Creating a content marketing strategy that drives customers to your proverbial doorstep isn’t easy. Establishing clear objectives is always the first step in the process. Once you know what you want to achieve, you must figure out who is going to help you get there. Marketing pros call it audience research.
This is the step far too many organizations try to skip because they don’t want to invest the time or money needed to do it right. We’ve had more than a few prospective clients seeking help from The Write Reflection because they aren’t making sales. When we ask who they’re selling to, 99.99% of them haven’t a clue.
It’s impossible to craft content that drives conversions if you don’t know what motivates your ideal customer to open their wallets and fork over their hard-earned cash.
So, how do you do it?
The sneaky strategy that works wonders is called voice of customer (VoC). It’s a comprehensive method for capturing your target audience’s expectations, preferences, and experiences with your product or service. It’s more than collecting feedback. You’ll need to dive deep into the language, emotions, and underlying needs that drive customer behavior.
What are the key benefits of voice of customer?
VoC isn’t a luxury. It’s a holistic approach that helps you understand customer needs and use that information to differentiate yourself in a crowded marketplace. The data doesn’t lie. Businesses that listen to their customers have greater success in building long-term loyalty.
Here’s why.
- Enhanced customer understanding. VoC uncovers the underlying reasons behind customer behaviors and preferences. You can gain deep insights into your ideal customer’s preferences, needs, and pain points. Once you have that information, you can create content that leads to stronger connections and increases customer loyalty.
- Improved product and service development. You might feel like you have the best product or service out there. However, if you’re not attracting customers, it might be time to evaluate whether your business offerings meet market demands. With VoC, you can stop guessing and start aligning your offerings with customer expectations.
- Increased customer engagement. Is it crickets on your brand’s social media pages? If you’re posting and getting limited engagement, it’s likely because you’re not listening to your customers. Incorporating their feedback into your content strategies boosts interaction rates, earning you more likes, shares, and comments. An involved community is an effective marketing strategy.
- Boosted conversion rates. Content tailored to meet your ideal customer’s needs and preferences is more likely to generate sales. You can create targeted marketing campaigns that speak directly to your audience by collecting and analyzing VoC data. (Ask us how).
Let’s not forget that listening to your customers gives you a competitive advantage. When you understand their wants and needs, you can differentiate yourself from competitors by finding and addressing gaps in the market or improving on existing products and services.
What are some tips for developing an effective VoC strategy?
A well-executed VoC strategy can lead to improved customer satisfaction, increased loyalty, and ultimately, better business outcomes. However, implementing such a strategy requires a commitment to careful planning, execution, and tweaking as needed.
You’ll need to set clear objectives, choose the right methodologies, develop a robust data collection and analysis plan, and then create actionable insights. Only then will your business be well-positioned to create a VoC program that captures valuable customer feedback and translates it into meaningful improvements.
Here are some tips to get you started.
Set clear objectives
Before you can start collecting data from customers, you must first define specific goals that align with your overall business strategy. Do you want to improve customer satisfaction, optimize the customer experience, boost engagement with certain features, or reduce user churn?
Once you know your goals, you can create a goal-setting framework to make your objectives measurable and actionable.
Choose appropriate methodologies
After setting your objectives, it’s time to choose the VoC methodologies that work best for achieving them. You can choose from the ones we previously mentioned, using all or a combination of them. Not every method will work for gathering the data you most value, so pick and choose.
Let’s say you want to develop a new software feature for an existing product. One-on-one interviews would work well for an in-depth exploration of user pain points and detailed usage patterns. You can explore unexpected insights that emerge during the conversation to determine if your additional plans meet a need.
Develop a plan for data analysis
Collecting data isn’t the hard part of the process. Organizing it and analyzing it to extract meaningful information poses the most challenge.
Choose tools and technologies that capture and analyze customer feedback effectively. Everyone thinks AI is all the rage for writing. However, they’re missing one of the most effective ways to use this technology. AI-powered tools can process large volumes of qualitative data quickly, identifying patterns and trends that might not be immediately apparent through traditional analysis. It can predict customer expectations, personalize experiences, and improve your VoC efforts.
AI also excels at sentiment analysis. It can predict the emotional tone of your VoC data, tagging it as positive, negative, or neutral. You can feed it customer surveys, reviews, and social media posts to quickly gauge how your ideal customers feel about your products or services.
What are the most effective voice of customer methodologies?
OK, so you agree that your customers’ needs, preferences, and pain points are important details to know if you want to be a successful business. Now what? How do you figure out what your customers want so you can give it to them?
Lucky for you, we’re going to share six strategies we’ve used for ourselves and our clients to collect the kind of valuable insights that drive product development, improve the customer experience, and boost overall satisfaction with your brand.
Follow these techniques to make data-driven decisions that grow your business the right way.
Customer surveys
Do you want to uncover your customers’ pain points? Learn about the things that convince them to open their wallets and part with their hard-earned cash? Why not just ask them?
No, really.
Customer surveys are one of the most effective ways to get to the heart of the matter. You can create surveys designed for brief interaction or in-depth questionnaires to generate more detailed responses.
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a powerful customer survey tool. It measures customer loyalty and satisfaction with a single question: “How likely are you to recommend our product/service to others?” We’ve all had brands ask us this question at one time or another. And we’re more likely to answer it because it’s a quick and painless process.
Some of our favorite customer survey tools include SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, and JotForm. All three are free and easy to use. If you need something more in-depth, a content strategist can recommend additional resources or create a survey for you.
One-on-one interviews
Sometimes surveys can feel cold and impersonal, which might turn some of your customers off. An alternative approach is to conduct one-on-one interviews to explore individual customer experiences. This method always leads to higher-quality data collection because the interviewer can ask follow-up questions based on the customer’s responses. They can also observe any facial expressions and other body language that might signal strong feelings about a particular question.
For the best results, keep your one-on-one interviews to no more than 30 minutes. You can offer interview participants a discount for a product or service to encourage more customers to share their opinions.
Focus groups
Focus groups are an old but effective VoC strategy. It works by bringing together a small number of customers to discuss their experiences, preferences, and opinions about a particular product or service. Putting a small group together encourages dynamic interaction, often leading to insights that might not emerge during individual interviews or written surveys.
This method is particularly useful for exploring new ideas, testing concepts, or gaining deeper understanding of group dynamics around a product or service. The data can stand alone or be used to complement other VoC methodologies.
Social media listening
Social media isn’t like Vegas. What people share on digital platforms is forever preserved online for all to see (thank you WayBack Machine). While that might sound scary, it’s quite helpful to marketers interested in engaging in social media listening.
Social media platforms are a virtual goldmine of customer feedback. You can use it to track mentions of your brand, comments on your posts (or the posts of competitors), and discussions about your brand across different platforms. This method provides real-time insights into customer sentiment and helps identify emerging trends or issues quickly.
Tools exist—some free, some paid—for gathering unsolicited social media feedback. Consider using them if you want access to honest and spontaneous opinions.
Website analytics
Website analytics are an old-school marketing technique. However, they still provide relevant VoC data by offering insights into customer behavior and preferences. You can use them to track page views, time spent on your site, rage clicks, click-through rates, and conversion paths.
Interpreting the data identifies pain points in the customer journey, popular products or content, and any areas where your website falls short of customer expectations. Combine it with other VoC methodologies to get a more complete picture of the customer experience.
Customer reviews and feedback forms
Customer reviews and feedback forms are the most direct channels for customers to express opinions about your products or services. They’re collected through various touchpoints, including e-commerce platforms, app stores, dedicated feedback sections on your website, and our all-time favorite – Google Reviews.
While these forms provide an opportunity for abuse and misuse, they’re still valuable for identifying your strengths and any opportunities for improvement. It’s important to monitor and analyze these reviews because they can influence potential customers’ purchasing decisions.
We know some brands prefer to ignore negative reviews, but that’s not an approach we recommend at The Write Reflection. It’s better to respond helpfully to negative reviews to provide evidence your business offers excellent customer service. Not sure how to do that? Hit us up. We can help.
How do you create actionable insights from VoC data?
Now that you’ve collected and analyzed your data, what’s next? You create actionable insights, that’s what. Many organizations stumble at this step in the process if they’re unsure how to bridge the gap to turn that wealth of information into a strategy that can help them better serve their customers.
Always start by identifying the key themes and patterns that emerge from the analyzed feedback. If you used AI tools, they’ve likely listed recurring issues, standout comments, and trends that align with your business objectives. Prioritize those insights based on their potential impact on customer satisfaction and your bottom line. Not all feedback is created equally. Focus on the information most likely to move the needle for your business growth.
Once you’ve identified the key points, follow these steps:
- Craft clear, actionable insights. Vague observations don’t drive action. Instead, focus on specific findings like “27% of customers aged 18 to 24 report frustration with our mobile app’s checkout process, citing slow load times as the primary issue.” Now, you have a clear problem to solve and a metric to improve.
- Align with your business strategy. Link your VoC insights with your broader organizational efforts. Let’s say you want to improve customer retention. Look for information that directly addresses factors influencing customer loyalty like trust and credibility and an emotional connection to your brand.
- Implement and iterate. Develop a strategic action plan to address the most pressing customer concerns identified in your analysis. Clearly communicate the insights and the planned actions to relevant teams in your organization. Don’t forget to continuously measure their effectiveness once you roll them out and be prepared to adjust as needed.
- Keep the conversation going. Create a feedback loop to continuously gather and analyze new data. Doing so keeps you in tune with your customer’s changing needs and preferences, allowing you to stay ahead of the curve in delivering exceptional customer experiences.
How do you integrate VoC data into your content marketing strategy?
Voice of Customer data doesn’t just tell you what your customers expect from your organization. It also gives an inside look at how to communicate effectively with your loyal followers. It can—and should—influence your content marketing strategy.
Here’s how.
Use customer language and pain points in messaging
When you speak your ideal customer’s language, you increase the chances of keeping them invested in your products and services. Use their exact words and phrases when describing their challenges and needs in future content marketing campaigns. Taking this approach makes your content more relatable and compelling.
Tailor content to address needs and preferences
Customize your content to match the unique needs and preferences of different customer segments. You can analyze your customer data to identify engagement triggers and create content that resonates with each segment to forge stronger connections and improve conversion rates.
Let’s say you’re a global e-commerce clothing retailer. You could segment your email list based on customer purchase history and browsing behavior, then send discounts and other offers to encourage repeat sales.
Develop customer personas
One of the most common ways organizations use VoC data is to develop customer personas that reflect the values and preferences of their customer base. These personas typically include demographic information, psychographic details, purchasing habits, pain points and challenges. You can use these insights to create the targeted content we previously mentioned.
Align VoC findings with your brand identity and values
VoC findings aren’t just about pleasing your customers. You can use the insights to keep your content marketing aligned with your brand’s identity and core values. Doing so builds trust with your target audience.
You’ll want to verify:
- The solutions you propose align with your brand’s products and services.
- You’re using language that reflects customer needs and your established brand voice.
- You’ve addressed pain points in a way that showcases your unique value proposition.
Striking this balance creates content that resonates with your audience and strengthens your brand positioning in the market.
What are some common VoC pitfalls and how do you avoid them?
Voice of Customer strategies help you meet customer needs. However, even the most well-intentioned VoC campaigns can fall short if not executed properly. You must be aware of common pitfalls and actively work to avoid them if you want to maximize the benefits of your VoC efforts.
Three critical mistakes that some organizations make when implementing VoC programs include overlooking passive feedback channels, failing to act on insights, and excluding relevant departments in VoC initiatives. Let’s break down each one.
Overlooking passive feedback channels
Overlooking passive feedback channels is a common Voice of Customer (VoC) pitfall because it can lead to missing valuable, unsolicited customer insights. Passive feedback channels include social media comment sections, online reviews, feedback on community forums, brand mentions, and customer support interactions.
Passive feedback provides honest and specific information about your customers’ needs, wants, and motivations without the potential biases introduced by direct questioning. Companies tend to focus on structured surveys and interviews, neglecting spontaneous customer input.
Implementing omnichannel listening is the most effective way to avoid this mistake. Set up systems that monitor and collect feedback from diverse sources such as social media, review sites, and support interactions. AI can help with this task, gathering and processing the data to provide insights.
Forgetting to involve all relevant departments in VoC initiatives
Failing to include relevant departments in your VoC initiatives can stunt the effectiveness and impact of your VoC-targeted efforts. Organizations commit this faux pas for several reasons, including siloed organizational structures, lack of cross-functional communication, and a general misunderstanding of VoC’s broad relevance.
Establishing cross-functional teams with dedicated representatives from each department is an effective way to keep from falling into this trap. Include team members from product development, customer service, sales, and marketing to get a diverse perspective on how to comprehensively implement VoC insights.
Failing to act on VoC insights
This is the worst possible mistake you can make. It takes time and effort to collect VoC data. The process isn’t inexpensive, either. Going to the trouble of collecting and analyzing the data and then not following through on what you learned happens far more often than organizations care to admit.
Some of the reasons you may fail to follow through include:
- A lack of a clear action plan for how to implement changes from the insights gained.
- A disconnect between departments, with insights not reaching the teams best positioned to act on them.
- An analysis paralysis from an overwhelming amount of data can lead to indecision or delayed action.
- A lack of necessary resources or budget to implement the suggested changes.
Establishing a closed-loop process is an effective way to make sure customer concerns are addressed and improvements are made based on the feedback collected. You can develop a framework that links each insight to an action plan that includes who is responsible for implementing the changes and which metrics will be used to gauge success.
Let your customers’ voices be heard
Understanding and responding to the voice of your customers is not just an advantage—it’s a necessity. Organizations committed to the process can uncover invaluable insights that drive innovation, improve customer experience, and ultimately boost brand loyalty.
If you’re ready to harness the power of VoC but need guidance on how to get started or refine your existing processes, give us a holler. Our team is here to support you every step of the way.