Data should be the driving force behind your marketing efforts, and collecting customer insights will help you better understand your customers in order to improve product advertising and messaging, and strengthen your overall marketing strategy. Success in marketing is based largely on the return on investment it delivers, and surveys can be a quick and cost-effective way to collect customer insights and improve ROI. Read on to learn more.

The Value of Consumer Insights

Today’s marketing is taking on a more consumer-centric role. Great marketing plans focus directly on the consumer by providing them with the information they want so they can make an informed buying decision. Globally, more than $500 billion is spent on advertising yearly, so using your marketing budget wisely should be a priority.

Consumer insights are data points that can be gathered to help businesses build their brand and sell their products more effectively. This data can help you understand the current market landscape and determine what is important to your target audience.

Some of the most valuable data you can gather will tell you why consumers behave in the way that they do. You can find out how they perceive a brand, which marketing messages speak to them the most, and get feedback on products or campaigns. You can also collect data at various points throughout the customer journey to see how perceptions develop over time.

How to Use Surveys to Collect Consumer Insights

Organizations understand that the most useful data comes from accessible and understandable customer insights delivered on demand. In today’s world, insights are constantly shifting. Information is delivered to consumers at lightning speed, and their opinions and thoughts can change just as quickly. So, it’s necessary to gather consumer insights in a way that delivers results quickly. While traditional market research methods like focus groups have their place, surveys can be a quicker and more cost-effective way to collect actionable data.

Surveys can be administered directly to consumers, no matter where they are located, through web-based links, mobile applications, or text messages. Online surveys are an excellent and affordable option in areas where internet penetration is high or if you are looking to reach wealthy populations. However, in countries where internet connectivity is unreliable or if you are looking to reach a representative sample in emerging markets, surveys sent through SMS are an excellent alternative. SMS surveys are delivered instantaneously to the mobile phone of a potential respondent, and the results come back in near real-time.

A majority of survey-takers note that they want to have a say in a company’s upcoming products and services, and surveys help your customers feel like they’re being heard. As soon as the results of your survey start coming in, you can use the data to shape your future products and marketing campaigns. 

Determining the Type of Cosumer Insight Survey to Use

What type of survey questions you want to ask will often depend on what type of information you’re looking to collect. For example, when you’re launching a new product, you may use a one-time survey to help understand people’s initial thoughts about the product, and how you can improve it.

On the other hand, if you’d like to track people’s perception of your brand over time, you may want to run regular surveys over the span of weeks, months, or longer. You can see if your brand or product is trending amongst competitors, or if your latest marketing campaign had the impact you wanted on consumers.

You can also use surveys to learn more about the specific profile of your target customer, and what they care about the most. You can learn about their interests that go beyond your brand or product, and may even discover a previously unknown demographic that has an interest in what you have to offer.

One-time surveys can be used to complement the data you gather from other sources, like website analytics or point of purchase systems. If you notice people are coming to your product pages and spending time there, but are not actually making purchases, send out a survey asking them what you could do to improve. Take a look at some of the trends on your website, and use these as a basis for your surveys so you can more clearly understand why your customers are taking certain actions.  

Collecting Consumer Insight Data in Africa

Before businesses can put forth a successful marketing plan, they need to understand the different needs of each population they’re looking at. Targeting different populations throughout the world means taking into consideration cultural influences, technological limitations, and differing product use cases.

Using text message surveys to collect consumer insights in Africa can be particularly effective because of the widespread use of mobile phones throughout the continent. The rate of internet penetration is still quite low in some parts of Africa, and while it is increasing rapidly every year, basic mobile phones are available to more of the population than internet-enabled devices. Users don’t have to have a smartphone or internet access to be able to receive an SMS survey. Even if a phone is turned off or out of service when the survey is sent, it will appear in the user’s inbox when service is restored. Surveys that utilize web links that can be opened in basic mobile browsers can also be successful when reaching certain target audiences, and are often less expensive than text message surveys.

Consumer markets are growing rapidly throughout Africa as economies strengthen and people have more disposable income. Tapping into this growing market is essential for many businesses, and mobile-based surveys are an excellent way to gather business intelligence from all over the world. GeoPoll specializes in collecting consumer insights in emerging markets using mobile-based modes, and can reach your target audience quickly to collect high-quality data that drives business growth. Contact us today to learn more.

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So what is the secret behind Colgate’s continued success and domination of a market that has such formidable players as Aquafresh, Close up and Sensodyne among others?

Advertisement Visibility

The Colgate brand is supported by strong advertisement visibility.

According to the company’s 4^th Quarter and full year 2013 results, Colgate’s leading global market shares in toothpaste and manual toothbrushes remained strong at 44.9% and 32.8%.  It was noted in the report that there had been  a significant increase  in gross profit margin during the quarter, combined with a reduction in overhead costs funded an increase in advertising spending behind Colgate’s brands, both absolutely and as a percent to sales, driving market share performance worldwide. 

Since 2014 to date, there has been continued increase in advertising spend by the Colgate brand in Kenya. As noted in our daily usage survey data, we have focused on Oral care mainly toothpaste and ask the questions to determine advertisement recall, most often used brand, Brands, respondents would recommend and attitude towards the various brands in the category. 

The Colgate consumer advocacy is unmatched by its competitors. Close-Up and Aquafresh enjoy the second and third position of the market share at 12% and 11% respectively. 

The results above show that brand awareness attributed to increased advertisement has influence on usage which leads to likelihood in recommendation to friends and relatives by a consumer of a product.

Sensodyne though small in usage share, has seen its increased marketing activity across the three months bear fruit as its share and recommendation has grown considerably in the month of August compared to June and July.

About GeoPoll’s Brand Health Tracker
GeoPoll’s’ Brand health tracker check focuses on the following key categories: Bar Soap, Toothpaste, Washing Powder, Hair Treatments, Carbonated Soft Drinks (CSDs), Juice and Beer

This summary reports contain aggregated data from October 2014 to date. The survey covers product purchase, usage, recommendation, and attitude by target market. 

Study methodology and focus areas
GeoPoll leverages its user database of 8 million users in Kenya to carry out a quantitative (SMS-Survey) brand health check targeting the general public. The Survey is done on a daily basis targeting 100 randomly selected respondents across Kenya. All respondents to the survey are above the age 15 years old. 

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