The smart marketer’s
guide to finding and
using customer insights
How to build relationships with your customers to find out what they care about
What’s inside
Preface 2
Build trust with your customers 3
Stop, look, and listen 5
Reach out directly 6
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes 8
Turn insights into action 10
Mine customer pain points to identify new opportunities 11
The positive power of negative feedback 12
Understand what makes people love you 14
Take this with you 16
About Bazaarvoice 17
From launching new products to building out
marketing campaigns, savvy businesses build
plans around concrete customer insights.
At their core, customer insights meld market research with shopper behavior
and customer sentiment around your brand, offering a lens into what makes
the buyer react a certain way, what motivates them, and what aspects of
Preface your brand or products are resonating in the market.
In the following pages, you’ll find strategies on how to:
• Forge direct relationships with your customers to learn what
they care about
• Leverage reviews and other online content to mine customer
sentiment about your brand and products
• Identify new business opportunities, change perceptions,
and foster brand advocacy
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 2
Build trust with your customers
Customers are at the center of your brand’s universe, so you have to build trust Marcus Sheridan, owner of a pool and spa company, revolutionized his
with them to stay in their orbit. Because the moment customers stop trusting you business when he began blogging honest answers to his customers’ most
is the moment they’ll go somewhere else. And that trust can be earned — or lost common questions.
— at any touchpoint along the customer journey.
“The question I was always asked within the first two minutes of talking to
You want your customers to trust you enough that they feel comfortable telling customers was, ‘How much does a fiberglass pool cost?’” Sheridan says.
you more about themselves — their customer journey, their pain points, and their “Pool installers are like mattress or car dealers — we hate talking about how
experiences with your products. much a pool costs until we have you in person because there are so many
options and accessories we want to sell you. As a result, pool companies
never mention price on their web sites.”
He continues: “But I said, I don’t care what the question is, we’re going to
Earn trust, earn trust, earn trust. answer it. […] So far to this day, I’ve been able to track a minimum of $1.7 million
Then you can worry about the rest.. in sales to that one article.”2
Customers value candid answers. The goal is to level with them and address
Seth Godin1
their questions and concerns.
Marketing expert and best selling author
marketing expert and best selling author
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 3
When the company takes the time to
understand my question and answer them
through a video, a few blog posts, or a
Q&A, I trust that company. And guess
Q
A
where I am inclined to buy? Yes, the place
that was helpful, even if their price is higher
than their competition’s.
David Meerman Scott
Online marketing strategist and author3 ADD TO CART
This doesn’t have to be a high-budget affair. With the rise of social media
platforms and the ease of answering questions through Q&A sections on
product pages, today’s marketers are more empowered than ever to be
responsive and attentive to their customers.
The important thing is to build long-term relationships with your audience.
HOW TO:
When you know more about what your customers care about, you’re in a
position to address their needs with the appropriate products and messaging.
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 4
Stop, look, and listen
You won’t get a real feel for customer sentiment “Learning what your customers are saying can be
around your brand unless you stop, look, and listen. hugely beneficial when it comes to refining your
Whether you’re scrolling through your brand’s overall positioning,” Pearlman says. “What’s more,
social media channels or running a focus group, it’s you can see the impact you’re having on people’s Some companies, such as Intel,
important to pay attention to how shoppers handle lives in a concrete way. That type of anecdotal employ anthropologists to study
your products, how they talk about your products, evidence is invaluable.” customers actions and behaviors.
and how they interact with your brand. Intel’s anthropologist, Ken Anderson,
But as invaluable as it is, it’s also anecdotal — and explains,4 “Our goal is to see people’s
For the majority of marketers, observation can be it’s important to bolster your findings with primary behavior on their terms, not ours. It
done as easily as checking the comments section of research. enlightens us about the context in
your Facebook page or reading online reviews about which customers would use a new
your products. “I’ve found several online research firms such as product and the meaning that product
Zappi that help you find analytical data about how might hold in their lives.”5
“My first step is to go through our product reviews at your products and brand are perceived,” Pearlman
our major retailers to see what our customers were says. “You can also access panel data from places
saying,” says Eric Pearlman, the executive director of like Nielsen. We’ve started targeting people who
marketing at Flexon Industries, a US manufacturer of buy products in our category to get feedback on
lawn, garden, and wiring products.6 “This is a huge our packaging and messaging. That type of listening
leg of social listening for me. The other part is going work is vital.”
onto social media to see what people are saying.”
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 5
Reach out directly
to your customers ARE YOU HAPPY WITH YOUR
MOST RECENT PURCHASE?
Of course, sometimes it’s best to be direct and ask your customers what they think.
If you’re worried about bothering your customers, consider this:
B E N F R AN KL IN E F F E CT: The scientifically demonstrated effect
of when people wind up liking you more after asking them for a favor.
H E R E AR E SOM E O F TH E M O R E CO M M O N WAYS M AR K E TE R S R E ACH OUT TO TH E I R CUS TOM E R S D I R EC TLY.
Online surveys Direct email
A tried and true method for collecting large amounts of customer feedback, Whether you’re asking for ratings and reviews, or just checking in on what a
online surveys are a great way to capture consumer sentiment around your brand customer thinks about you, email allows for a level of direct feedback you might
and products. Online tools like SurveyMonkey and SurveyGizmo offer reasonably not get over social media since you can ask for exactly what you want to know.
priced, easy-to-use services — and free options — that make it easy to get the
feedback you need. Ask your customers what they like most about your products and if there’s room
for improvement anywhere when it comes to your messaging and packaging.
Respond to these emails with a sincere thanks — even if the feedback is negative.
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 6
Customer interviews Social media polls Focus groups
If you have the resources and the time, direct Social media polls give you a quick, affordable In contrast to direct engagement on social, email,
interviews can also be a powerful way of learning pulse on what your followers think. Whether you’re or even one-on-one interviews, focus groups
more about your customers. showing them two different kinds of packaging or provide a controlled forum to gather qualitative
asking if they like one color more than the other, insights, particularly when they are conducted by an
At The Seaweed Bath Co., the marketing team social polling increases follower engagement and independent facilitator. The output of a focus group
frequently reaches out to customers who leave spirited gets quick feedback from customers. also tends to be more layered and multidimensional
reviews on their products to find out more about than what you can collect from polling or interviews,
their experiences. Customers are often surprised to so they are useful to drill into complexities around
find that senior members of The Seaweed Bath Co. your industry, brand, and products.
team care enough to reach out, and respond by giving
candid responses about their experiences. Direct However, focus groups tend to be more expensive
feedback from customers provides great insights about than other forms of market research, and the
opportunities to improve products or tune messaging. findings can vary based on the strength of the
moderator.
According to eMarketer, 54% of
marketers said they relied on
current customer interviews when
developing buyer personas.7
But both advocates and detractors have something
important to tell you. It’s a good practice to collect THE BOTTOM L INE Asking your customers for their thoughts on your products
feedback from both to really understand your strengths helps them feel more connected to your brand as a stakeholder. Taking their feedback
and opportunities to improve. What’s more, listening into consideration and engaging with them shows that you care about what they have
to your detractors can be a great way to turn them to say, which helps further build trust.
into enthusiasts.
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 7
Put yourself in your
customers’ shoes
As marketers, it’s natural to look at your campaigns and products from the
perspective of sales. But it’s important not to lose sight of the shopper’s
point of view and think through the customer experience with your brand
and products.
To get closer to the shopper’s point of view, marketers typically map out
the customer journey, highlighting each touchpoint in the sales cycle. But
remember, the end goal of this mapping is to understand your customer’s
needs and questions throughout the buying cycle.
“My general approach is to think around every single touchpoint and make
sure our messaging online, in the store, on our packaging, and through our
promotions all aligns,” says Flexon’s Pearlman. “Our approach starts at the
store level. Since our customers make their decision at the store, it’s vital that
we present ourselves the right way. That begins with figuring out what we
want to communicate in our packaging.”
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 8
My general approach is to think
It’s also important, Pearlman says, to do “some investigative research into how
other players in the market are operating and what they’re doing to position around every single touchpoint and
themselves.” This kind of research can happen online — but you can also go make sure our messaging online, in
directly to a retail store and see how your product stands out against
the competition. the store, on our packaging, and
As you go through exercises like this, you should also be thinking about what through our promotions all aligns.
your customers are saying. “We had one product that was getting negative […] Since our customers make their
reviews,” Pearlman says. “Going through what customers were saying, we
found that people were getting the wrong impression about our product — decision at the store, it’s vital that
our messaging was off. We worked with the retailer to update our content and
make sure our customers had the right expectations.”
we present ourselves the right way.
That begins with figuring out what
In short order, Pearlman says, Flexon saw increases in both average star rating
and customer satisfaction of its product. we want to communicate in our
packaging.
Eric Pearlman
Executive Director of Marketing at Flexon Industries
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 9
Turn insights into action
Of course, the secret is turning insights into action.
Making that connection can be exciting, according to Pawan Divakarla,
data and business analytics leader at Progressive. When Progressive first
5.0
launched its mobile app, it only provided insurance quotes.
Highly data-driven organizations are 3X more likely than
others to report significant improvement in decision
making. — PwC 8
But the analytics team noticed that mobile users wanted more than just
information. “We said, ‘It looks like, from the data, people are attempting
to buy, and so we should put buy-related software up there.’ It was a really
big aha moment,” said Divakarla.9
Here, Divakarla points to a common strategy: strategically targeting offers
based on past purchase behaviors. But for brands selling through retail
and e-commerce channels, that information can often be hard to come by.
In this case, leveraging what you learn by direct observation, reading
reviews, conducting interviews, and becoming the shopper are your
next best steps. So, how do you turn those kinds of insights into action?
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 10
Mine customer pain points
to identify new opportunities
Let’s say you’ve uncovered a customer pain point. Whether it’s an incomplete
product description or a packaging issue, pain points open up a plethora
of opportunities because they allow you to see where you can better serve
your shoppers.
When Zinus, manufacturer of comfort sleeping products, set out to read their
ratings, reviews, questions and answers, they realized shoppers were concerned
about not being able to experience mattress firmness when buying online.
3.5
Zinus responded by developing a “Mattress Finder” with a national retailer,
which compared mattress firmness to tangible things, such as a hammock or
firm pillow, and suggested matches between specific products and various
types of sleepers.10
“Content from reviews helps us identify key wholesale markets,” says David
Richards, head of marketing at the apparel brand Sealskinz. “We have one
general-purpose outdoor glove that reviews indicated was being used THE BOTTOM L INE Online tools like product reviews are making it increasingly
extensively for mountain biking. So we started targeting cycling retailers with it. easy to learn about consumer perceptions and react accordingly, especially in retail
At one store alone, they ordered 2,000 pairs. We would have never known to and e-commerce channels that were historically hard to analyze.
do that without reviews.”11
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 11
The positive power of negative feedback
80% of businesses believe they deliver “superior”
customer service. But only 8% of customers agree those
companies provide superior service. — Forrester Research12
It’s one thing to get complaints on products you know need a manufacturing or One of the least-discussed benefits
packaging fix. But it’s another thing to get negative feedback from a customer of ... paying attention to customer
who provides little reason for their bad experience. Despite how difficult it may
be to receive this kind of feedback, it’s where you can find some of your most feedback is the potential to glean
powerful customer insights. insights about your business that
A powerful customer reaction — whether seemingly undeserved or not — can improve your operations and
is often a sign that something’s amiss in your marketing mix.
processes. Haters are the canaries
Here, our friends at Zinus have an example. A little background first: Zinus
delivers mattresses in a box with a compression technology that it considers
in the coal mine. They are the early
a selling point. But unknown to Zinus, its proprietary box would often confuse warning detection system for
customers who would then complain online, call up support, and sometimes
even refuse delivery altogether.
your business.
Jay Baer
a New York Times best-selling author and expert on
marketing and customer experience13
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 12
YO UR BR A N D
Zinus used that outcry to identify the need to be more upfront about the technology.
They successfully turned the perceived negative into a positive feature of
the mattress by creating a video that highlighted the benefits of the new
boxing method. Had they ignored what their customers were saying, because it
2.0
didn’t feel fair or warranted, they would never have uncovered a simple solution to
fix a negative perception.14
There are a few things to keep in mind when you receive negative reviews.
1 Respond in a sincere way to show the
customer you care. “It’s important to take
2 Take preventative actions. Consider
the content of the original review, and
3 Take it in stride. If more than 90% of your
reviews are positive, but 10% of your reviews
swift action as soon as a negative review has work backwards to see if there is anything are negative or average, take the good with
been posted,” Salesforce advises.15 “In some you can fix such as your messaging or the bad — respond to the person, fix and
cases, you’ll find the customer removes the product descriptions. learn what you can, and move on.
negative comment or, at the very least, rethinks
the original plan to give you bad reviews in
additional places.”
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 13
Understand what makes
people love you
You may already have a solid brand, and end up finding that customers love you
and your products. That’s a happiness problem you should take full advantage of.
Think about classic brands like Converse, Coca-Cola, or Levi’s: Their products
have stood the test of time. Although these brands haven’t dramatically changed
their products, they have stayed relevant over time with marketing campaigns
that evolve with modern trends.
Each has grown to be one of the most recognizable brands in history because
they understand their unique value and heritage. In short, it’s not always necessary
to change things for the sake of change. In fact, change can sometimes
be detrimental.
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 14
Tommy Bahama, a classic manufacturer of sportswear,
footwear, and home furnishings, learned this lesson
firsthand when it discontinued their Bahama Survivor
Shorts — a customer favorite with high review volume
and a 4.8 average rating. Customers quickly rebelled,
publicly voicing their irritation.
Tommy Bahama had set up automated reports to discover
COMFORTABLE FIT, STYLISH
trends in their customer feedback and sentiments, and LOOK, SUPERB VALUE
they watched as negative customer feedback came
through. Based on that feedback, Tommy Bahama
chose to re-release the shorts and included customer BEST EVERYDAY SHORTS EVER
reviews in its messaging.
LOVE THE ELASTIC WAIST
The result?
The Bahama Survivor Shorts became one of the company’s
most lucrative products, beating the performance of COMFORTABLE, STYLISH
the same product in years prior by 629%.16
& LONG-LASTING
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 15
Take this with you
Customer insights meld market Here are three key takeaways to keep in mind when developing a consumer insights strategy:
research with shopper behavior and Buying decisions are complex. Try to supplement your online data, e.g., ratings and reviews,
customer sentiment around your with offline data, e.g., direct customer observation and face-to-face interviews.
brand, giving you a looking glass As you watch and listen, you’re trying to formulate a story. Specifically, you want to capture
into how your brand — and products stories that reveal how your customers think, feel, and act. For instance, how do they make their
buying decisions?
— are perceived by shoppers.
Whether you’re launching a new Customer insights give way to business success. Once you discern why your customers do
product or working to evolve your what they do, it will be much easier to form long-term relationships with them as well as turn loyal
shopping enthusiasts into genuine brand advocates.
messaging and packaging, customer
insights are a key cornerstone of
successful business decisions.
Talk to us — we can help.
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 16
About Bazaarvoice
Bazaarvoice helps brands and retailers find and reach consumers, and win
them with the content they trust. Each month in the Bazaarvoice Network, more
than one-half billion consumers view and share authentic consumer-generated
content (CGC), including ratings and reviews, as well as curated visual content
across 5,000 brand and retail websites. This visibility into shopper behavior
allows Bazaarvoice to capture unique first-party data and insights that enable
our targeted advertising and personalization solutions.
Founded in 2005, Bazaarvoice is headquartered in Austin, Texas with offices
across North America and Europe.
For more information, visit [Link]
Visual content strategies to supercharge the buyer journey 17
References
1 Seth Godin, “The most important question.” February 23, 2014.
[Link]
2 Mark Cohen, “A Revolutionary Marketing Strategy: Answer Customers’ Questions.” New York Times. February 27, 2013.
[Link]/2013/02/28/business/smallbusiness/[Link]
3 David Meerman Scott, Foreword to Buyer Personas: How to Gain Insight into Your Customer’s Expectations, Align Your Marketing Strategies, and
Win More Business, by Adele Revella. 2015.
4 Mind Tools, “What is Business Ethnography? Redefine Your Customer Relationships.”
[Link]
5 Ken Anderson, “Ethnographic Research: A Key to Strategy.” Harvard Business Review. Maarch, 2009.
[Link]
6 Pearlman, Eric. (2017, December). Personal interview.
7 eMarketer, “How Do B2B Marketers Create Buyer Personas?” November 7, 2016.
[Link]
8 Google, “3 Tips to Make Your Data Work Harder.” January, 15, 2016. Citation of PwC, “Global Data and Analytics Survey.” May 2016.
[Link]
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 18
9 Google, “From insight to action: How data-driven marketing is supporting big decisions.” September 2016.
[Link]
10 Bazaarvoice, “Zinus Leverages Insights Gained from Shopper Questions on Retail Partner Sites to Guide Product Innovation and
Increase Sales.” [Link]
11 Bazaarvoice, “Sealskinz uses Bazaarvoice Conversations to win more customers.”
[Link]
12 Forrester Research, “The Customer Experience Index, 2012.” January 23, 2012.
[Link]
13 Jay Baer, Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers. 2016.
14 Bazaarvoice, “Sleep Revolution Leverages Insights Gained from Shopper Questions on Retail Partner Sites to Guide Product Innovation and
Increase Sales.” [Link]
15 Salesforce, “Six steps to turn negative reviews into a sales boom.” 2016.
[Link]
16 Newhoff, Mary. (July 2016). Personal interview.
The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights 19
[Link]