From questionnaires to data nerds

Not too long ago our understanding of consumers was primarily driven by field observation, and surveys dragged around via snail mail. Improving products, optimizing marketing efforts, and increasing consumer satisfaction was a highly inaccurate exercise in educated guessing, and one very dependent on focus groups and experienced professionals.

Our ability to learn about the behavior of our customers, and their buying preferences was highly limitted by the reach of our research, and the tools at our disposal to analyze our findings more broadly and be able to arrive at meaningful conclusions.

Market research companies took a very important step forward toward enabling us to truly service our customers and increase satisfaction levels with products and purchasing experiences. Aggregation of large amounts of meaningful data gave us better tools to segment our customers, optimize our marketing spend, and tailor our products to our consumers. Although restricted by cost to large companies, focus groups combined with consolidated market research data brought us closer to optimal performance.

Today, with high internet adoption rates, the maturing of electronic payment methods, the evolution of electronic commerce, and the expansion of digital advertising; we have greatly increased our ability to capture and process data about our customers and their buying behaviors. We now have easy access to demographic data, to purchase history and buying patterns, to networks of people with similar taste, to timely feedback about our products, while still being able to complement such data through market research companies and even electronic surveys. The only caveat, this is all mostly limited to interactions across wires.

The next frontier is the replication of what has been accomplished in the ecommerce world at the physical stores. New technology continues to emerge at an amazing speed, rapidly closing gaps, and creating opportunities.

At shopperception we have applied some of this great emerging technology to closing the visibility gap. Consumer insights are now born at the shelf and the isle, in the store, with no human interaction needed.

Please take a minute to visit our website – www.shopperception.com – and share your reaction to our product, and how it may help our industry reach that next frontier in building meaningful and effective consumer insights.

See you at the store.