In the past, there were tried and true ways to reach your audience. You’d give them a call and ask them a few questions – or send an email with a link to fill out a short survey. The audience surveying tools and techniques that worked a few years ago may not give you the same bang for your buck in 2023. To get the data you need, it’s crucial that you find ways to meet your audience where they are at. That means taking the time to understand how this specific group likes to communicate – and under which conditions you can get the most pertinent data.
Rethink the phone. Studies from a few years ago stated that older adults shied away from online surveys – they didn’t have the technical savvy to participate. The only way to reach people in this demographic was to give them a ring. Recent research, however, shows that older adults are quite comfortable with today’s Internet survey tools – and provided the email link you give doesn’t look like spam, they are willing to answer the questions from their computer, tablet, or smartphone.
Tweet tweet. A few years ago, many companies garnered key insights from Twitter users. The platform’s easy-to-access communication tools allowed market researchers to directly reach consumers from all over the globe and take a big picture look at the current online stream of consciousness. With recent changes to Twitter’s leadership and, as a consequence, its algorithms and verification options, it will be more challenging for researchers to get to the data they need and, even more critical, verify its authenticity moving forward. Organizations may find they can uncover more actionable intelligence by focusing on a variety of social media platforms.
Quality for quantity. With new technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) more common across the market research industry, it might be easy to think that quantified, big data should be your main path to gathering the needed data. It’s clear, however, that qualitative research is key to helping put the data you glean from quantifiable methods into proper context. It can help you understand the nuances – and identify all those little things that can really make or break your marketing efforts as you look to apply the data you’ve collected.
To talk about ways to reach your audience where they’re at, contact the team members at Ebony Marketing Systems. We are experts at conducting research that reaches people in a new way. For more information, call us at (718)742-0006 or send us a message today.
