There is so much power in knowing EXACTLY who your ideal customer is. When you know who your ideal customer is, you know what their problems are. You know what keeps them up at night. You know what they love. You know what type of information they’re looking for. And when you know all that, and you craft your marketing strategy around it, BOOM… you have customers who learn to trust you and eventually buy from you.

So, after you read this blog post, make it a priority to do some MARKET RESEARCH right away. 

Market research is essential to crafting your social media content, but it’s also crucial for crafting your products and services. So, let’s talk about both!

How to gather market research for social media content:

• It’s crazy how SIMPLE this actually is. Start off by examining your past content. What types of posts have gotten the most likes, comments, and shares? What types of trainings or tutorials have been “viewed” the most? Dig into your analytics (free on Facebook and Instagram business pages) and make note of your top performing content.
• What you can also do is use a POLL on Facebook or Instagram, asking your audience what they would like to see NEXT. 
  • Example for a boutique: “What do you want to see first? A blog post on how to wear a leather jacket 3 different ways? Or a Live video showing you all of our new arrivals?” Whatever gets the most votes is what you should post next!
• If you have an idea for an upcoming piece of content that’s a little different than what you normally share, but you think your ideal customer would benefit from it… GO FOR IT! This gives you a great opportunity to end the post with a specific call-to-action, such as, “Is this a topic you might like to hear more about in the future? Let me know by leaving me a heart below!”
  • Note: If you don’t get many “hearts” or people saying “YES! Please show me more of this!”… don’t get discouraged. Your audience may not be totally warmed up to you if this is something new you’re just getting started with. It takes time, so focus on sharing tons of value and building trust. Engagement will improve over time once you start consistently positioning yourself as an authority!
• Remember: Your content shouldn’t really about what you want to share. It should be about what your ideal customer wants/needs.

How to gather market research for your products and services:

• If you have a new idea for a product or service you want to offer, it’s so important to know your ideal customer’s pain points, which would be the determining factor for why they would purchase your product or service. You can find this out by asking your audience… “What frustrates you most about *BLANK*?” Or… “What are you confused about in regards to *BLANK*?” You can use a Question sticker on Instagram, or if you’re doing this on a Facebook business page, you could maybe ask people to personally message you their “answer” to your question. This may give you more raw and real answers because it’s more private and people would feel less exposed personally messaging you than they would making a public comment.
  • Note: I used this type of market research with an Instagram Question Sticker and I got an almost identical answer from several people. So, that was a HUGE sign that I needed to create content that helped my customers what that specific frustration/confusion.
• You can also do a market research CALL! This is where I challenge you to think of 3-5 people who are super engaged with your content and/or people who you THINK would be an ideal fit for your program. Offer them a free coaching call, free product, etc. IN EXCHANGE for 15-20 minutes of their time so you can ask some questions that will help you craft an upcoming product or service.
  • Again, it’s crazy how simple this really is! Hop on the phone with your ideal customer and ask them what they need help with. That’s just about all there is to it!
• You can also create a really simple survey using Google Forms (free), and ask a few of your ideal customers to fill it out in exchange for a discount or some sort of incentive for them. Again, ask them:
  • What are you struggling with?
  • What frustrates you about *BLANK*?
  • Would you prefer more information on *THIS* or *THAT*?
  • What’s one question you would love for me to answer?
  • Anything else that would help YOU create what THEY need!

Once you have your market research, keep track of it in a Google Doc or Google Sheet.

It’s super important that once you gather this information, you ACT on it! Don’t gather all this information from people and then not doing anything with it. Market research is powerful! If you’re crafting content, products, and services that your audience is asking you for, they’ll start trusting you and thinking of you as their “go-to”! And when they trust you, they buy from you. I have a full blog post about building trust HERE that you will find super helpful! Go check it out!

You should do market research for content purposes weekly! For crafting your products and services, it probably depends on your industry, but I would say doing market research every quarter would be a great place to start!

Any other questions about market research? Let me know how I can help!

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