Digital Marketing - Collecting Ideas For Product Development

Marketers in the digital marketing field should always make it a point to listen to their customers. Most consumers speak about a purchase, only if they are truly impressed by it or if they hate it. The Internet has made it very easy for people to rant or rave about products, with a conglomeration of social media sites, review sites, blogs etc. Most prospective customers usually go through such forums while formulating a purchase decision, and might get strongly influenced by what they see or read.

While consumers who like your offerings will tell you what you did right, those who didn't will give you new ideas on how you can improve your product. You can also use such inputs to make derivative products, which fulfil the needs and expectations of your target audiences. Today, you'll find numerous digital marketing tools for helping you ‘listen in' on what your customers are saying about your offerings. While such tools offer feedback in the purest unadulterated form, many digital marketing professionals still choose to use the output of inaccurate focus groups to make future business decisions.

For example, if the digital marketing firm of a camera manufacturer learns that consumers are frequently asking questions about the low light performance of their digital cameras, they can modify their digital marketing material to include such information. If a company does not have a feature which people are talking about, they can ask their product development team to build it, so that they can sell more products in the future. Some companies that have made strong efforts to harness customer ideas are Starbucks, Dell Computers and Lego.

Constant innovations have helped such companies stay way ahead of their competitors. Companies should consider designing inventions that consumers want, rather than inventions thought up by product development staff in a laboratory. While innovating, it is also important to remove organisational barriers that hinder quick, collaborative innovation. If members of the digital marketing team don't have meetings with product developers and salespeople at periodic intervals, then the company has a problem.

One of the best sources of useful digital marketing information is employees who deal directly with customers. These employees usually comprise direct salespersons, customer service representatives or call centre executives. Direct communication enables them to hear the needs of customers, and find out about challenges faced, making them the best source of new ideas for product development purposes.