There are a few ways you can gather the data you need about your customers.
Look around you – Even if at first glance it doesn’t seem important, noticing is the first step you should take. Gather some information from existing customers and analyze their behavior, attitude, desires and intent. They might even tell you themselves what they are looking for and what their needs are.
Get ahead with Google Trends – Before you start any kind of insight into your potential and current customers, a quick Google search might help. Google Trends is a completely free and very useful tool offered by Google that shows you the volume of searches according to certain filters you can choose.
Continue on Social Media – You’ve probably already thought that a good way to promote your business is an online presence. But more than just creating and developing a presence, social media platforms offer some insights into the demographics of your followers. By analysing them, you’ll form a clearer picture of your online audience.
You can try a keyword analysis – For a more in-depth perspective, keyword analysis shows you what your potential or current customers are interested in and looking for. Although keyword analysis requires a higher level of technical knowledge, it can help you understand how your products or services may be searched for. Based on this analysis you can make decisions about the structure of your website, the placement of information or even how to address potential customers.
Promotion through paid campaigns – Google Ads or Facebook Ads can help build a profile for customer personas. Analysing your advertising campaigns helps you identify those who have already come into contact with your business – and therefore your customers. And if they are not your customers, at least they are part of your target audience (because if you set your campaigns right, they are interested in the solutions you offer), in which case you can see possible niches to target in the future.
Haven’t done paid online promotion yet? Start with a few test campaigns – It’s not going to be easy to set up (especially if it’s your first contact with the promotion platforms) and you may need to adjust later, but you can get valuable clues about your potential customers.
Track what’s happening on your site through Google Analytics – If your business has a website, all the better! Associate your page with a Google Analytics account. With this tool you can analyse the traffic to your site, see how people reached you, how they interacted with your site or how many of those who visited your site placed an order. All of this together shows your customers’ interest and behaviour towards your brand.
In addition, you can also use quantitative and qualitative research and evaluation methods, such as surveys, customer feedback or even interviews (which can take the form of informal discussions with your customers).
