Is Marketing Listening???

When did you last feel “wish someone was listening to my need” while making a purchase?

Very often, isn’t it?

Absolutely, it's a common sentiment. That feeling of wishing someone would truly understand our needs before making a purchase. As consumers, we often yearn for that personalized attention, that sense of being heard and understood before being presented with a solution

But it's not just limited to individual consumers. Think about the customers sitting in their workplaces, navigating the online sphere in search of the right information. They, too, crave that same level of attention and understanding.

So, here's the question for us as marketers: Are we truly listening?

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Here are some latest social media stats which show the importance of digital era

In today's digital age, where connectivity reigns supreme and information is just a click away, it's absolutely crucial for marketers to prioritize what I like to call a CLS - a Customer Listening Strategy

We often develop our Go to Market or Go to Customer marketing strategies and in that attempt our marketing strategies revolve around showcasing our products or services, highlighting their features and benefits. And while that's important for success and ROI, we sometimes overlook the importance of actively listening to our customers in real-time. How many of us intentionally allocate budget towards investing in tools that capture the genuine voice of our customers? If you're one of the few who do, kudos to you!

This brings out a very critical element of capturing customer’s voice which often gets either neglected or take a back seat due to various reasons which take more compelling prioritization in our charter.

Capturing the real-time voice of the customer isn't just another item on our to-do list; it's a game-changer. It's about engaging with our customers at precisely the right moment, with precisely the right message and solution.

Remember when I talked about the significance of understanding a customer's online journey in a previous newsletter (https://www.dhirubhai.net/newsletters/marketing-mavericks-7184086296234000385 . Well, here's where it comes into play again. Social Listening, as we call it, is the key to tracking and analyzing customer activity, extracting invaluable insights, and decoding their preferences, likes, and dislikes

Imagine if from distant miles we could read the mind of customers, imagine the power of crafting marketing messages based on this deep understanding of our customers' needs and preferences. Imagine the frustration we can alleviate by ensuring that every call, every email, every interaction is relevant and meaningful.

How Social Listening Differs from Social Monitoring

Social monitoring and social listening - you'll often hear these terms used interchangeably. But there are some key differences between the two.

Social monitoring is keeping tabs on social channels to see brand mentions, track keywords, and respond to questions or tags. It's focused on managing your online presence reactively. Social listening takes a more proactive approach. It's all about analyzing data from social platforms to uncover trends, patterns, and consumer sentiment.

While monitoring watches for specific keywords and interactions, listening provides a broader perspective. It aims to deeply understand your audiences and brand perception.

?Social media listening tools

Social media listening tools let you monitor and track social media conversations related to a specific brand or topic. You can then analyze the data to uncover insights that will inform your marketing decisions

There are many social media listening tools available today.B2C companies certainly leverage them more than B2B companies but more B2B companies are also finding value in Social listening of their customers and becoming more open to invest in such tools.

However, there is a significant difference between the products in a B2B market vs the B2C. As a result, the goals, strategies and content of social listening differ between B2B and B2C.

Various such tools gives options to select services/plans which help marketers to learn about audience preferences and how they feel about specific products, campaigns or topics. This helps you stay on top of the latest industry trends and identify untapped business opportunities. There are tools like Sprout Social’s social listening tools which?lets you understand Brand-specific conversations giving you more visibility into customer experiences and brand sentiment

There are tools available which can be specific to some social platform like analysing Twitter, Facebook,Tiktok or your own website engagement and sentiment analyses based on various parameters varying from customers likes/dislikes/reposting/engagement .Tool like Keyhole platform to track specific hashtags and keywords as well as identify relevant influencers. The volume predictions feature lets you anticipate when your posts are going viral so you can come up with a marketing game plan. Tools like Meltwater?helps you cut through the noise and uncover the conversational insights that matter to your brand.

Answer the Public?pulls up search volumes and trends for a given topic, brand or product. It gives you a breakdown of the associated search terms. So you can use it to see what questions people are asking about it and what comparisons they’re making. This gives you a better understanding of their needs and pain points as well as their interests.

YouScan?is one of the top social listening tools that come with image recognition capabilities. It gives you access to AI-powered visual insights to gain a better understanding of your buyer persona. The platform identifies upcoming trends so you can align your marketing strategy accordingly. It tracks brand sentiment and consumer perceptions to show you how people feel about your brand. It even detects possible threats to your brand reputation in real time.

?Google Alerts?is another free option that lets you set up alerts for conversations taking place across the web. You can choose to monitor specific keywords and topics or even brand names. The tool lets you filter your results based on sources, language and region. You can even customize the frequency of alerts and choose to show only the best results.

So how can marketing benefit from investing in Social Listening?

a)??? Business and Product intelligence - capture VOC critical for developing new products or capturing feedback on existing products &solutions

b)??? Developing long term strategies – Based on customer social behaviour marketers can develop focused long term strategies to meet customer expectations.

c)??? Improve campaign targeting- Developing content which resonates with specific target audience

d)??? Enhance Customer experience – Active listening to customer conversations help to gauge their sentiments and quickly attend their requirements/feedback/queries/grievances/pain points to provide better experience. It helps in addressing negative sentiments with faster response time

e)??? Competitor analysis -Track competitors’ engagement with customers which can help to tweak your game plans You can gain intel on competitors' strategies, strengths, and weaknesses to inform your own edge

f)???? Influencer tracking and collaboration -Learn what key influencers are speaking online and leverage partnerships with them to enhance your brand value. Social listening also helps you identify the thought-leaders, executives, and bloggers that your buyers share and mention the most. Yes,?influencer marketing?matters for B2B brands, too

g)??? Lead generation- Engaging with customers with tailored content at right time will help in generating potential leads and opportunities ?

?14 best social listening tools for 2024

There are a lot of options out there. Here are our top social listening tools picks for 2024.

1. Hootsuite

2. Talkwalker

3. Brandwatch

4. Brand24

5. Digimind

6. Mentionlytics

7. Meltwater

8. Sprout Social

9. Mention

10. Quid

11. Ipsos Synthesio

12. Audiense

13. Keyhole

14. HubSpot

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Conclusion

Let's embark on this journey together, listening intently to the voices of our customers, decoding their needs, and crafting meaningful solutions. Because when we prioritize listening, we not only strengthen our connections with our audience but also pave the way for impactful and authentic engagement. Here's to a future where every interaction resonates and every message matters.

So, let's commit to truly listening. Let's commit to understanding our customers in real-time and delivering the solutions they're searching for. Because when we listen, really listen, amazing things can happen.

Thank you for taking the time to dive into my newsletter and explore the insights shared within.

Would love to hear which listening tools do you use and how effective it means to your business?

Until next time, thank you for being a part of this community!

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