In a world where the retail landscape is constantly evolving and changing, it's not enough to just keep pace. You need to anticipate your customer's next move. The best way to start? Through market research!

Market Research is incredibly valuable to any retail business. It’s how you anticipate your customer’s next move. It provides detail into ‘why they buy,’ but more importantly ‘why they buy your product.’ Components like age, demographic, gender, are not what we are talking about here.

We want to know why the consumer prefers your product(s) over the competitors. Once you have that information you can use it to your advantage in all of your marketing and pricing. So real market research is a key to help you stand above your competition.

Now as a smart retailer, you never just assume you know your clientele. You must find out through legwork, testing and research! 

9 TIPS TO GET TO KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS:

1. Study the conversations consumers are having about your brand. How? Stay engaged with them and learn about their wants and needs.
   
   

2. Set up Google alerts for your business. Stay in the know any time customers post about your store online.
   
   

3. Utilize the customer profiles you have established. If you don’t have any, shoot us an email we can help.
   
   

4. Use A/B testing. Test a product, product description, imagery, to further dive into the data This can be done in brick-and-mortar also through merchandising, product placement, sales, and more.
   
   

5. Create a loyalty/rewards program. One of the best ways to nurture your customers along through your sales funnel and acquire real-time valuable data at the same time. Also, it is cost-effective. The RCR, AOV, and LTV all help paint a more complete picture of the “murky” territory of whether loyalty programs are effective. Pro tip: They are effective. The main reason being they drive customer engagement and propel further word of mouth marketing.
   
   

6. Actually, use your CRM skills. No matter what POS you use you will have the ability to input notes. Take the time to put this valuable information in, because later on, it could mean the difference between a sale and no sale.
   
   

7. Use AI. Classic surveys and polls work, but no longer are they going to be leading the charge. To stay competitive you will need more comprehensive and ultimately more expensive tools to get a true picture of how consumers are reacting and will react to your products.
   
   

8. Meet them where they’re at in the buyer’s journey by doing a proper analysis of your customer journey map. Create customer personas for each stage of the buyer’s journey.
   
   

9. Get some help. Retail for the People can help you take a more in-depth look into your current customer insights and do an audit to optimize your customer data.