At Shafran Agency, we regularly conduct workshops aimed at bridging the gap between businesses and their customers, consequently enhancing communication and increasing inquiries. The primary tool of these workshops is simple research—essentially lists of questions that business owners should ask to obtain answers (insights) capable of taking communication, promotion, and customer convenience to a new level.
In this material, we will attempt to present the research that anyone can conduct independently—without special tools, Google Analytics, or Big Data—and obtain answers that can genuinely enhance your business.
Audience Research
At the core of any business lies communication with the customer. The success of a business depends largely on how it is constructed, how convenient it is, and how well it caters to the needs of its customers. Most of us take this for granted, but only a few try to delve deeper into this subject. Surprisingly, there are many insights out there that can significantly improve your business metrics.
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How to conduct it
Based on your experience, imagine five of your customers. Give them names and describe their characteristics: gender, age, location, income, whatever comes to mind. If possible, use real examples that are different from each other. Visualize them in front of you and recall the details of your communication with them.
Now, ask as many questions as possible. For example:
What problems does your business help them solve?
Why do they come to you rather than your competitors?
What communication channels do they use? Which social networks?
What problems prevent them from reaching out to you, and how can you help with them?
How can you reduce the distance between your business and them?
Try to make the questions flow from one to another, one leading to the next.
Almost certainly, you will find that your current business communication suits some of them more than others. Analyze if there's an opportunity to simplify the interaction with your business for the rest. See if you can make your communication more understandable.
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Analyze if there's an opportunity to simplify the interaction with your business. See if you can make your communication more understandable.
Why it's important
Audience research helps understand where your business should be so that customers can find it. It helps understand how your business should talk about its services to be heard and understood by its customers
Example: A European law firm that provides support to businesses from the CIS countries in Europe has been persistently selling its services in Russian and Ukrainian languages for a long time. However, a quarter of its clients consistently came from local companies. After analyzing the audience, the company attempted to adapt its website and redirect some advertising towards the local market, resulting in a 60% increase in the number of inquiries.
Competition Analysis
In any business field, there are numerous companies competing for the same audience. These companies differ in their business approaches, team sizes, levels of recognition, pricing, and, in short, everything. Each of them employs its own unique communication style to attract customers. The purpose of competitor research is to momentarily put yourself in the shoes of a customer (any one of those five customers you identified in the previous exercise) and look at your business and, most importantly, your competitors' businesses through their eyes. You might discover that some of your competitors are using successful strategies that you can apply to improve your own business.
How to conduct it
Open your competitors' websites, social media accounts, or apps. Forget about your expertise in this area for a moment and look at their products with fresh eyes. Ask yourself questions:
What do you like about the communication you see from them?
What feelings do their products and messages create, and how?
What services are they offering? Which ones are at the forefront, which are more hidden, and why?
What don't you like about them, and why does it work for others (if it does)?
What communication strategies have they employed, and what does their website "promise"?
Try to genuinely get inside your customer's head. Remember that you are not an expert at this moment, but rather a customer standing at a crossroads between 10 different service providers. Try to understand why and how the other 9 websites of your competitors work, and what solutions you can apply to improve your communication.
Why it's important
Analyzing competitors helps identify their strengths and weaknesses, as well as a clearer understanding of your competitive advantages and how to present them. Overall, it enables you to formulate a stronger marketing strategy with new tactics to attract new customers into your funnel.
Example: A digital agency had long focused on creating websites and applications, essentially ignoring social media content as "secondary." After observing how a competing firm was selling such content, the agency attempted to expand its range of services by offering similar services to large and medium-sized businesses. This helped attract many new leads and eventually led to the creation of a department entirely dedicated to social media services as part of a subscription package.
Market Trends Analysis
While we usually focus on communication between the customer and the business, taking both as constants, in reality, this communication is subject to the same socio-economic, cultural, and political changes as everything else. For some, these changes work in their favor, while for others, their businesses suffer. Market trend analysis allows you to identify advantages that can be gained from macro- and micro-changes and maintain the relevance and demand for your business.
How to conduct it
List ten global trends and ten changes in your industry that have occurred over the past year. Analyze how they have affected the world in general and your specific area. Look for unexpected connections between phenomena. Try to understand how similar events in the past have affected your industry in other countries. Analyze what changes have occurred with your competitors.
Why it's important
Understanding market trends is crucial for adapting and thriving in an ever-changing business landscape. By staying informed about global and industry-specific shifts, businesses can proactively adjust their strategies, capitalize on emerging opportunities, and mitigate potential risks, ultimately ensuring long-term success and competitiveness in their market.
Example: The emergence of "TikTok" changed the playing field in many industries, including the event industry. A U.S.-based event company that tracked TikTok's market entry and began producing video content for this social network showed a 40% growth in a year – a result that would have taken two years with Instagram or Vimeo – simply because there were no other competitors in the TikTok space at the time.
SWOT Analysis
The acronym SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It is the cornerstone of business positioning. Your company has "Strengths" that define your merits and competitive advantages, and there are "Weaknesses" – weaknesses that are currently difficult to correct or inherent qualities of the services offered (like, for instance, the high price). Alongside this, there are "Opportunities" that define your direction and communication strategy, and "Threats" that pose a threat to your success.
How to conduct it
Determine the purpose for which you are conducting a SWOT analysis. You can do it for a new business strategy, a specific project, or an assessment of the current situation in general.
Now, draw a cross on a sheet of paper – this will become the SWOT analysis matrix. Each of the four segments should represent the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of your business. Write down 5-10 points in each. Try to analyze how your Strengths define your Opportunities and whether Opportunities can give you new Strengths. Analyze which Threats your Weaknesses will hinder – and how to avoid them.
Why it's important
Evaluate the relationships between your strengths and weaknesses, and understand how they affect each other. Understand how to use emerging changes in the world to your advantage and which threats to avoid
A technologically advanced and highly skilled (Strengths) European company in the online education sector found itself at a standstill (Threats) after the end of the second wave of the COVID epidemic, with a decrease in demand for online education and an increase in competitors. Due to high costs (Weaknesses), it couldn't truly compete in the changed market. However, by analyzing new trends (Opportunities), the company devised a way to integrate artificial intelligence into its programs, reducing costs, creating new products, and expanding its audience reach.
