Market Research and its role in creating an effective content strategy!
It is a very commonly found misconception that both market research and content marketing are for big-shot firms. Nothing could be far from the truth. While content marketing is gaining huge acceptance amongst the consumers, research to determine what kind of content works best with what kind of audience has become imperative.
One other commonly made mistake is taking on a content strategy without exclusively knowing your audience. What happens, in this case, is that content generated might be stellar but it might not be a perfect fit for your audience. Hence taking on content marketing is important but doing it right for your audience, powered by real-time data is of utmost importance.
Here are some elaborate reasons on how market research aids the formulation of a spectacular content strategy:
1- It helps you understand your audience better- Not everyone out there is your audience. So who is? What do they like? Where can you commonly find them? What are their interests? What would they like to know about? Extensive research answers all these questions and makes it supremely easier for you to curate content accordingly. This way, the brand, and the audience- both win!
2- It helps you differentiate- There is a huge spectrum of people that a brand might encounter over the horizons of the digital medium. There are your actual customers, potential customers, people who admire your brand story, people who love your products but cannot use them yet, and so on. With research, you can locate these customers and hit the dart right on the bull’s eye by giving them exactly what they are looking for.
3- It gives you a clearer picture of your competitor’s strategy- Research is very apt in telling you what has previously worked very well for competitors who deal with the same range of audiences or sell the same product/ services. With that kind of information, uncovering what might work best for you becomes a piece of cake. Plus, market research also sheds a fair light on how your TG is responding to other competitor brands and their campaigns.
4- It brings you varied scope for experimentation- With research, brands have a fair idea of what characterizes their TG. This gives them a great deal of leverage in coming up with newer and better ways of engaging with them, both online and offline. Because they know what this range of audiences have previously responded to and what they look forward to, creating avenues for their involvement with the brands comes in handy.
Do we need any more reasons to rule out research while curating content strategy for your brand? One thing to remember here is that your audience is the center of your content marketing universe.
At IBI, we can help you uncover sweet spots of innovation across all your business areas and help you make better decisions, powered by intellect and real-time data.
