Listen to consumers first

Before I start let me ask you a very simple question – How do you decide your product architecture? Let me guess -

1.

Developing an altogether a new technology – An Innovation
2.

Improving by doing some moderate or big changes to your current products
3.

Your rivals have launched a new product in the market and to stand in the market you are also launching the product with some variations of course.


This is a very simple procedure every company used to follow to give a shape to their ideas and to make an offering to the market.

Now next comes the question of retaining the consumers or we can say giving a stand to the brand in the market. Satisfying the customers is the ultimate aim of every marketer and they give every dime to gain the confidence.

How do you know your consumers are satisfied? How do you measure your consumer’s sentiment for your brand? Its Indeed through the common social media analysis, diagnosing social media blogs and forums for consumer reviews and then scaling out their sentiments to draw out a final perception for your brand. After that you move ahead to correct the deficiencies so as to improve your brand performance in the market. This is what is called as a Normal Conduct followed by every company.

Can it be different this time? First, listening to what your consumers want, what are their expectations, analyzing their perception and giving them their wish product rather than offering them what you want? Don’t take it the other way round, my motto is not to distract you from innovating or avoiding competition with rivals, but rather I am more focused on consumer needs and developing products and services accordingly. I am not denying the fact that Innovations have not created the milestones. Nobody would have had thought of computers and iPad. But I prefer do something new every time.

Few days back I read an article of Best Buy created a product based on the consumer feedbacks. They discovered that consumers want laptops with longer battery life, optimal key board and thin and light weight design with superior warranty support. They then tied up with Hp and Toshiba to bring in effect this exclusive product.

There is nothing you cannot do in this social media world. When you can measure the after sales sentiment for your brands, you can easily identify the consumer desires going deep inside the same source. You might be focusing on specific blogs, forums and other social media sites of yours and your competitive brands for analyzing consumer perspective, but when identifying the consumer needs you have the vast pool to go through, as much deep you want and bring the one that lures your consumer. The unlimited resources and media sites offers as much as content you want, to read your consumer mind.

So, when next time if you are planning to launch a new product, do consider once to see what your consumer is expecting from you.

Arifa Raj

The author is a business researcher with CheckBuzz, a social media monitoring company.

About CheckBuzz : A Social Media Monitoring Company, which tells brands/corporates what bloggers, journalists, powerful consumers, or even ordinary people are saying about them. Having a healthy experience of 3+ years, this company gives its solutions on Social media consulting, Social media marketing and Social media monitoring.

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