7 Ways to Use Customer Feedback in Marketing

Using customer feedback in marketing can give you a huge edge on competitors. And if you’re like most businesses, you probably already get a ton of customer feedback.

Support tickets. Reviews. Feature requests. Social media mentions. Customer feedback can come at you a hundred different ways. But if you’re not putting that customer feedback to work in your marketing, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.  

Don’t make the mistake of simply patting yourself on the back when you get good feedback from customers. Incorporating customer feedback into your marketing strategy can level up your marketing efforts and help you drive even more growth for your business.

What is Customer Feedback?

Customer feedback is what your customers are telling you about your product. That seems obvious, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking customer feedback is just a measurable score.   

Your customers aren’t numbers or data, they’re people. Paying attention to customer satisfaction is how you hear the voice of your customers. It’s how you listen in to hear what they’re thinking.  

So how can you hear the voice of your customer clearly and harness it in your marketing efforts? I’m glad you asked! 

Proven Methods for using Customer Feedback in Marketing

1. Create content addressing customer questions

Reviewing your customer feedback will help you understand the kinds of questions your customers are asking. Your marketing team can then create content to help answer these questions at scale.  

Imagine if a customer submitted a question about your product got a personalized response saying “Hey, we received your question and thought it was really insightful, so we answered it on our blog!” . 

Creating content to address customer questions is also a great way to close the customer feedback loop, which results in customers feeling appreciated. And an appreciated customer is a customer much more likely to stay with your brand. 

2. Share positive reviews on your website and social

Similar to the above point, sharing positive reviews on your website and social media is a great way to amplify your customers’ voices and make them feel appreciated.  

Survey results have shown that consumers read an average of 10 reviews before deciding they can trust a business. If this is something consumers are going to seek out on their own, why not take the initiative to get those reviews in front of them?

3. Better understand your customers and prospects  

As you analyze customer feedback, you’ll start to notice trends and patterns. These patterns can help you understand your target audience’s preferences. Ask questions like:

• What channels do they use for reviews and research?  
• On which media do they consume content?  
• What are their greatest concerns and desires?  
• What unique jargon do they use?  

It’s easy to make assumptions about your customers. Using customer feedback to answer these questions prevents you from assuming the wrong things and missing the mark with your marketing. 

4. Optimize how you communicate with different customers

The more you understand your customers, the better you’ll be able to personalize your approach to marketing. You’ll learn how to speak their language and where you need to tailor your communication to connect with them better. 

For instance, your customer feedback might show you that different customer segments use your product in different ways. These insights can be invaluable, as they enable you to build out more targeted ads and landing pages. If your most successful customers are using your product to accomplish one thing, the last thing you want to be doing is to try to sell something completely different.  

Understanding your customers also makes it easier for you to adjust your branding and messaging. You’ll be able to better tailor your brand so that prospects quickly connect with your message, making them far more likely to engage with your product.

5. Better understand your competitors

Negative reviews might not be fun, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be useful.  

For example, let’s say someone left a two-star review: “I was really disappointed with this product because it didn’t do what I needed it to do. I used product X instead and it was perfect for me because it ___.” ”  

Cringe! No one ever wants to hear that their product missed the mark. It’s never fun to hear you lost a customer—and maybe this isn’t a review you want to share on your social feed—but any opportunity to learn what’s perfect for a customer or what they loved about your competitor should be seen as a gold mine of information. 

6. Improving marketing campaigns and channels

Your customer feedback will help you understand the kinds of issues your customers face. Your marketing campaigns should address these pain points and demonstrate how your product solves those challenges.  

Another thing your customer feedback can uncover is where your ideal customers spend their time. Do they use Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Tiktok?  Well, interestingly, 90% of Instagram users follow a business account, highlighting the significant presence and engagement potential for businesses on this platform.

While utilizing platforms like Instagram and TikTok for marketing, it’s crucial to understand the unique algorithms and user engagement patterns. For instance, on TikTok, getting views can sometimes be challenging. Therefore, it is always best to understand the platform’s algorithm, target audience & nature before investing your time into it.

Don’t gamble with your marketing budget. Let customer feedback tell you your prospect’s preferred channels, then focus your marketing efforts there. This is especially critical when it comes to paid advertising, because running ads on a channel that your audience doesn’t use is a huge waste of money.

7. Creating brand advocates

What’s better than a customer? A customer who is also a volunteer on your marketing team.  

A brand advocate is someone who elevates your brand through word of mouth marketing. Maybe they mention to a friend how positive their experience with your customer support team was. Maybe they share about your awesome product on Twitter. Brand advocacy can take a hundred different forms, but at its core it’s about leveraging your brand to attract other potential customers. 

By using your customer feedback to improve your marketing, you might just end up with these volunteer ambassadors on your team!

How to gather customer feedback for marketing

Customer feedback is powerful. You understand why you should use it in your marketing, but what are some good ways to collect more feedback?

Customer interviews

If you’re not familiar with the story of Procter & Gamble resurrecting their Febreze brand with the help of an insight from one ordinary customer, it’ll tell you everything you need to know about why you should be conducting customer interviews.  

While interviews aren’t an efficient way to collect large amounts of data, they often provide qualitative feedback that you can’t get anywhere else. Holding regular customer interviews should be a core part of any feedback gathering strategy.

Surveys

Customer surveys are one of the best ways to collect customer feedback, and products like Survey Monkey make conducting them a breeze. Here are some tips on how to make your surveys as effective as possible!  

Maybe your organization already collects a ton of survey data, but it’s inaccessible or siloed to certain teams. If that’s the case, tools like Lumoa can help you get more value from your existing feedback by automatically analyzing customer feedback and generating related insights. And you can try it out for free! 

Social media

Social media can be a great informal outlet for starting conversations with your customers. How many times have you seen a company publicly ask,“How has your experience with our product been?”  

That’s the kind of public transparency that shows customers your brand can be trusted. Use your social media feeds to engage with your customers on a relational level and you’ll get all kinds of valuable feedback.

Host customer meetings

Customer meetings may seem like a logistical nightmare with little payoff. But don’t underestimate their ability to create customer buy-in!  

Getting yourself in the room with a small group of your customers creates a space of intimacy and fosters connection. This helps your customers feel comfortable and allows them to be more honest (and honest feedback is always what you’re after).

Get started today

You’re going to get customer feedback. There’s no way around it. Hopefully most will be positive, but sometimes it will be negative. But that’s okay, because sometimes negative feedback is even more valuable for your business.  

Don’t make the mistake of sitting on a gold mine of customer feedback and never doing anything with it. Put it to work improving your product, your processes, and yes, your marketing efforts.  

When used in a thoughtful way, customer feedback can become a great tool to help you drive long-term revenue and growth in your business. 

Interested in learning more about how Lumoa can help your organization see the full picture of your VoC data? Start a free trial today!