The Value of Knowing What Members Really Want

This Tip of the Week covers topics including:

• 2:52 – Why Data is Better Than Guessing
• 6:08 – Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Input
• 6:27 – 4 Ways to Learn What Members Want
• 7:01 – 1. Social Listening
• 10:17 – 2. Conduct Surveys
• 13:03 – 3. Observe Market Trends
• 15:50 – 4. Follow the Numbers
• 22:11 – For more ideas watch Webinar Wednesday 63

This is a segment from Webinar Wednesday 82, recorded live on February 2, 2020.

Here at Brilliant Directories, we believe that understanding your target audience is the key to success. This week’s webinar covers four effective ways to learn what your audience really wants.

It’s very easy to overlook the importance of understanding your target audience. In fact, many business owners don’t use any assessment tools and simply assume what is it their audience wants. The problem with this approach is that you never really know whether it’s going to work or not.

Don’t launch a website you think will be useful… Launch one you know will be useful!

Proper research and evaluation allow you to understand your audience better and tailor your strategy with respect to their pain points and needs. This way you can focus on the specific elements and features that resonate with your members.

The key to your business development is connecting with the community. In fact, the most successful companies have an open dialogue with their members.

Benefits of using data and research to understand your audience:

• Knowing what users actually want will save your money & time
• Build relationships rooted in understanding each other’s needs
• Drive users to take action on your website
• Reciprocate offerings that directly solve their problems

4 Ways to Learn What Members Want…

1. Social Learning

Your potential members are already online asking questions and discussing their problems. Implement social learning to discover more about your target audience and their experiences.

Online communities are a great resource for social learning. Online communities will give you valuable insight into the problems, motivations, experiences, and needs of your target audience. Go to online forums and other membership websites to learn what your potential members are discussing.

Another way to find the voice of your target audience is by monitoring social media groups. Facebook and LinkedIn are the most popular platforms where online groups share their experiences.

Q&A websites have great potential for social learning. Quora and Yahoo Answers are the most popular Q&A platforms. You can search your target industry, keywords, and specific questions to get an insight into the problems of your potential members.

Analyzing the comment section of blogs is another way to learn from users’ experiences. Go through the most popular industry-related blog posts and look for the comments. As users typically leave comments expressing their opinion and discussing their problems, you’ll get some useful insights into their experiences.

You can use all of the information collected through social learning to shape your membership offering. You can discover the knowledge gaps, skill gaps, and frequently asked questions through social learning.

2. Conduct Surveys

The only way to find out what your potential members want is by asking them. Surveys are the most direct and effective way to get feedback. Online surveys have the widest reach as many users can fill out questionnaires simultaneously.

You can use either multi-question surveys or single question surveys to collect feedback. If you choose to run a multi-question survey, make sure it’s not too long. Don’t overload users with questions as survey fatigue can happen.

Here are some great survey management tools:

• Survey Monkey
• Google Forms
• TypeForm

3. Observe Market Trends

It’s important to always have a finger on the pulse of what’s happening in your market. Observing market trends will help you stay current and surpass your competitors. Besides, staying current with the latest trends will keep you updated on the latest buzz words, lingo, and keywords that you can later use throughout your website. This is especially useful for small business websites as you want to build a strong connection with your customers.

One way to observe market trends is by monitoring popular industry-related blogs, podcasts, and video channels. It’s especially useful to identify and keep track of the common sources and platforms your audience follows.

Besides monitoring platforms, you should identify and observe online influencers specific to your target industry. What are they talking about? What questions are being asked? What are they excited about? What frustrates them? Answering these questions will help you shape your unique membership offerings concerning the desires of your target audience.

Depending on your target industry and location, you can attend industry conferences to get a better perspective of current market trends. Also, attending conferences will help you establish meaningful relationships with your prospective members and influencers.

4. Follow the Numbers

Lastly, you want to collect data to understand what elements of your website are resonating with your audience. Once you figure out what works best, you can replicate those elements to better connect with your prospective members.

Data is always better than guessing!

The easiest way to keep track of the data is to create a free Google Analytics account and link it to your BD website. Give it some time to collect data, and then analyze the data to improve your offerings.

Also, look at the data provided by social media platforms. Facebook provides a lot of useful data, especially if you’re paying for ads or boosted posts.

Wrap Up

All of the discussed tactics will help you get a better understanding of what components work best with your prospective members and what drives traffic to your website. You must leverage and capitalize on the elements that are working and stay away from the things that may not be performing as well.

If you found this webinar useful, check out our Webinar Wednesday 63 to learn why it’s important to get early user feedback.

Author: James Riddle James Riddle is a freelance writer with a passion for new technologies, marketing trends and branding strategies. He is always seeking to discover new ways for personal and professional growth and is convinced that it’s always important to broaden horizons. That's why James develops and improves his skills throughout the writing process to help and inspire people. View All Articles