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Marketers know that the value of data from the past helps them strategize for the future. However, it may be time to gather data in a different and proactive way. Why not try an organic and mathematical approach?

Today’s guest is Susan Baier of Audience Audit, a marketing research company. She describes how attitudinal research can be more effective than demographics research. Susan explains the difference between audience and customer research.  

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Audience Audit: Attitudinal audience segmentation research that gains quantitative insight into audiences trying to be reached via marketing efforts
• Attitudinal Research: Understanding how opinions, assumptions, perspectives, and preconceived ideas affect purchase decisions
• Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research: Each offer value, including quantitative statistically significant insights of things affecting some of your audience
• Marketers need to answer ‘Why?’ by providing reliable data
• Audience Research: Only listening to customers, can create skewed perspective
• Who is your sample? Talk to past, present, and potential customers in the market to solve a problem that you understand
• Where to find your audience? Don’t rely on a single source; understand audience via email subscriber list, customer files, and social media platforms
• Why are people here? What kept them from getting help sooner? Focus on what problems your company’s products and services solve, not on what they do
• What does CMT stand for? Write compelling content using existing customers language/lingo to attract a similar audience
• What method(s) to use to gather research? Survey of connotative data; avoid pushing your assumptions that artificially stratify people and don’t make sense
• What doesn’t matter? 95% of studies that identify attitudinal segments reveal that company size, gender, household, and other factors aren’t important
• Crafting Questions: Remove bias from data gathering and analysis processes to improve product positioning, audience targeting, and personas 
• Segmentation: Understand, implement, and use information/data

Links: 

• Audience Audit
• How To Do Remarkable Customer Research With Rand Fishkin From SparkToro [AMP081]
• Gartner 
• Magic Quadrant Content Marketing Platform
• SurveyMonkey
• SurveyGizmo
• Qualtrics
• CoSchedule Marketing Software Suite