It’s no secret that good market research is key to any successful business strategy. What is less well known by small business owners is the sheer volume of data available – and the many ways this can be collected and analyzed to provide valuable insights for their businesses. But with so much data available, how do you turn it into useful insights about your customers?
Luckily, Google offers several tools to help you better understand who your customers are, where they come from, and what they care about.
Let’s discuss each tool to understand how you can collect and use the data available (for free!):
1. Google Analytics remains one of the most powerful tools for tracking and analyzing customer behaviour on your website. By studying traffic patterns and users' interests online, you can gain valuable insights into who your customers are. When checking Google Analytics, here's what you should focus on to better understand your customers:
Audience: This section gives you a broad overview of who is visiting your site. Key demographic data such as age, gender, and location can help you understand your typical customer.
Demographic details - Interests: This hidden gem in Google Analytics shows what your visitors are interested in based on their behaviour online. It can be useful for segmenting your audience based on lifestyle preferences and interests.
User Acquisition: This report shows how new users find your website or app for the first time. Identifying the best traffic sources, enables you to make data-driven decisions and optimize your marketing efforts.
Path Exploration: This customizable visual map reveals how users move through your site. Understanding which pages engage them the most can help you optimize your content and navigation to better serve your customer needs.
With these insights, you can build detailed customer profiles based on real data, optimize your website accordingly, and make data-driven business decisions.
While Google Ads is mainly known as a paid advertising tool, its Keyword Planner can also help you better understand your audience. If put to good use, this invaluable tool can help you think like your customer--for free!
By researching keywords related to your business, you can learn what potential customers are searching for and how they express their needs online.
Using Google's Keyword Planner, you can gain valuable insights such as:
Search Volume and Forecast Trends: See how often people search for certain terms related to your products or services. This can help you better understand your customer demand and seasonality trends.
Keyword Suggestions: Google's algorithm suggests related keywords, helping you discover new terms and topics your audience cares about.
Demographics and Interests: Running Google Ads campaigns gives you access to demographic data about your customers, such as age, gender, and device usage.
This tool is invaluable for content creation, SEO strategies, and paid campaigns, as it helps you align your messaging with what your audience is actively searching for online. But it can be much more powerful if combined with Google Analytics Audience data (explained above) as it could offer a much more comprehensive picture of your customer persona.
3. Google Trends is another free tool that could reveal new opportunities for your business as it gives you real-time data on what people are searching for online. By identifying trending topics in your industry or region, you can adjust your marketing strategy based on customer's current interests.
For example, let's say you are a small business owner selling flooring products. Using Google Trends, you can find out which products people are looking for online these days to know which type of product will sell faster.
Using Google Trends data, we learned that people are more interested in laminate flooring (blue) and less in hardwood (red).
Conclusion
Each of these three Google tools provides unique yet complementary insights into your customers. Used together, they could offer a more comprehensive understanding of what drives your audience. With this valuable information in hand, you can create more targeted, relevant content and marketing campaigns, ultimately driving greater success for your business.
If you need help collecting and interpreting customer data, talk to a digital marketing expert at Adept Marketing Solutions to learn what we can do for your business.