Tag: Consumer Habits

Why Meeting Consumer Expectations Won’t Cut It — and What Businesses Should Do Instead | Entrepreneur

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Consumer behavior has undoubtedly shifted. Research shows that 70% of consumers are willing to pay a premium for ethically sourced products, and 66% expect brands to understand their needs and preferences. Nearly half of all consumers now buy products after seeing them endorsed by people they trust. These statistics clearly show that people want businesses to do better.

But here’s what the data doesn’t capture: consumer expectations alone cannot drive the fundamental changes our world needs. While businesses scramble to meet these demands, they’re missing a crucial opportunity to lead transformation rather than simply follow it.

Related: Being ‘Busy’ Isn’t Helping You Be Productive — 5 Tips to Become Truly Efficient at Work

The limits of consumer-driven change

Consumer preferences are powerful, but limited. According to McKinsey’s 2025 consumer outlook, 79% of consumers are trading down due to economic pressures, and 49% plan to delay purchases. When people are focused on survival and cost-cutting, their capacity to prioritize broader social issues naturally diminishes.

More importantly, consumers can only demand what they can imagine. They respond to problems they understand and solutions they can envision. But the most pressing challenges facing businesses and society require innovation that goes beyond current consumer awareness.

Technology companies didn’t wait for people to demand smartphones before developing them. Steve Jobs famously said that consumers don’t know what they want until you show it to them. Apple created a solution that transformed how we live and work, not because market research indicated demand for touchscreen devices, but because they envisioned possibilities that consumers hadn’t yet imagined.

We’re seeing the same pattern with Artificial Intelligence today. Companies aren’t implementing AI solutions because consumers are demanding them — most people still have mixed feelings about AI integration. According to recent research, consumers are “AI ambivalent,” yet 85% of Fortune 500 companies are already using AI solutions to transform their operations. These businesses are leading change by recognizing AI’s potential to solve problems and create value, regardless of current consumer sentiment.

The same principle applies to social impact. Waiting for consumer demand to drive every positive change means limiting ourselves to incremental improvements rather than transformative solutions.

Why businesses must take the lead

The business world is transforming continuously, at an unprecedented pace. In my experience building software companies, I’ve seen how tech leaders emerge not by following trends but by anticipating needs and creating new possibilities. That same dynamic applies to social responsibility and positive impact.

Companies have resources, expertise and scale that individual consumers lack. They can invest in research and development, form strategic partnerships and implement solutions at speeds that consumer movements cannot match. When 95% of organizations have undergone multiple major transformations in just three years, it’s clear that businesses are becoming comfortable with rapid change.

The question is no longer whether businesses should respond to consumer demands — they absolutely should. The question is whether they’ll stop there or use their capabilities to drive changes that serve the common good and create a truly better world. This means going beyond what consumers haven’t yet realized they need and actively working toward solutions that benefit society as a whole, even when those solutions may not have immediate market appeal.

What proactive leadership looks like

Real business leadership in social change goes beyond traditional corporate social responsibility. It involves using core business capabilities to address societal challenges, even when there’s no immediate consumer pressure to do so.

1. Get ahead of future needs rather than react to current demands. Companies that succeed in creating lasting change identify problems before they become mainstream consumer concerns. They invest in solutions that may not have immediate market demand but address fundamental challenges.

2. Use technology for social good. With 85% of Fortune 500 companies now using AI solutions and the projected global AI impact reaching $22.3 trillion by 2030, businesses have unprecedented tools to create positive change. The companies making the biggest difference are those using these capabilities proactively rather than reactively.

3. Build ecosystems of change. Rather than working in isolation, leading companies create networks that amplify their impact. The Rise Ahead Pledge, signed by 24 major corporations, demonstrates how businesses can collaborate to drive social innovation beyond what consumer demand would naturally create.

Related: How to Keep Up With Customer Expectations

Beyond consumer expectations

Social entrepreneurship and innovation are converging in powerful ways, offering a blueprint for traditional businesses. The Global Innovation Index 2024 highlights how social enterprises create transformative solutions by mobilizing diverse stakeholders to effect change at regional and global scales. These organizations succeed not by following consumer preferences but by identifying systemic issues and developing innovative approaches to address them.

Traditional businesses can learn from this model — instead of waiting for consumer surveys to tell them what people want, they can identify underlying problems and develop solutions that create new markets and possibilities.

The most successful companies of the next decade may be those that understand that sustainable business success requires creating value for society, not just responding to its expressed demands. This means taking calculated risks, investing in solutions that may not have immediate payoffs and using business capabilities to address challenges that extend beyond traditional market boundaries.

Consumer expectations will continue to evolve, and businesses must remain responsive to their markets. However, the companies that will truly make a difference — and build lasting competitive advantages — are those that move beyond responsiveness to proactive leadership in creating positive change.

The time for waiting is over

We’re at an inflection point where traditional approaches to business and social responsibility are no longer sufficient. Consumer demands provide important signals about market direction, but they cannot drive the scale and speed of change that current global challenges require.

The businesses that recognize this opportunity and act on it will not only create meaningful social impact but also position themselves as leaders in the next era of commerce. Those who continue to wait for consumer permission to make positive change will find themselves increasingly irrelevant in a world that rewards proactive leadership over reactive adaptation.

Lead the change you want to see in the world, or spend your time chasing changes that others create. The companies that choose to lead will define the business landscape for decades to come.

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Stefan Grigorov

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September 16, 2025
Entrepreneur+ Subscribers-Only Event | November 14: Meet the CEO Who Innovated the Way Consumer Brands Interact with Customers | Entrepreneur

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Just a few short years ago, the soda industry seemed untouchable to startups. That was until OLIPOP found a gap in consumer needs and tapped into Gen Z culture to create a brand that now competes with Coke and Pepsi.

On Tuesday, November 14th at 2 PM ET, meet OLIPOP’s CEO, Ben Goodwin in our next Entrepreneur+ Subscriber-Only Event, as he walks us through his bubbly approach to formulating authenticity and formulating soda. Learn about his journey and gather his insights — so you, too, can create a genuine brand that connects with others.

This event is only for Entrepreneur+ subscribers, but you can become a subscriber for FREE. Use code 1FREE at checkout for one month of all access to Entrepreneur.com, including our premium content and the ability to participate in our Subscribers-Only Event.

What is a Subscriber-Only Event?

Every month, we feature a special guest to help create actionable content for Entrepreneur+ subscribers. We set up events with today’s most prevalent CEOs, entrepreneurs and celebrities — so that we can provide a productive, exclusive experience for our most dedicated readers and entrepreneurs worldwide.

How to access as a subscriber:

There are two ways to make sure you don’t miss out on this event. Follow this link for easy setup on your Entrepreneur+ homepage. Or, check your inbox for an [Entrepreneur+ Exclusive] email that contains the private link to the event. We will also notify your email right before the event to make sure you don’t miss out.

Having issues signing up for the call? Email us at subscribe@entrepreneur.com.

About the Speaker:

Ben Goodwin co-founded OLIPOP in 2018, alongside business partner David Lester. Ben, who forwent an environmental science degree in favor of his entrepreneurial spirit, has a passion for health and wellness that stems from personal experience. After a childhood on the standard American diet, Ben had an epiphany at just 14 years of age–losing 50 pounds with the implementation of daily exercise and more mindful eating habits. These positive changes resulted in a deep curiosity about nutrition’s effect on physical and mental health, making Ben a relentless scholar of the human microbiome and ways to leverage it for overall wellness.

Ben has now been an entrepreneur and product developer in the digestive beverage field for more than a decade, striving to create drinks that optimize for both taste and digestive health benefits. OLIPOP is in over 21,000 retail doors and surpassing $200M in revenue annually.

Use code 1FREE at checkout.

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Entrepreneur Staff

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November 13, 2023
From groceries to flights to mobile data: Why is Canada so expensive? – MoneySense

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That doesn’t mean everything costs more in Canada, says David Soberman, a professor of marketing and Canadian national chair of strategic marketing at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. Canadians may pay more than Americans for the same basket of goods, he says, but we pay less than people in some other countries, like Switzerland.

Why do we pay what we do? That’s a difficult question to answer. The reasons are complex and vary depending on the type of good or service. Let’s look at some of the main contributors to Canada’s cost of living, why they are as expensive as they are, and steps you can take to reduce those costs.

Why are groceries so expensive in Canada?

There are a few reasons groceries cost so much in Canada, says Soberman. It’s expensive for companies to ship food products across a country as large as ours, and those costs are reflected in what you pay in stores, he says. But a highly concentrated grocery industry is also a big contributing factor.

Canada’s grocery market is dominated by just a few companies. Domestically, there are three big players: Loblaws, Metro and Sobeys. (Some chains, such as Save-On-Foods in Western Canada, compete on a regional basis.) The next largest retailers for grocery sales are Walmart and Costco. Together, these five companies account for more than three-quarters of all food sales in Canada, according to Canada’s Competition Bureau. In 2023, 49% of Canadians report buying groceries from Loblaws or one of its sister stores.

Critics argue such concentration allows the dominant companies to participate in anti-competitive practices that ultimately harm consumers through higher prices. In grocery, this takes the form of fixing bread prices, preventing competitors from selling certain products, or collectively deciding when to freeze grocery prices—and when to unfreeze them. It’s a problem experts say applies to other industries, such as telecommunications and air travel.

When Canada’s Competition Act was introduced, in 1986, there were at least eight large grocery chains in Canada, each owned by a different company. Since then, more than a dozen major mergers and acquisitions have reduced the level of competition. Today, three big supermarket companies own several smaller chains, including discount brands that could be mistaken for rivals: Loblaws has No Frills, Sobeys has FreshCo and Metro has Food Basics, for example.

Source: The Competition Bureau of Canada.

How does Canada allow for three big grocers to reign? “The law in Canada typically will not allow the Bureau to intervene in these deals, as they are generally seen as unlikely to have a significant impact on prices and other dimensions of competition,” states a Competition Bureau report. “In the case of a major city or suburb, with five or six different grocery stores nearby, it can be hard to prove that removing one option will cause prices to go up significantly.”

Another underlying issue is that, for many decades, the prevailing view was that “as a small, but large country, we need to accept lower levels of competition to achieve a scale that is necessary to serve the various markets,” says Keldon Bester, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project (CAMP). Over time, that belief has led to fewer and fewer options for consumers, he says.

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Justin Dallaire

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October 27, 2023
How AI is Predicting the Next Big Trends in Consumer Products | Entrepreneur

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For decades, identifying the next big consumer trends and products was an imprecise art dominated by guesswork. Companies would spend millions on market research, only to be caught off guard by sudden shifts in public taste. It was like throwing darts blindfolded. But artificial intelligence has transformed trend forecasting from a fuzzy guessing game into a data-driven science. Artificial intelligence algorithms can now predict hot consumer products by analyzing massive datasets — articles, reviews, social media and search trends, for example — that humans can’t process.

This monumental shift is on par with the discovery of electricity. Companies now have predictive insights once reserved for giants like P&G or Apple. For entrepreneurs, it’s like being handed the answer key before the test. Consumer trends that used to appear out of the blue can now be detected months in advance, allowing startups to launch the right products at the right time. AI turns elusive market intelligence into an actionable advantage open to businesses of any size.

Related: AI Is Poised to Change How We Shop: Here’s What You Need to Know

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Ari Goldberg

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September 1, 2023
AI Is Poised to Change How We Shop: Here’s What You Need to Know | Entrepreneur

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

I had a conversation with a robot recently, and I have to admit, it wasn’t half bad. Like most consumers, I typically dread automated interactions when I call for customer support, but on this occasion, the bot was surprisingly helpful and my issue was resolved before the urge to hit zero for human intervention took over.

It got me thinking, for all the legitimate concerns around the rise of AI, as the technology improves it offers a clear advantage to online businesses: It’s leveling up the baseline of the customer experience.

The AI market size is projected to grow from $86.9 billion last year to $407 billion by 2027. With virtually every industry looking to scale operations through AI, the impact on ecommerce will be staggering. Yet, as the online customer experience improves, I predict we’ll see a return to some of the traditional ways brands have differentiated themselves in the past. Here’s why.

Related: 5 Ways the AI Revolution Can Help Your Ecommerce Business

AI is leveling the playing field for customer service

The integration of Siri and Alexa into our lives happened slowly. It started with simple voice commands like making a call or relaying the weather and stunted when we asked more complex questions that were met with an unreliable response.

Now, as 300 million American households actively use smart home devices, voice assistants like Siri and Alexa have become an accepted part of our daily lives and as the technology improves we’re seeing businesses from Shopify to Zoom to Alibaba, launch AI-powered assistants to service their clients at scale.

From an ecommerce perspective, as improved AI assistants and super-powered chatbots rapidly evolve and become more accessible to businesses of all sizes, brands will have to find new ways to differentiate their customer service.

Traditionally, brands that hire people who are passionate about the products and services they sell and empower employees to go above and beyond to satisfy their customers, experience greater customer loyalty and can even charge up to 5% more for products.

These old-school principles of customer service could prove as relevant as ever in the age of AI when human capital largely informs the automated customer experience.

Businesses that focus on their ‘why’ will have an edge

At present, a brand’s ability to compete on search and have its products or services easily discovered online can make or break a business. Likewise, a frictionless checkout experience gives ecommerce behemoths a strong competitive edge — it’s the reason Amazon had nearly 40% of the ecommerce market share in the U.S. last year.

AI is poised to change that. Take visual search technology, for example. Once a novelty for ecommerce sites, advanced visual search tools such as uploading an image to find a similar product or virtual try-on features are now becoming more widely adopted by both startups and established online retailers.

Similarly, Shopify’s Shop Pay is democratizing checkout, making a seamless experience accessible for any business. As these technologies become more mainstream and less of a competitive differentiator, businesses will be forced to rethink their value proposition.

Even in the current market, studies show consumers are four to six times more likely to purchase from and champion purpose-driven companies. As AI helps equalize the customer experience online, companies that dive deeper into their “why” and integrate intention into every touch point of the customer journey will have an advantage.

Related: Top 6 Ecommerce Trends You Need to Know in 2023

Niche businesses will be better positioned

The success of an entrepreneur used to be widely determined by one’s ability to mount a business financially and manage its logistics. As AI makes it increasingly easier to start and manage a business, companies that narrow in on a niche will set themselves apart.

American heritage brand L.L. Bean is a great example. The 111-year-old retailer successfully transitioned into the digital age through thoughtful product selection and making investments in technology that brought them closer to their customer. Likewise, businesses that have a deep knowledge of their product and strong connection with their customers will be more successful in the age of AI.

AI relies heavily on data to develop personalized offerings. Companies with a niche focus are better positioned to understand the unique preferences and pain points of their customers and leverage AI to create tailored solutions for them.

Similarly, companies that narrow their focus, are better positioned to act on the data collected from like-minded customers to identify trends, anticipate market shifts and pivot based on their customers’ evolving needs.

Retailers aren’t typically the most technically-sophisticated bunch — many simply don’t have robust budgets to invest in technology. This can be true of leaders in any industry, but as AI becomes more accessible, we’re going to see a democratization of ecommerce tools, which will force businesses to compete in new ways.

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Ben Crudo

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August 18, 2023
What It Means for Brands to Truly Be ‘Consumer-First’ | Entrepreneur

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Terms like “user-friendly,” “consumer-first” and “customer-centric” have become buzzwords across industries in recent years. From pharma to fashion, today’s great brand leaders all understand that taking an audience-first approach to developing and selling products and services is critical to their company’s success. Consumers are becoming savvier when it comes to selecting the items they need in both their personal and professional lives; they are not only carefully vetting specific products and services, but also the brands behind them.

Despite all this, I’ve observed that the bridge between consumer-first rhetoric and action is still not always as strong as it needs to be to sustain long-term brand loyalty. With that in mind, I’m sharing three tips from my company’s “consumer playbook” that I believe can benefit all brand leaders. While the industry I’m in — life sciences — is obviously quite a different business model than retail, for example, lessons learned from our industry are still applicable to others. In fact, due to all of the rules and regulations governing health care, we arguably have to work even harder than other sectors to create meaningful connections with consumers.

Throughout this piece, I’ll use the biopharmaceutical sector — which is ripe for disruption and in need of new and innovative ways to connect with consumers — as a case study from which leaders in other industries can draw. Biopharma is a great example, because while we’re very lucky to have robust drug development in the U.S., drug makers themselves have historically had a fairly negative reputation among Americans — that is, if they’re on consumers’ minds at all.

Related: How Entrepreneurs Can Establish a Successful Customer-First Strategy

The pandemic effect

As happened in so many industries, Covid-19 fundamentally changed the way consumers view biopharmaceutical manufacturers. For the first time, people started thinking about the brands that develop the medicines they take. Those receiving a Covid-19 vaccine asked one another, “Moderna or Pfizer?” For people who couldn’t see their loved ones, go to the grocery store or return to work, getting vaccinated represented getting back to life. For many of them, this experience also created instantaneous brand loyalty with vaccine makers.

This scenario isn’t unique to biopharmaceuticals. Many brands across industries innovated to add value and comfort to consumers’ lives during a time characterized by fear and isolation. By adapting offerings or creating totally new products and services to meet the specific needs of this unprecedented period (think of how grateful we are for the services provided by companies like Uber Eats and Doordash, FedEx and UPS, and Amazon and Zoom), they too were rewarded with exceptional brand loyalty.

The question today then becomes, “How do you bottle that brand loyalty into an ongoing consumer experience and sustain a relationship post-Covid?”

Tip #1: Respect your customer’s ongoing appetite for information and provide transparency about how your products and services are created

This means communicating updates, optimizations and improvements in our foundational technologies so that consumers understand the potential value and safety profile of the medicines we are making — and not just for fighting Covid-19, but for preventing and treating a number of other conditions. When Moderna’s mRNA technology is used to develop a new vaccine, that’s like an updated product release. We can expect improvements for each vaccine as we optimize our whole platform, and we need to communicate to our customers just as Apple would with an iPhone update.

This heightened demand for transparency is true across industries. A recent Nielsen report around food transparency found two-thirds of shoppers (64%) say they would switch from a brand they usually buy to another brand that provides more in-depth product information, beyond nutrition facts. Consumers today want to know exactly where their products and services are coming from and how they are made.

Tip #2: Go deeper than market research

Consumers today have a heightened awareness of what they’re putting in their bodies as well as a desire to understand — and approve of — how these products are made. We bring consumers along to understand how mRNA teaches the body to fight and prevent diseases. This is similar to an operating system with updated “apps” or in the case of mRNA, new therapeutics and vaccines.

To better leverage market research, we cannot start with assumptions. We need to find nuance in what consumers want, especially when it comes to areas of innovative technology that fundamentally change how consumers interact with a product or brand. Artificial intelligence applications across industries, for example, need to be broached carefully on a case-by-case basis and surrounded by clear communications. Ensuring your brand is going beyond general market research results to understand specific, unique circumstances will be critical in the coming months.

Related: Want Your Business to Succeed? Use These Tips to Understand Your Customer

Tip #3: Look at reputation not as a reservoir of goodwill, but as a river of growing loyalty

Historically biopharmaceutical companies treated reputation as a buffer for tough times or bad news. Instead, we need to bolster loyalty around a pipeline of products, like Nike, for example. We can do this by creating brand experiences outside of products that help consumers learn about the company’s mission and values. Athleta, a popular women’s athleisure brand, continues to tap strong female athletes as brand ambassadors, recently forming “the Power of She Collective,” which has a mission to empower women and girls — their core consumer audience.

My team is leaning into, not out of, the halo effect of our enterprise brand and continuing to grow it through interconnected consumer experiences beyond any one product or milestone. I urge other brand leaders and entrepreneurial innovators to do the same, as we can all benefit from doing the work it takes to build mutual trust, earn loyalty and create more “get back to life” moments for the consumers we serve.

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Kate Cronin

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August 8, 2023
Why Do We Stay in Dysfunctional Relationships? | Entrepreneur

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Once you realize you’re pouring time into an unsuccessful venture, project or partnership, why is it so hard to exit and invest your time elsewhere?

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Entrepreneur Staff

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April 11, 2023
How Do I Know I’m Getting the Best ROI? Use First-Party Data. | Entrepreneur

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Today’s digital world has opened up many opportunities for small businesses to leverage data and maximize their marketing ROI. First-party data allows businesses to develop customer insights, optimize campaigns, track performance metrics and create targeted strategies.

With first-party data in hand, small business owners have access to valuable consumer preferences, which they can utilize when planning engagement activities or launching new products/services. Additionally, using this form of data helps build a clear view of customers’ journeys while creating personalized experiences at every touchpoint along the way — without spending huge amounts of money on expensive market research tools.

Related: In the Fight for Privacy, Web Cookies Are Disappearing. Here’s What That Means for Your Company’s Advertising Strategy.

Get your hands on Google Analytics 4

Small businesses have to be smart in their marketing efforts. Leveraging first-party data can help you get the most out of your marketing budget, ensuring that every dollar spent drives value and a higher return on investment (ROI). Small business owners can adjust their strategies accordingly by processing website data such as customer behavior and engagement metrics.

Leveraging Google Analytics 4 for your first-party data can help you rank higher in Google search results. There are numerous advanced features of GA4 that allow businesses to collect valuable insights about their customers, allowing them to create targeted campaigns with more accuracy and efficiency than ever before. This new platform also offers powerful tools that enable you to measure the success of your digital marketing efforts and make quick adjustments as necessary.

Understanding user journeys across different pages provide a further understanding of what works well for an organization’s digital presence, allowing them to focus time and effort more effectively on areas that drive conversions or revenue opportunities. Research shows investing in targeted campaigns using first-party data generates up to 20% higher return on investment than non-targeted approaches like social media ads.

Place your customers in the right buckets

Customer segmentation is a powerful way to leverage first-party data and boost marketing ROI. By gaining deeper insights into customer behavior, businesses can target their most valuable customers with specific content that resonates more effectively than ever before.

Email segmentation, for instance, can help businesses leverage first-party data to create personalized, targeted messages. By grouping customers into segments based on similar profiles and behaviors, companies can tailor their communications and promotions accordingly. With this strategy in place, organizations have greater control over the messaging they deliver to specific cohorts of customers, helping them develop stronger relationships with the people who matter most.

Behavioral segmentation helps small businesses create a tailored experience that resonates with each audience, rather than simply creating general messaging campaigns without any context or personalization attached. This personalized approach has the potential to drive higher engagement from customers by providing them with experiences catered just for them — resulting in greater brand loyalty and increased revenue opportunities further down the line.

Related: Forget Third-Party Data. You’re Already Missing Out on Most of Your First-Party Data

A personal touch for your customers

First-party data can also help in strengthening relationships with customers. This is done by improving customer communications, creating personalized conversations and experiences, enabling segmentation of audiences for better targeting and providing relevant content to the right customers at the right time. Also, by leveraging this data, businesses can gain insights into buyer behavior, allowing them to become more responsive while helping build trust among their customers.

For instance, personalized text messages can help create a closer connection between the business and its customers. This strengthens the relationship over time, creating a better understanding of what each customer wants and needs — further increasing customer loyalty and creating greater opportunities for revenue growth.

First-party data helps with this by allowing you to understand shoppers’ habits by collecting behavioral information such as email open rates or click-through links. By doing so, companies can give customers a tailored and targeted experience that increases engagement and loyalty.

Facebook pixel and other tags

The Facebook pixel is a powerful tool for businesses to gain access to rich first-party data. This allows them to better understand customer behavior and build tailored campaigns that match their customers’ interests. With a Facebook pixel, you can track website visitors across devices, create custom audiences, measure conversions from ads and optimize ad spend for improved results. Utilizing this valuable first-party data enables businesses to make targeted decisions quickly, increase ROI and maximize performance.

Utilizing first-party data to track and optimize marketing ROI requires dedication but can be immensely rewarding. Tracking customer behavior across various platforms is essential for efficient optimization and successful campaigns.

With appropriate investments into understanding first-party data and employing ways to analyze its effectiveness efficiently, small businesses can equip themselves with what they need to increase their profits through increased ROI.

Related: Data in 4 Flavors, and the Demise of the Cookie

Ensuring accurate, reliable data collection

Having accurate data is an essential part of any successful marketing campaign. With the right first-party data, businesses can ensure they’re targeting their audience in the most relevant and effective way possible. To ensure reliable data collection, small business owners should strive to use multiple sources that are consistent with each other, such as social media platforms and customer databases.

Additionally, tracking analytics on a regular basis will allow for ongoing insights about trends or changes in consumer behavior over time to adjust strategies accordingly. Finally, investing in sophisticated tools like GA4 can enable companies to go beyond basic demographics and build better profiles around customer needs or preferences. This will help them create meaningful interactions with potential customers, leading to higher ROI from campaigns.

Small businesses often have limited resources and need to be smart about how they spend them. Fortunately, first-party data is an inexpensive way to reach potential customers and understand consumer behavior. By collecting the right user information, small businesses can use this data to better understand individual buyer behaviors and create data-driven customer journeys and targeted campaigns tailored specifically toward them.

This allows the business to maximize its return on investment by sending out highly personalized communication that instantly connects with potential buyers in a powerful way.

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Sonu Yadav

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March 21, 2023
5 Proven Tips to Better Understand Your Audience and Drive Sales | Entrepreneur

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How well do you know your audience? It’s a question that every entrepreneur must carefully consider if they wish to make their products or services appealing to potential customers.

The better you know your audience, the easier it will be to speak to their specific pain points and to present your business as a desirable solution. While getting to know your audience better isn’t always easy, there are some proven practices that businesses have consistently used to gain the level of understanding needed to succeed.

Related: 5 Tips for Entrepreneurs to Better Serve Their Potential Customers

1. Start with what you already know

No entrepreneur is going to launch their company without at least some understanding of their target audience. Whether that knowledge stems from your own personal experience, focus groups you conducted when testing your product idea or even reviewing industry news and surveys, this is a valuable starting point for coming to understand your audience.

This initial set of information should serve as the foundation to help you focus your learning efforts. It probably isn’t as detailed as you need it to be, but it can provide a useful guide when deciding which pain points to explore or which competitors to evaluate.

2. Make the most of buyer personas

Buyer personas serve as a fictional composite of what your ideal customer looks like. When done right, they can help you better hone in on the types of messaging that will best appeal to your target consumer.

Buyer personas draw information from available data to help you better define target audience demographics, behavior, motivations and objectives. This tells you who they are, why they buy and even how they might go about doing business with you. Negative buyer personas can also be helpful in clearly identifying audiences that aren’t a good fit for your products or services.

Your buyer persona essentially serves as a representation of that data you’ve already accumulated. It ultimately makes it easier for you to visualize who you are selling to and how to appeal to them.

Related: How to Drill Down Into Your Buyer Personas to Create Hyper-Targeted Content

3. Utilize survey data

Additional surveys of existing customers and those who fit your preferred buyer persona can provide valuable qualitative insights into industry trends, specific details about your products or services and even the type of messaging that best appeals to them. Asking for honest feedback can help you better define your core messaging.

You don’t need to rely exclusively on your own internal surveys to gain better insights into your target audience. For example, travel insurance company Faye recently conducted a study that revealed, among other things, that 38 percent of Americans would sooner give up intimacy than travel — and that 40 percent are spending as much as $8,000 per international trip. For travel-related brands, such insights can be key to better understanding their audience’s mindset so they can market accordingly.

Notably, audience perspectives can shift over time. Regularly conducting surveys of your own and following other survey results that are relevant to your niche can help you adapt accordingly.

4. Look at successful competitors

Sometimes, evaluating successful competitors can provide the best insights into how to appeal to your target audience. Look at things like the brand voice, particularly in regards to the marketing tactics and messaging they use.

For example, outdoor brands might want to look at what has made the National Park Service Twitter account such a success. When you can identify patterns in the types of images or phrases successful competitors use, you may be able to incorporate similarly appealing facets into your own marketing.

Of course, evaluating your competitors can also help you identify opportunities where you are able to solve a pain point that they don’t. What types of complaints do your competitors receive? What services do their customers say they wish were available, but aren’t? These insights can prove key to differentiating your own services in a more meaningful way.

Related: How to Spy On Your Competition With Social Media

5. Monitor your audience engagement

In 2020, there were roughly 290 billion actions taken on brand-owned content on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Needless to say, audiences are significantly engaged with brands on social media and other online platforms — and this can be a valuable way to learn more about your audience in real-time.

How your audience responds to different social media posts or blog posts can go a long way in helping you understand the type of content that resonates with them. Understanding what works (and what doesn’t) will enable you to refine your messaging over time.

Of course, social media is far from the only place you can get valuable engagement. Customer support interactions, forum mentions and your own experiences during sales meetings can help you better understand what your audience values — and whether or not you’re successfully catering to their needs.

Even picking up on trends like how your clients speak differently than other audiences, or have different concerns or goals, can help you identify shared attributes that can better define your messaging and services.

To know is to sell

Truly getting to know your target audience requires a fair amount of work.

But the rewards are well worth the effort. When you utilize these methods to understand your customers on a more personal level, you will be far better equipped to adapt your marketing in a way that truly speaks to them. You’ll correctly identify their pain points, desires and goals. And you’ll be able to clearly articulate why your product or service is the right match.

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Lucas Miller

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March 10, 2023
How Retailers Can Win In a Post-Pandemic World

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It has been an unprecedented few years for brick-and-mortar retailers, but in 2022, physical stores have started to bounce back. In October, nationwide foot traffic to shopping centers was up more than 18% from two years ago. Meanwhile, 54% of consumers prefer brick-and-mortar retail to any other channel, suggesting that people still love going to physical stores.

There are bright spots for retailers, but it is important to note that while in-store shopping has surged, the industry has evolved since the pre-pandemic era. Recent consumer habits and preferences that emerged during the pandemic appear to be here to stay.

Let’s explore these in more detail.

Related: As Inflation Soars, Consumers Want More Rewards and Shopping Incentives. Here’s How to Give Them What They Want

A lot of retail journeys start online but end in store

According to Google, searches for “open now near me” have increased 400% Year-over-Year, which suggests that even those who love shopping offline rely on digital tools to point them in the right direction.

That’s why it is essential to have a solid online presence in search engines and to improve your business’ discoverability by optimizing your listings in business directories and review platforms. To fully leverage this opportunity, you should ensure your business details are complete, add photos of your location and update your details when needed.

Social platforms help drive offline traffic

Social platforms like TikTok and Reels for Instagram and Facebook boomed during the pandemic and continue to be popular today. This is good news for retailers because you can leverage these platforms to drive brand awareness and foot traffic.

Social apps and platforms are excellent product discovery tools — even for physical retailers, as 81% of shoppers have made an in-store purchase after seeing a product on social media. To stay relevant, you need to meet shoppers where they are, and for many of them, that means being on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

Related: Why Social Media Platforms Are Adopting Ecommerce as a Saving Grace

Product and order fulfillment expectations are higher than ever

The rise of ecommerce, “Buy Online, Pay in Store” (BOPIS), and same-day delivery has increased shopper expectations regarding when and how they get their orders. Research and Markets forecast the BOPIS market will reach $703.18 billion by 2027 — representing a 19.3% compounded annual growth rate over six years.

In-store (and curbside) pickup is here to stay; if you haven’t done so, it’s high time to implement these initiatives.

That said, it is essential to remember that the success of your order fulfillment efforts will also depend on how well you forecast and manage inventory. Customers have little patience for “out-of-stocks,” as 50% of consumers report that they will switch products, brands or retailers when faced with shortages.

This is why it is critical to stay on top of stock management. Invest in robust inventory and reporting tools that enable you to identify trends and make smarter ordering decisions.

Related: The Future of Online Shopping Is ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’

It’s more challenging to gain true customer loyalty

The pandemic shook brand loyalty, and shoppers switched brands at an unprecedented rate. On average, US shoppers belong to 17 loyalty programs; but engagement is low, and less than 50% are active loyalty memberships.

Winning the loyalty game is a challenge, but not an impossible one. The key to improving shopper loyalty is ensuring your brand aligns with your customer’s needs and values.

Accomplishing that starts with obtaining the right customer insights. Knowing where your customers are from, why they buy from you and what their shopping preferences will enable you to make moves that are relevant to them.

Omnichannel is now table stakes

It is no longer enough to have a presence on different channels (e.g., online, in-store, social). You must seamlessly connect these channels to win over and fulfill today’s shopper’s needs, wherever they are.

To do that, you need a solid commerce platform with omnichannel capabilities. Investing in a point-of-sale solution with built-in ecommerce functionality enables you to sell and manage multiple channels from one system.

Another option is to choose a retail management platform that can integrate with other solutions. If you already have an existing POS system, set your sights on ecommerce platforms that can integrate with your current tools. Whichever route you take, see that sales, orders and inventory data flow smoothly from one channel to the next.

The current retail landscape presents numerous challenges; the good news is there are plenty of opportunities for savvy retailers to thrive. Equipping yourself with the correct data and tools will put you in the best position to compete — now and in the future.

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Ana Wight

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December 15, 2022
Build-a-Bear Attracts Adult Consumers Thanks to TikTok Influencers

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Build-A-Bear Workshop CEO Sharon Price John has a surprising statistic for anyone who ever spent time with a child in one of the chain’s stores just hoping to return to the world of grown-ups as soon as possible: “40% of our shoppers are adults.”

Ben Hider | Getty Images

CNN reports that Build-A-Bear has seen a notable rebound in demand as pandemic restrictions have waned around the world and that renewed demand consists of numerous shoppers from early teens on up.

According to CNN, there are 400 Build-A-Bears worldwide, where for prices between $14 and $30 customers can stuff a plush of their selection and then accessorize it with clothing and even recorded messages. For the 3rd quarter of 2022 the company reported a 9.9% increase over sales from last year, reportedly the seventh straight quarter of increased sales.

The influx of older shoppers includes customers seeking gifts and collectors. Build-A-Bear has enhanced its product offerings by licensing popular characters from movies and games.

Small Cap Consumer Research CEO Eric Beder tells the cable newser that “there is a definite strong demand for collectors with key licensed items such as Pokémon, Star Wars, older movie characters from The Nightmare before Christmas and video game-driven items such as Mario and Luigi.”

Beder also says TikTok influencers have been having Build-A-Bear “stuffing parties” and those products sell fast. Price John added that teens have many reasons to return to the store, including “creating … viral moments with our products on TikTok.”

The best thing about older consumers, according to Beder? “The older customer spends more, is not discount driven and makes multiple purchases…a really nice demographic.”

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Steve Huff

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December 7, 2022
Free Webinar | November 16: How to Lead Through Times of Economic Uncertainty

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Transparency and simplicity about the credit industry, especially in a world of financial uncertainty, is exactly what Kenneth Lin’s goal was when he launched Credit Karma in 2007. Best known for pioneering free credit scores, the platform offers everything related to a person’s financial goals, from identity monitoring, credit cards, and loans — all for free. Now an Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU) company, Credit Karma serves over 120 million people across the U.S., U.K., and Canada – including almost half of all U.S. millennials. In the next Leadership Lessons episode, Lin talks with series host Jason Nazar about how he’s led the company from a team of three to 1,500 employees. Other topics include:

Register Now

About The Speakers

Prior to founding Credit Karma in 2007 as its CEO, Kenneth Lin founded Multilytics Marketing, a data-driven marketing agency that actively managed more than $40 million a year in online marketing dollars for clients such as Wells Fargo, Liberty Mutual and eBay. He has a B.A. in mathematics and economics from Boston University. He was selected to join the esteemed Aspen Institute’s Henry Crown Fellows in 2018.

Jason Nazar is co-founder/CEO of Comparably, a leading workplace culture employee review site. He was previously co-founder/CEO of Docstoc (acquired by Intuit). Jason was named one of Los Angeles Business Journal’s Most Admired CEOs and appointed the inaugural Entrepreneur in Residence for the city of Los Angeles in 2016. The Los Angeles native received his BA from the University of California Santa Barbara and his JD and MBA from Pepperdine University.

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Jason Nazar

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November 14, 2022
What is Disruptive Marketing and Why is it Crucial for Success?
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As marketers, we are always trying to stand out from the crowd. Enter: disruptive marketing.

Think back to 20 years ago when Steve Jobs said that iPhones would replace computers. People didn’t believe him at the time, but I bet you are either reading this article on your phone or your phone is at least next to you. Steve Jobs’ claim is a perfect example of disruptive marketing.

I’m not a fan of buzzwords, but I am a fan of disruptive marketing. So much so that I recently came on board a disruptive marketing agency, Overit, as the Senior Marketing Director. Part of my role involves being a disruptor in the marketing industry, and with this article, I aim to help you become a disruptor. As disruptors, we need to be cutting-edge and unafraid so let’s explore how to do just that.

What exactly is disruptive marketing?

While innovative, disruptive marketing is also strategic. It goes against the status quo of traditional marketing tactics and reaches your target audience in new and creative ways. Disruptive marketing resonates with your current customers and unlocks new audiences.

FYI, this marketing strategy is only for risk-takers. However, it’s an excellent opportunity to grow your brand rather quickly. It is not just about being unique to get attention; disruptive marketing should be paired with data and strategy — just like any other marketing technique.

To put it simply, disruptive marketing is the process of using new and original marketing strategies to reach your target consumers in a way that your competitors are not.

This type of marketing allows for a lot of creativity and, like all marketing strategies, can continually be refined by the data you collect from your efforts. This data is important because disruptive marketing involves experimenting, and some tactics will work while others won’t.

Disruptive marketing pushes boundaries and creates new norms. Strategies we have in our marketing toolboxes were once disruptive. Take influencer marketing for example, it once was a foreign way to get authentic brand recommendations, and now it’s a strategy that many brands implement.

If you want to be a disruptor, you can’t be afraid to fail. However, this type of marketing has the chance of going viral. Are you a risk-taker like me?

Why should my marketing be disruptive?

The modern-day consumer is quite intelligent. They know when they’re being “marketed” and are sick of the traditional advertising norms. Disruptive marketing involves you doing something unique to allow you to stand out in an over-saturated industry.

Consumers value innovation. In fact, they expect it. There is a sea of repetitive marketing trends out there, and your target audience craves something different. This type of marketing makes your products or services stay top-of-mind by being unique and memorable.

The top 10 disruptive marketing tips

Have I convinced you to be a disruptor yet? If so, I’ve streamlined the top 10 tips I use in my disruptive marketing efforts. Write them out on a sticky note and post them on your monitor so you can always remind yourself how to be disruptive.
- Stay up to date with social media trends and success stories
- A/B test different strategies
- Capture data and implement the insights you glean from it
- Consult your buyer personas to ensure you’re reaching your target audience
- Challenge current marketing assumptions and do the opposite
- Speak to consumer pain points
- Embrace technology
- Follow disruptive thought leaders for inspiration
- Be unusual but not bizarre
- Implement storytelling best practices
Examples of disruptive marketing

Uber appalled people when they announced that they came out with an app in which people essentially get into a stranger’s car. Today, there are competing apps, and “ubering” is part of our English language.

Bitcoin is the world’s largest bank but has no actual cash. That didn’t stop them. They kept promoting their values and honed in on target consumers who don’t trust traditional banks, and now look at how far they’ve come.

Dollar Shave Club came out with its first commercial in 2011 and flipped the entire razor industry on its head. They studied what consumers were looking for, addressed those pain points in a brand new way, and the rest is history.

REI took a risk and set itself apart from other brands vying for consumers to spend money on Black Friday. In 2015, they started #OptOutside and discouraged consumers from shopping at their store on the biggest consumer spending day of the year. Many consumers actually respected this stance, which clearly didn’t hurt business because REI still encourages consumers to opt outside on Black Friday.

In 2015, HBO released their HBO Go app. Instead of pushing typical pain points like watching HBO from anywhere, they released a commercial of a family watching awkward HBO shows together. They then showed how the family went to different rooms in the house to avoid awkward viewing. They thought outside the box, and it worked.

Air Wick implemented disruptive marketing with their Scent Decorator quiz. They invite consumers to take quizzes to find the perfect home scents. Typically, people want actually to smell something before purchasing, but Air Wick found a way around that, and they did it successfully.

A balance between traditional and disruptive

Disruptive marketing creates quick impact and brand awareness. However, this strategy doesn’t mean you throw traditional marketing out the door.

There is a balance between holding onto traditional marketing that works and using your tried and true strategies to power your disruptive efforts.

Like traditional marketing, when implementing disruptive marketing, look at things like the consumer’s journey, pain points, value propositions, etc., when allocating your time and budget for 2023.

Final thoughts: How to be disruptive with your content

So much of modern-day marketing is content-driven. Naturally, some of your disruptive marketing efforts will be rooted in content. After all, 91% of brands use content marketing, bringing in 6 times as many leads as traditional marketing at 62% of the cost.

A great place to start with disruptive marketing is through your content.

User Generated Content is popular and effective. Consider challenging your audience to post content about your brand with a theme that gets people’s attention. You can then promote your UGC using marketing strategies that you already use.

The beauty of content creation is that it allows you to experiment with disruptive marketing. Look at your competitors’ typical blog posts and publish the opposite. Be bold. Be experimental.

Same with the content you put on social media. Do something risky and measure the results against your other social posts.

You don’t have to re-work your entire marketing strategy, you just need to not be afraid to be different and think outside the box.
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Kristen Matthews

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November 2, 2022