How can digital marketing research help you in your career or the business where you work? In a few moments, Adriaan Brits will walk you through why it is such a useful skill to add to your list (Available from Lynda.com and Linkedin learning).
Firstly, when we look at the area of consumer research: Before investing huge amounts in things like product development or content marketing, we can actually measure consumer demand through quantitative research, which will justify the next steps we take in our strategy. If we are open about the possibilities of online research, we can even use it to improve future product or service development: For example, by analysing qualitative feedback from online consumer reviews, and sharing it with our research and development team.
Secondly, we can also do competitor research: Can you think of any business today which does not have competition? To become a formidable competitor, it involves so much more than simply copying a good looking website. We need to know a lot more, for example how many pages of content a website has, what is the approximate participant base, what are the traffic sources – and more importantly, what effort or investment would be required to compete on equal terms. The ability to apply this sort of research to a number of websites can provide us with an overall view of the competitor landscape.
Therefore, the ability to carry out digital marketing research can strengthen our business intelligence and influence the strategic decisions that we make. Now fortunately, consumers leave large collective and individual digital footprints on the web, which is valuable to digital marketers. And with competitors, there is a saying that they can run, but they cannot hide because research can tell us SO MUCH about the competition.
Whilst there are infinite areas of research that could be of interest, but to provide you with a solid foundation and a starting point, this course will focus on the following topics:
Introduction to online research:
Here we will cover qualitative and quantitative research, get acquainted with the largest online ecosystems where research is gathered and discuss some research limitations.
Researching consumer demand:
Here we will learn practical tips on how to measure consumer demand through large online ecosystems like Google, Facebook and Amazon.
Researching the competition:
Here we will learn how to use Google and LinkedIn to research the competition
Knowledge into action:
In our final section, we will provide a challenge and solution case study, to demonstrate how effective research can be carried out.
