Digital marketing is the best way for business owners to reach their target audience, regardless of their customer’s age and location. If you’re trying to improve your lead generation efforts, develop a new product, or looking to retain current customers, social listening is an excellent tool.
According to The Global State of Digital in 2019 Report, 45 percent of the global population or 3.48 billion people use social media regularly. It’s easy to see why business owners are using social listening to view the current discussions in their niche. We are going to show you how to gather information about your target audience and how to use that data to increase your sales.
Identify Pain Points In Groups
One of the most effective uses for social listening is it allows you to take a look at the current struggles your prospects are facing. Almost every social media outlet lets users create groups and discuss topics within a limited scope. When you decided to create an online store, you likely did some research to see how your idea for a product or service could improve the lives of your potential customers.
Once you’ve created your product, you need to go back and listen to these same groups to find out how you can improve on what you built. For example, if you’re selling products in the pet supply industry, you could check common pet-themed Facebook groups to see if there are common complaints. When a customer complains about an issue, this is your chance to think about how you can solve this problem by creating a new product or updating an existing item.
As you examine different social media groups and listen to what people are saying, you’ll be able to identify pain points and create a solution, thus improving your sales. If you haven’t launched your eCommerce storefront, social listening is perfect for capturing pain points and implement your mission to solve these problems on your coming soon page.
Listen on Your Profile
Social listening is about more than just generating leads based on prospect feedback in groups. You can also use this tactic to retain customers who have already made a purchase on your website. If you’re carefully listening on your own social media page, you’ll know if a customer runs into a problem while purchasing and using your product or service.
If you are willing to send your customer care team in to help as soon as possible, you increase the odds of improving that customer’s experience, which can help turn them into repeat customers.
Contrary to popular belief, positive comments are not the most beneficial things to look for when using social listening. Sure, hearing how you changed someone’s life feels fantastic, and it’s an amazing feeling to know that you helped a customer in need. However, negative social interaction allows you to prove your worth and make the customer feel like they made a great choice in shopping with your business.
Build Customer Personas
All business owners are looking to narrow down their audience to the people who are most likely interested in what they’re offering. Social listening can help you fill in the grey area that many marketers struggle with when building their ideal customer personas for improved sales.
Here is an example illustration of how a complete customer persona should look;
When creating a persona, it’s easy enough to figure out things like your ideal customer’s age, archetype, and career choice. However, there are some topics here that could have you puzzled. How is it possible to guess the goals, bios, and frustrations (aka pain points) of your customers? Social listening can help you figure out this information.
When you’re examining what people are saying on your profile, in groups, or even on a competitor’s social media profile, it’s easier to visualize your ideal customer. Building a good persona for your prospects is key to generating sales. When you’re listening to what a broad range of your potential customers thinks, it becomes easier to narrow down your persona until your ideal marketing audience becomes clear.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt that social listening is an indirect but vital aspect of any marketing campaign. If you want to generate more sales but have no idea where to start, social listening will give you a good idea of where your prospects are in the buying process, how you can appeal to their pain points, and what you can do to improve the overall experience of existing customers.