Market Research to Optimize Content and Revenue Generation

Advertisers and marketers use market research to create compelling content that informs consumers about products, services, and brands. 

Market researchers can generate valuable consumer insights that help creatives develop compelling advertisements that result in sales, or that provide brand lift by increasing consumers’ brand awareness.

Attributes of Successful Ads

Immediately Get Consumers’ Attention

Market research can be used to identify what consumers are interested in reading and learning about.  For instance, market researchers know that consumers are attracted to visuals and to humor before many other artifacts.

Never waste an advertising or marketing opportunity with content that consumers do not find poignant, comic, or beautiful.  The directive is to grab a consumer’s attention and hold their interest.

Convey a Simple and Catchy Message

Market research can be used to test messaging with consumers.  Digital marketing enables quick turn around testing of marketing language, advertising formats, and consumer sentiment regarding a product story or message.

While there is great value to be had from using conjoint analysis or other sophisticated methods for establishing discrete consumer choice, the capacity of quick, direct testing to answer limited market research questions should not be overlooked.

Link Marketing Messages Clearly to Brand

Consumers have to understand (“get”) an advertisement in order to find it compelling.  Marketing messages that appear in advertisements or collateral must not distract consumers from the product or service appeal.

It is important not to leave consumers wondering what a marketing campaign or advertisement has to do with a product.  The relationship should be readily perceivable.

Emphasize Your Value Proposition

Consumers determine what differentiates a product or service based on their individual needs and desires.  What consumers value varies widely, but marketing messages must clearly convey the benefits of their brand.  A value proposition gives consumers a compelling reason to buy a particular product, service, or brand.

Ensure Marketing Is Relevant to Target

Market research provides data that can be used to conduct target market segmentation.  The basis of market segmentation is based on recognition that one message typically will not reach all consumers.  A deep understanding of a target market enables the development of consumer profiles or personas.

Defines Brand Position Relative to Competitors

A strong value proposition goes a long way toward defining the position of a brand relative to competing brands and companies.  Consumers don’t often readily perceive positioning differences, yet they can be key to their capacity to make discriminating purchase decisions.

Convey the End-State Values of the Brand

Market research can determine what consumers perceive as value end-state conditions. The advantages of a brand should convey all the benefits available to the consumer, including the last condition experienced during the journey to a completed purchase.

Work With Integrated Marketing Campaign

Consumers today spend considerable time and effort on researching products, services, and brands before they actually make a purchase.  This is yet another reason for ensuring that the several components of a marketing campaign provide a customer-facing cohesive whole.

Create Memorable or Riveting Content

The very best advertisements are often preserved in the collective mind and are passed on from generation to generation as a form of historical information.

The value of the advertisement may linger long after the actual product or service has lost relevancy for a group of consumers. Consider how the Coca-Cola holiday advertising has changed from cute polar bears to seriously care about polar bears by helping to protect the Arctic Home of living polar bears in a time of climate change and melting ice in the ocean.

Generating Effective Content Requires Thoughtful Measures

At its most fundamental level, content marketing is intended to generate sales leads. In order to accomplish that objective with good outcomes, content must be characterized by several key attributes:

Well-written – The first rule of marketing content is that it be written well, using good grammar and syntax and compelling phrasing. Content may be the first encounter that consumers have with an enterprise. This fact underscores the importance of ensuring content is free of errors and, in all other respects, reflects the company well. Content is equivalent to online reputation.

Relevant – Given all the choices available to consumers, it is important that content be pertinent to the questions, needs, and interests of consumers. Relevant content can be irresistibly compelling.

A Gap Closer – Content marketing should solve a business problem or provide answers to questions held by consumers or other businesses. Without a focus on gap closing, marketing content can devolve into a low value position and be of very little interest or use to consumers or clients.

Provides Evidence – Marketing content is geared to support a business goal so it may understandably be circumspect from a consumer perspective. Marketing content must provide data or some other substantial form of convincing evidence, such as statistics, objective metrics, testimonials.

Avoid Promotion – since the goals of content marketing are to excite, inspire, and compel consumers to have interest in a product or service. Promotional materials generally do not accomplish any of these things, unless the promotional material includes embedded entertainment.