In the older times, you had to pay to get information about your customers so to understand them.
Large enterprises pay huge bills to market research firms for conducting statical research projects but not everyone can afford to do this.
But, prepare to be blown away!
You can get some very useful data as a solopreneur or a small business owner without the help of anyone, for FREE.
Shocked? Wondering how?
Well, all you need to do is to simply invest a little energy in gathering the data & putting it together.
Now, I’m sure you must be thinking where to start from, correct?
The answer is simple. FACEBOOK!
There are almost 900 million users on Facebook, who have shared their interests & intentions on this platform & above all, with YOU!
Thus, you just need to utilize all that valuable information for your own business & here’s how you can do that.
First Things First – Define Your Target
To conduct your research, you must first define your target, i.e. “Who do you want to know about?”
There’s a technique, in marketing, called “Ideal Customer profile or Persona”, in which you keep jotting down as much information as possible.
But, will that be enough? Perhaps not.
So, we need to do some investigation on Facebook as well.
Next, Flesh Out the Details!
As discussed above, your Ideal Customer Profile should be overloaded with details & to start with, demographics are perfect. But, along with demographics, psychographics hold a significant importance as well — sometimes more!
How do you collect that data?
Start by looking for their interests like: What TV shows, films, music as well as books do they prefer? What causes do they support? How much are they involved or interested in politics? Does their life revolve around family? Etc.
Sounds useless?
C’mon! You might not find these details useful for you & your business but this data gives you an insight about the key bit with you need to know: Their greatest motivations.
You’ll see how & why they’ll make a decision to buy from you, when you know their motivations (why do they get up in the first part of the day? why do they persevere? and what their definitive objectives are?)
Got it?
Perfect! Read on to learn about 7 fabulous ways to use Facebook for your next Market Research.
7 Fabulous Ways to utilize Facebook for Market Research
1. Explore the individual profiles and pages that belong to your fans.
Try to gather as much information as possible, even with the privacy settings.
Here’s what you need to know:
- Their demographics (where do they live? Are they married? With children?)
- Their likes (movies, books, music, etc.)
- Their status update will give you clues into what they’re truly passionate about & what problems they’re currently dealing with.
- Links to their other social media profiles and/or business website.
Keep a track of all these & make sure to keep a running list.
2. Look at the Insights for your fan page.
This will give you more information like:
- The group demographics of those who follow you.
- Which of your posts do they find generally fascinating (and are drawing in with)
3. Use the Facebook ad builder to find out how big your market is (as you define it).
4. Use the Facebook search tool to find:
- Entire group of individuals that fit your target market & hear them out. When you feel confident, jump into a discussion & network.
- Questions being asked related to your industry, product, or service classification (use the Public Posts filter)
5. Use the Facebook Polls option to ask your fans or potential friends inquiries regarding how they discover, buy & use products like yours.
6. Create a highly targeted ad that invites your right people to take a survey somewhere else on the web (use Survey Monkey or Pop Survey as extraordinary free choices).
7. Watch your mini news feed (on the right-hand side of your Facebook window) to see what smaller actions is your association making.
Currently – how would you manage the entirety of that valuable research? It depends. It just takes a spark to get an idea for another item or service that you’ve seen individuals lift their hands for.
I’ve had countless inquiries regarding how to set up a fan page when Facebook started getting well-known among small business owners — that started a Facebook for Small Biz Owners class, that I showed multiple times over a whole year.
WHYs behind your target clients’ requirements & wants, listening gives you some priceless information. You should always know the hidden WHY behind a client’s decision to buy. No matter what you sell.
Do they love to spend time with their family? Are disappointed with the uncontrolled changes in technology? What are they saying? You need to truly tune in.
Use the data you’ve found to help you:
- Write better copy for your site (copy that will relate to points of interest you’ve seen being pop-up from different clients)
- Understand where to invest your time in networking (which gatherings of individuals resonate more with what you have to bring to the table? Which are simply spamming links to one another?)
- Get to the bottom part of the “so what?” questions your prospects are asking about the features & advantages of your thing
See why individuals don’t buy from your rivals (is their stuff boring?) too wierd? too difficult to even consider understanding? Great –so, you understand what you need to improve.
What do you think? Have you utilized any of these techniques to research your market? Did I miss something?
Share a tip or question with us in the comments below.
