factors to keep in mind when collecting data from your audiences so that you can better familiarize yourself with their needs and wants.
1) Demographic information
Demographic information is anything that pertains to the range in gender, age, ethnicity, language and employment of your audience members. A lot of larger corporations have access to big marketing budgets that can afford CRM software, marketing automation tools, e-commerce and email marketing teams, however for smaller businesses it can be difficult to get access to all those methods. A possibility is to include certain questions as part of the sign-up process for your website. You don’t need to pummel your potential consumers with a hundred questions, just start out with the basics. At least that provides you with a little more background on the type of people using your product.
2) Location
Another important component to keep in mind when communicating with your audience is location. Luckily for you, Facebook, Twitter and Google Analytics all measure this factor for you. Keep in mind where certain audience groups are coming from when you send out your e-mail blasters and social media posts. You can use hashtags to your advantage to direct what you want to say, and who you want to say it to. When considering the location of your audiences, you can strategize what time you contact them based on the time zone they live in. People will probably not read the tweets you post if they are asleep!
3) Mobile Behaviours
Some questions to ask about your users are: what kinds of apps do they download and use? How frequently do they interact with those interfaces? What are their channel preferences? Nowadays people have internet access almost 24/7 and our phones have practically become an extension of our hands. You also have the option to measure their interactions 24/7. If you have an analytics app you can constantly track factors like: session length and interval, time in app, acquisition, retention and more. Use this information to your advantage and learn from the patterns of your users.
4) Online behaviours
Similar to monitoring your audiences mobile behaviours, by keeping an eye on their online tendencies you can track the kind of content they interact with, what content got clicks and what got ignored. You can see where certain users have abandoned online shopping carts, and which e-mails and posts were opened and shared. By keeping a record of this behaviour, and by A-B testing certain subject lines, and follow-up strategies, you can work on strengthening your relationship with your users and ensure continuous loyalty.
5) Offline behaviours
Another question you can ask your users, is about their offline behaviours. What do they do when they aren’t interacting with digital technology? What are their favourite stores, what time to they generally wake up? Noticing when they aren’t interacting with your tool means you can time when you do engage with them.
6) Psychographics
Understanding the personalities, values and lifestyles of consumers is very important if you hope to create fans out of your subscribers. Fans are users that will advocate for you and that have developed an emotional bond to you and your brand. How do you ensure that you can empathize and humanize yourself to your audience? Take time to ask them what their interests are. Reassure them that they are being heard by responding directly to their posts, tweeting back to them and producing content they’ve requested.
7) Purchase behaviours
A very important thing to watch out for is your users’ purchasing patterns. What triggers them to make a purchase? What types of images, words and promotions strike their interests? What kind of brands are they devoted to and what is it about those brands that they find so appealing? Learning these behaviours is certainly to your benefit as it can dictate how you choose to market your products to them.
You’re probably not going to be able to interact with every single member of your audience, but by working towards organizing your users into more narrowly defined groups, you will definitely have a better chance at retaining their attention!
Referenced from: Audience: Marketing in the age of subscribers, fans and followers by Jeffrey K. Rohrs