Markets are shifting and evolving at a rate never seen before (thanks AI) and that means what customers are looking for one day can change quickly as markets, technology, and seasons drive buying behavior. Don't believe us? A classic example is how Blackberry had complete dominance in the smartphone market only to lose its entire marketshare overnight as Apple’s iPhone was introduced. That's because a touchscreen (not a keyboard) was the shift in customer preference that destroyed the Blackberry and made their product obsolete.

The moral of this story? No matter what industry you’re in, keeping tabs on customer trends is essential for small businesses. You need to understand your target market, identify your customer's needs, and tailor your products or services accordingly—which is exactly where customer research comes into play. But doing this type of research is more than just trying to get some of your happy customers to fill out a survey, so we put together this how to guide to help you do your own customer research effectively.

How to do customer research for your small business

The first thing you want to do before starting your customer research is create a game plan. Thankfully it's pretty simple to do—and you can start by doing these 3 things: determining your objectives, defining your target customers, and choosing your research methods. Here a little more information about each to get you going.

Step 1 is to define your objectives: Determine what specific information you want to gather from your customer research. Are you trying to understand customer preferences? Pain points? Demographics or buying behavior? You can have multiple objectives, but don't overload yourself with them—that'll only make it harder to find the information you need.

Step 2 is to define your target customers: Clearly define your target customers based on things like age, gender, location, income level, interests, and purchasing habits. If you have already created customer personas, most of this information should be there. This is an important step because you can use a lot of this research to confirm and/or update these personas.

Step 3 is to choose your research methods: Even if you're doing customer research to really learn more about who your customers are as people, you still know enough about them to make some educated guesses about certain things. So when you're picking your research methods, choose the most appropriate ones based on your objectives and what you think your people will participate in or be. Some solid research methods include:

• Send surveys: Create online surveys using platforms like Google Forms or Survey Monkey to collect quantitative data (read number-based data; these forms do the math for you). Giving a small reward for their time is really helpful in getting responses. It could be as simple as a $5 gift card to a local coffee shop.
• Conduct interviews: Conduct one-on-one interviews or host a focus groups to gather qualitative insights (read: narrative-based data) and a deeper understanding into how people think about your brand, business, product, or service. Make sure you record these sessions whenever possible since it's hard to take good enough notes. Heck, use an AI notetaker if you're conducting the interviews on Zoom.
• Do observational research: You can observe customers out in the wild to understand behavior and preferences. It’s like going on a safari for your business (only because you should just be scoping out what people are doing vs. interacting with them).
• Leverage social media listening: Yup, this is a thing. You can monitor social media platforms for mentions, reviews, and discussions related to your business or industry. These tools can be expensive but the information you get is super valuable, and you can use that data to inform your own business and marketing decisions.
• Look at your website analytics: Analyze website traffic, user behavior, and engagement metrics using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
• Do a competitor analysis: See who the other small business are talking to! Keep tabs on your competitors to identify gaps in the market and understand what works or doesn't work for them...and capitalize on what you learn.

Step 4 is to write your survey and/or interview questions: You'll want to create your survey or interview questions (if you've chosen these as your methods) because you definitely do not want to show up and wing it. Our advice is to write clear and concise questions that are easy to understand. You also want to avoid asking them in a way that might be considering "leading" because staying neutral is the best practice.

Step 5 is to recruit participants: Reach out to past customers or clients as well as people in your audience (even if they've never bought from you before) through email, social media, or in-person conversations and ask them if they'd be willing to participate. Again, consider rewarding people for their time because these people are probably busy too!

Step 6 is to collect data: This is where you do your chosen research methods and collect data from participants and/or your research. Make sure you're getting accurate data and collect it in a way that has integrity (meaning by maintaining anonymity and confidentiality if necessary).

Step 7 is to analyze your findings: Organize and analyze the data you collected and try to identify patterns, trends, and key insights. Look for common themes or areas of opportunity that can inform your business decisions.

What to do with your customer research

The point in doing customer research is to have the information you need to make smarter decisions moving forward. So, based on your data, take some time to figure out what have you learned about your target customer's preferences, needs, and behavior. After that, it's important to actually make moves! Take action based on your findings—don't let this research collect digital dust! Use these insights to make informed decisions for your business plan, product development, marketing strategy, and customer experience improvements.

Pro-tip: You can (and should) also make updates to your customer personas in your marketing strategy in Enji!

It's also important to not just do customer research once and never again. This is more of a rinse and repeat type of exercise. Regularly revisit and update your research to stay informed about changes in customer preferences, market trends, and competitive landscape.

The thing to remember is a big part of being a business owner is anticipating the needs of your customers. The best way to do that is by regularly conducting customer research. By doing customer interviews, surveys, and simply keeping an eye on industry trends on a regular basis, you can be sure you’re delivering products and services that meet or exceed your customer’s expectations. And that, my friends, is how you keep happy customers for life!