3 layers of market research

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Know your market position

Understanding your market position will help you develop bold and noteworthy content that can’t be produced by any other brand. Here are some questions to answer:

 

• What customer needs do you address? 

• How do you address your customers’ needs differently than your competitors? Put another way, how do you uniquely serve your customers? 

• How are you challenging the status quo? 

• How do you approach the business problem differently? 

• Why do you exist?

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Research your audience

I really want you to get to know your target audience in an “I-could-peg-your-enneagram” way. The father of modern marketing and Kellogg School of Management marketing professor Philip Kotler asserts that you don’t have a brand unless you deliver a specific benefit that addresses a particular need for your customers. 

 

Customer-centricity is it. Don’t be a victim of the “if you build it, they will come” mentality. You have to know your customers inside and out – their goals, motivations, and desires – to produce the content they want.

 

What you learn from audience research

 

• Your audience’s pain points, expectations, and behaviors 

• Their objections, challenges, and obstacles

• Their emotional decision-making triggers

• Their rational decision-making triggers

• Their stage of awareness of your brand and solutions

• Where they hang out 

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Information to collect

 

• Factors that define your audience (demographics):

  • Gender

  • Income

  • Education

  • Marital status

  • Family size

  • Ethnicity

  • Industry

  • Socio-economic status and factors

 

• Details about their lifestyle, beliefs, opinions, and goals (psychographics): 

  • Where do they work?

  • What do they do?

  • What activities do they enjoy? 

  • What do they believe? 

  • How do they relate to your space or industry? 

 

• Data on how your audience behaves and what their buying journey looks like (behaviors):

  • How do they use your product and when?

  • How do they use your website? 

  • How much time do they spend on other media and what time of day?

  • What are their buying habits?

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How to collect audience research

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Fortunately, the internet simplifies conducting audience research. It used to be that you had to conduct formal focus groups and market research to find out about your target audience. These are still some of the most powerful ways to collect information about your audience, but with the advent of analytics, it’s also possible to conduct audience research by studying data. 

 

Here are some audience research ideas to get you started:

 

• Survey your customers

• Conduct customer interviews

• Review buying behavior and preferences from market research in your particular industry

• Analyze website data

• View market trends

• Study your Google Analytics data

• Gather buyer intent data

• Look at search trends of your solution, company, and industry

• Conduct social listening

 

This research will teach you about your audience's particular need/s that your solution solves. Beyond that, it’ll give you ideas on things your audience cares about and help you understand what they need to learn from you in order to buy from you.

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Next, research your competition

Brands with bold and noteworthy content have a unique point of view, set of principles, and beliefs. Inherent to this definition, it behaves differently from other brands.

 

What they have to say adds to, advances, and pushes the conversation forward. It offers another way to think about it. It’s innovative, imaginative, and visionary. It has strong beliefs, often unwavering. Therefore, it does not regurgitate the same ol’ topics everyone else talks about. 

 

Now, in the age of AI, originality matters more than ever. So to make sure your POV is your POV alone, we need to know what the other guys are saying. 

 

Here’s how.

 

Make a spreadsheet with these labels across the top: 

 

• Market position and presence

• Audience/s served

• Positioning statement

• Pain points it solves

• Products it sells

• Case studies and testimonials

• Content positioning (Identifies the purpose of a company’s content. If it exists, it’s usually a descriptor on the blog or content hub landing page.)

• Content themes, categories, and subtopics

• First-party-owned content (original research, reports, etc)

• Content formats

• Top, middle, and bottom of the funnel content activities

• Distribution channels

 

Now, fill in the information. 

 

You’re going to learn a lot about your competitor’s messaging and content strategy by conducting this content audit. And you’ll need it to ensure your ideas are original.

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A soapbox: SEO is a content marketing tactic

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I can guess with a great degree of certainty that what you find in your competitive review is a lot of unoriginal content driven by SEO. Marketers at your competitors have identified keywords from user intent search queries that are relevant to their space and have created content to address these ideas in hopes of driving traffic to their website. 

 

To become a brand that earns resonance, you need to be leaders of original thinking, new insights, and expert opinions. Creating content for popular keyword searches that looks like the other content for that keyword doesn't get you to the ultimate goal. 

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Please don’t misunderstand me. SEO is part of a content strategy, but it’s an ingredient – or tactic – not the strategy itself. (Note: content produced for SEO can also be designed to meet the criteria for bold and noteworthy content.)

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Clarify your mission, purpose, and values

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What do Nike, Starbucks, and Peloton have in common? They’re driven by a strong mission, core purpose, and defined set of values. When Air Jordan’s have a new release, they fly off shelves. Starbucks has grown its operation to 38,000 locations in 84 countries. Peloton went from 1.6 million to 6.4 million members in 5 years.

 

How did they do it? They built brands that stand for something.

 

• Nike: Nike sells shoes and apparel, but it inspires consumers to be the best athletes they can be. Its purpose is to move the world forward through the power of sport. “Worldwide, we’re leveling the playing field, doing our part to protect our collective playground and expanding access to sport for everyone.” Its marketing represents these values which deepen its audiences' connection to the brand.

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• Starbucks: Former CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz set out to build a coffee culture, turning a commodity grocery store product into a cultural experience about human connection. “Starbucks has pioneered and overseen programs that express multiple manifestations of purpose and impact, of the company’s devotion to Lead With We, from helping underserved communities, to ethical sourcing, women’s empowerment, civic engagement, hunger relief, and marriage equality, just to mention a few highlights. Its carefully curated and brand-appropriate mission has allowed Starbucks to address issues as wide-ranging as political donations, post-traumatic stress disorder, refugees, job creation, sustainability, gun violence, and more,” reports Forbes contributor Simon Mainwaring.

 

• Peloton: Peloton has built a raving community by living up to its mission of empowering its members to be the best versions of themselves. The brand’s 60+ instructors inspire self-empowerment in their classes. They’re so effective at inspiring self-empowerment in classes that its members go so far as creating parodies of the instructors doing so.

 

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These three examples demonstrate that people want to support brands that align with their values. On the other token, they’ll leave brands that don’t. A Harris Poll study commissioned by Google Cloud reports that 82% of shoppers want a consumer brand’s value to match their own. Seventy-five percent of shoppers have left a brand that conflicts with their values. 

 

If you thought, “Yeah, but I’m a B2B brand,” you’re in for a surprise. Corporate responsibility means a lot to B2B buyers as well. Seventy-two percent of B2B buyers say they are more likely to buy from a socially responsible business, 17 points higher than the general public, and they’ll spend more if a brand lives up to it.

 

Your mission, purpose, and values matter. How you convey them in – and out – of your company naturally attracts a like-minded audience who values what you do.

 

Chances are you already have a mission, purpose, and values, but when was the last time you dusted them off? Do they reflect your vision and beliefs today? Are you living and breathing them like the companies noted above do? Do they inspire your content? 

 

Spend time reviewing, revising, or creating these foundational elements of your brand. They’re the essence of producing bold and noteworthy content.

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Create or refresh your brand story​

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A brand story is a compelling strategic narrative that tells customers why you’re in business. A great brand story doesn’t just recount the history of how your business was founded and its evolution over time, but it will highlight the origin stories that shaped who the brand is, why you do what you do, and what makes your company unique. It gives your customers another reason to care about your brand. 

 

Consumers are more likely to buy from your brand when they believe in why you do what you do. As Simon Sinek famously said, ​start with why. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it,” he argues. This is why companies like Apple can start selling computers, then sell iPods, then iPhones. People inherently trust the value of Apple products because they trust Apple.

 

Your brand story is one way to connect your audience with your mission, purpose, and values. 

 

A study by Headstream found that “if people love a brand story, 55% are more likely to buy the product in the future, 44% will share the story, and 15% will buy the product immediately.”

 

You may be tempted, even excited, to start writing your brand story, but there’s one more thing we should discuss before you put pen to paper to write or refresh your brand story.

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The hero’s journey

You may think that your company is the hero of your story. You may have started the business. You may be a market leader. You may be innovating the most useful products, services, or solutions in the world. You’ve got the answers. Your audience should look to you as their North Star. 

 

On the contrary, you actually need to position your customer as the hero of your story. That’s because your audience is going to work with you or buy from you to achieve some sort of transformation from where they are now to where they want to be, and you need to help them realize what that transformation looks like with you. You’re the guide in their transformation.

 

This is a time-tested storytelling approach called the hero’s journey.

 

Here’s how it works: 

 

1. The hero = your customer

2. Who has a problem: both external and internal

3. They meet a guide (your company) who understands their fears

4. The guide gives them a plan to overcome their problem thereby reducing their fears

5. And calls them to action

6. The guide shows them the success of going with the plan

7. Or failure if they don’t

8. They go with the guide’s plan and win!

 

Many movies use this storytelling approach to create a compelling narrative that encourages the audience to watch the entire movie. Think of your favorite movie, from Deadpool to Star Wars to Harry Potter and The Lion King. In the beginning, the hero faces an internal and external crisis. They stew about the problem, before coming up with a plan with the help of a trusted guide. Then, they go into battle and win.

 

Your customer is the hero of your story. You’re the guide who has the plan that helps them win. 

 

It’s a good thing you did all that audience research. Now is the time to apply it to create a brand story that helps your audience see themselves in your story.

 

Remember to start with your why.

 

Spotlight: The story behind Nonipup
*A few years ago, we had a big health scare with Doug The Pug that prompted us to take a look at what was truly best for our pup. He had developed “immune-mediated thrombocytopenia.” That means his immune system almost killed him because of the allergy medication he was on! Luckily, we discovered the cause of his rare reaction and without the medication, he is now healthy and thriving.

 

This experience led us to a holistic health approach, completely transforming Doug's life. Inspired by this, and with the goal of transforming the pet industry, we created Nonipup – a line of all-natural, ethically developed products, crafted with care for our furry friends to live their best lives and that owners can trust!

 

Doug The Pug is thriving on Nonipup. Our pups are important parts of our families and deserve the best. Join Doug, won’t you?" (source: welcome email newsletter “Meet Nonipup! Doug The Pug's NEW company”)

 

The hero: Doug the Pug

 

Who has a problem: His disease, immune-mediated thrombocytopenia, almost killed him because of the allergy medication he was on.

 

They meet a guide: Pet parents, Leslie and Rob, founders of Nonipup

 

The guide gives them a plan to overcome their problem: “Luckily, we discovered the cause of his rare reaction.”

 

The guide shows them the success of going with the plan: “…he is now healthy and thriving.”

 

Or failure if they don’t: Inherent in the message, he will continue suffering if he doesn’t stop taking the medication and turn to a holistic health approach.

 

They go with the plan and win: “Doug The Pug is thriving on Nonipup.”

 

Throughout the brand story, you also learn Nonipup’s mission, vision, and values:

 

Mission: “We created Nonipup – a line of all-natural, ethically developed products, crafted with care for our furry friends to live their BEST lives and that owners can trust!”

 

Vision: To transform the pet industry through all-natural, ethically developed products.

 

Values: “Our pups are important parts of our families and deserve the best. Join Doug, won’t you?”