Published on: March 30, 2023 | Last updated on: March 13, 2024 |
Ever sat watching The Apprentice and laughed at the brutally honest feedback people give to the teams’ products?
It’s OK, you’re not alone!
But in all seriousness, consumer research is a valuable tool in your brand’s arsenal. With the right feedback, you can better understand the people you’re marketing to – and learn how to improve your efforts so far.
Consumer panels are there to help you focus right from the start, but what are they exactly?
In this article, we explore consumer panels in more detail and show how they could help make your brand more appealing to customers on the digital shelf.
Imagine a group of specially selected individuals whose sole purpose is to give their feedback on your brand and what it offers.
Sounds daunting, right?
Don’t be scared, though. Consumer panels are all about building your brand for the better. They exist to provide an outside opinion on your main products/services, with a view to affecting positive, optimistic change.
Trust us, if you want quality feedback on your current brand prominence, as well as how to improve, then consumer panels are definitely right for you.
If you want your consumer panel to work effectively, you must follow these key steps:
Understand the purpose of bringing on board external viewpoints, and remember to outline every area of the business you’re looking for feedback on.
Whether it’s how a particular product or service within your company is perceived, or simply if your pricing needs work, a consumer panel will let you know so you can make the necessary changes going forward.
Yes, a lot of consumer panels do operate using random selection; however, you should choose participants who are within your core customer base – especially if you’re targeting a niche market.
A few examples of criteria around which to structure your consumer panels include:
Of course, it will be up to you to comply with current data protection legislation and appreciate that such information may be sensitive to participants, always treating it as such.
The purpose of every consumer panel is to obtain actionable insights you can use to improve your business.
So, how do you collect this information?
Consumer panel data is usually written down following verbal testimony from each participant but may be recorded in survey form instead.
Alternatively, participating shoppers and brands alike do use store receipts to collect consumer feedback as well.
The right consumer panel can help answer questions about all sorts of buyer behaviour, including:
If carefully selected, your consumer panel could uncover crucial real-time insights regarding customer behaviour within the marketplace.
And explain how this is affecting your sales!
From falling product demand to competitor monitoring, consumer panels are there to help fix any gaps within your sales journey that other companies may be taking advantage of.
Other examples of buyer behaviour that a consumer panel can help track include:
There’s little denying that consumer panels are a touchstone for brands looking to get external insight into their products/services.
But what if there was a way to help streamline the data collection process?
Magpie DBX has a powerful price tracker, which we’ve built to obtain comprehensive pricing info from all over the digital shelf. It reports every 24 hours, providing around 45 fields’ worth of data to help you decide what’s right for your company.
Also, our Brand compliance feature lets you explore exactly what is working well for you online – and what needs to be improved.
Want to learn more about what Magpie can do for your brand? Get in touch today and request a free demo!
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Want to learn more about how Magpie DBX can help your business? Get in touch with us and let us show you!
