If you’re on the path of growing your brand to the next level, when was the last time you turned to your brand community for their take? From the brands we’ve worked with, we’ve seen how many teams are sitting on a treasure trove of customer insights, but often don’t find the time and head space to piece them all together to be their guiding light.
Whether refreshing existing customer personas or creating them for the first time, work like this is crucial for tapping into insights that could give your brand a fresh edge. Nothing’s more powerful than having certainty about your customers' needs, preferences, behaviors and most importantly understanding what draws people to your brand.
The Rewards of Living in the Comments Section
While time-consuming, proactively hunting for insights and trends in the comments on your brand’s social media posts, blog articles, and review sites can significantly benefit your brand in the long run.
By engaging in this practice, you gain real-time feedback on what’s working and what’s not, allowing you to make timely adjustments to enhance the customer experience. The keywords and language used by your audience can also inspire marketing content and campaigns, ensuring your messaging resonates with your target market. Additionally, identifying recurring themes and spotting feedback trends early can spark ideas for your next product launch or reformulation, keeping your brand innovative and responsive to customer needs.
While a single comment might not necessitate an immediate change in your brand’s direction or strategy, we’ve found that comments can often reflect the shared sentiments of many others. These insights are worth exploring further through additional forums such as focus groups or surveys to validate the feedback and gain a deeper understanding of customer perspectives.
But sometimes the more direct approach can work the best. So if you want to know something, why not just ask?
US brand Kiki originally launched with one unisex product; its community then decided what came next. The brand continues to put its community at the heart of everything, letting customers vote on product features like colors and fragrances before they are released. They’ve integrated NFC tech into their packaging to reward engagement and track product usage, creating a more sustainable circular supply chain.
Scandy, a Danish brand works closely with a dedicated community of ambassadors, gathering their insights and encouraging them to participate in shaping future products and campaigns, ensuring its offerings reflect the real needs and desires of its most loyal customers.
Get in Some Face Time
Hosting focus groups can provide invaluable insights into customer perceptions, preferences, and experiences. The effectiveness of a focus group hinges on asking the right questions. Defining your objectives clearly from the outset is crucial to ensure your focus group yields the information you need.
Expert tip: Handing over the facilitation to a qualified expert can significantly enhance the quality of your focus group discussions. Expert facilitators understand the subtle nuances of question framing and tone, which can put respondents at ease. This comfort encourages participants to share more openly and provide richer, more detailed responses. By using professional facilitation, you can unlock deeper insights and gain a more comprehensive understanding of your audience's perspectives.
The Power of Second Spaces
The most inspiring customer insights are often shared in ‘second spaces’. Brand second spaces refer to private online groups and brand channels, separate from social media. These spaces create more intimacy where customers can connect more deeply, which tends to be lacking in typical social media channels. Second spaces prioritize genuine community and customer-led dialogue where customers connect and are seen and heard. The customer-to-customer interactions in these spaces, can inspire new ideas that become levers for growth.
With social media burnout on the rise, second spaces for brand communities will soon become table-stakes. Dischord, Slack, private Facebook Groups, groups on online platforms like Skool and WhatsApp groups are all trending for building brand communities.
Engaging with your brand community is essential for growth. Regularly gathering feedback through comments, focus groups, and second spaces provides valuable direction. These interactions help you understand the evolving preferences, needs, and sentiments of your audience, allowing your brand to stay relevant and resonate with its customers.
By actively seeking new insights, you can ensure your brand remains responsive, relevant, and aligned with your customers' evolving needs. This means not just passively collecting feedback but proactively analyzing and acting on it.
If you need help piecing together a brand game plan, to make the most of your beauty market research. We're always here to help, so you're welcome to get in touch.
Author: Effie Asafu-Adjaye
Effie Asafu-Adjaye is the Founder of Beautiful Sparks. Beautiful Sparks helps beauty and fashion businesses get more fanatics in love with their brands, by refining their brand strategy, messaging, branding, content storytelling, and community-building strategy. Read more about Effie here. Linkedin.
