Use Real Life Feedback To Grow Your Startup

March 31, 2015/luke

We’ve covered just about everything – in fact, this is the last post in our “How to Market Your Startup Series.” We’ve tried our best to give you a comprehensive guide to jump starting your startup’s marketing. But we would be remiss if we left out one very important, very effective part of this puzzle: real life feedback.

A Social, Interactive World

The shift towards a more social world has touched every piece of our lives, and is especially reflected in the consumer’s desire to engage directly with the brands from which they plan to purchase. This has been the case for years, since brands joined Facebook and Twitter and began putting a human face to their marketing efforts. It’s an established and expected fact now that a consumer should be able to discuss concerns directly with representatives of the businesses they encounter online. Consumers want to see that their opinion matters – hence successful campaigns like Vitaminwater’s Facebook app, which allowed customers to have a say in the newest flavor coming to market. It was so successful, and earned them recognition by both customers and competitors, because it allowed customers to become actively involved in the creation of items they would then turn around and spend their hard-earned money on.

Why You Should Pay Attention

How does this apply to you as a startup, and to your digital marketing as a whole? Well, what better way is there to determine the wants and needs of your target audience than to talk to them? You could send out a survey, or you could pick up the phone or approach people in your day-to-day interactions and ask them a few short questions. This is an incredibly simple (and incredibly effective) way to determine how you should allocate your budget, what type of content you should create and what your focus should be.

The Personal Piece

Real life feedback is the personal piece of the puzzle that is impossible to substitute with anything else. It goes beyond any tool you can use – it goes beyond Outbrain, beyond Taboola – for segmenting your audience. Interviewing real people, getting real feedback is a piece many marketers ignore, to their own detriment.

What To Do

When you’re looking beyond the survey and getting personal with real life consumers, here are some steps you can take to ensure you gather usable data:

Determine your target audience – or what you think this target audience is – and what interests you think they have.
Interview three different types of people relevant to this audience.
Make a note not only of answers they give you, but of questions they pose. These questions are a vital piece of your strategy – they tell you exactly what you need to answer online.