Six digital tools to make your marketing “leaner”
Imagine having to plan the launch of a new product in several different countries, or needing to sell it to users with different habits. Generation Y is very different from the boomers, and it is essential to know which channels each of these categories of buyers uses to purchase products. To understand the habits of John, who is 25 and lives in the United States, and those of Paolo, who is 50 and lives in Italy, companies today need to adopt a structured marketing approach that incorporates lean principles and takes full advantage of the power of digital applications.
By investigating and collecting data on trends (from the countries with the highest percentages of purchases made via smartphones to the ways Covid has changed buying habits), we can make better decisions.
This data can come from surveys or research, but these methods are often slow, and the results will already be obsolete by the time of the sale (even more so during the pandemic – think of how many things have changed between 2019 and today). So what should we do? I recommend adopting a “mixed approach” that combines some of the following tools.
#1 – Consumer Barometer
Google's Consumer Barometer is a free online tool that shows how people use the Internet in 56 countries around the world. It helps compare buying habits for products ranging from food to hotels, concerts and home appliances. This precious information – combined with analyses of your website or e-store, of trends (which you can carry out using Google Trends), of similar online platforms and of the data you can gather in your stores or touchpoints – will shape your marketing planning and strategy.
#2 – Local websites
It is important to know the latest in the world of retail; reading articles and visiting websites focused on this subject is a sure way to do so. You cannot think about developing a marketing strategy without a clear understanding of how consumers behave and how that behavior evolves.
Another powerful tool we have at our disposal here in Italy (although I am sure similar sites exist elsewhere too) is the Osservatorio Immagino. This platform cross-references information from product labels (they survey about 115,000 products every year, analyzing more than 100 variables – from ingredients to logos, from certifications to nutrition facts) with Nielsen data on sales of products representing 82% of the volumes sold in supermarkets across Italy in one year. By doing so, this site offers a new way of understanding consumption, comparing the information people look for with the purchasing decisions they make.
#3 – Google Trends
The data available on Google Trends represents an unbiased sample of Google searches. This tool allows us to measure interest in a given topic or theme at the global and local level and see what people do in related searches. Google Trends is a great way to understand what people are interested in and how sensitive they are to certain products or keywords.
#4 – Google Market Finder
GMF is another free tool for those who want to identify potential new market opportunities and understand how to better sell products or services to new customers. Users can enter their company's website and quickly see which markets are most promising for them, based on the immense amount of data Google has access to. This makes it possible to adapt your business model to specific markets, optimizing your investment and giving an extra boost to your marketing strategy.
#5 – Answer The Public
This SEO tool is particularly interesting because it shows us – based on the keywords we type – the questions people ask Google. It also offers a list of related keywords. It is extremely useful in helping us understand the context in which certain keywords are searched in different countries.
#6 – Google Search Console and Google Analytics
The tools we have seen so far provide an overview of trends and of opportunities or threats related to your product or service. But what about our online presence? With Google Search Console, we can monitor the performance of our company's website and its ranking. With Google Analytics, we can understand in detail the activity and journey of (existing or potential) customers on our website.
Relying on these digital tools ensures that we waste less time and money developing and executing our marketing strategy – in a word, they make it “leaner”. Accessing relevant information and understanding how to use it effectively based on the customer's real needs will help us exploit the potential of our product offering.
