What if instead of asking them questions, you wanted a peek into consumers’ lives? Market researchers have been grappling with getting a qualitative understanding of their consumers and the place of their products in their lives for a long time. Starting with laborious ethnographic techniques to giving consumers diaries to fill, the process always requires a lot of rigor, coordination , expense as well as time.
Digital diaries are a perfect solution wherein it allows respondents the option of capturing and reporting their data in real time and over a period of time using their smartphones or other devices – an agile and efficient tool that enables you to collect more personalised user data that is not possible via traditional means while being less expensive and quick.
1. The primary need gap fulfilled by a digital diary is to collect data in real time:
A digital diary will eliminate rigour and stress that can occur if done manually. This format of data collection has better quality since respondents are always beside their cellular devices. Consumers can send their live or in-the-moment feedback that makes for most authentic data that clients can analyze. An experience can scatter away when the situation is long gone. A digital diary captures these expressions via audio, texts, videos from participating consumers and makes it easier to collect micro moments that are critical in the customer journey.
2. The human memory is not an ideal tool to rely on:
Especially when you have to coax respondents to share their experience, The crucial work of a digital diary is to capture these moments when they occur. The final data needs to have clarity in terms of specific consumer behaviour from coming in contact with products or services.
Example: when customers use a new hair shampoo, their first most authentic feeling about the product usage occurs at home. Their opinions might change three weeks down the line. A digital diary with questions pushed out at the moment of use will capture this journey, a gold mine of data, that can later be studied for change in perception and behaviour that unfolds over weeks.
3. There are some types of audiences who might hesitate to share their feedback immediately:
This can happen due to different reasons . For example- the youth and the rural population. Youngsters may be restless by nature. Perhaps, they lack the patience to write a detailed account of their experiences. In this case, a digital diary’s capacity to take responses in multiple formats is the most useful feature. Teenagers can candidly share thoughts in the form of audio, video or photographs- all of which are immensely authentic data for brands. Merren has the facility to share and collect data in rich media formats such as audio, video and a document saved on PDF format.
A digital diary can also collect opinions and feedback from the rural population. Due to its leisurely pace, a digital diary will have questions and queries in their local language to create resonance with the respondents. Merren also supports creating digital diary in local languages including easy to understand instructions for the less educated audience.
4. Digital diary keeps that privacy among customers:
Digital Diary allows them to share moments from their experiences without external intervention or influence. If you expect certain responses from your respondents, they might not answer when accosted in a public space. They could be sharing their experiences with a product at home, at a leisurely pace and space. This makes the responses more authentic and keeps them clear of the Hawthorne effect. Merren offers tools that can be utilised by respondents at any time or place during the day (and night).
5. Digital diaries are extremely functional when the product users want to remain anonymous:
Some users do not feel the need to share their feedback. This could be for sexual wellness, nicotine or customers using medical products. The effects from a lot of these products are not instantaneous such as medicinal items. Their effects can be seen over time and the feedback can be shared privately by the users. An environment of comfort is a priority before we begin to collect response data for future examination. Merren adheres to this privacy and collects data that can be mapped over the course of product consumption.
6. A digital diary works best when respondents are highly engaged and participate actively:
This helps them understand that their opinions are heard. In turn, it becomes even more important to validate their feedback even if it includes monetary reward on completion of certain milestones. A data can only be analyzed when the diary has truly collected and collated all points of the research. Periodic reminder function in Merren is helpful here to give a gentle nudge.
7. The biggest advantage of deploying a digital diary is its distance collection of customer feedback:
This prevents unwanted budget restraints, and you can be there without being physically present. Since a lot of functionalities rely on automation in this virtual world, Merren is proficient in this field. This brings in more geographical representation in your feedback collection method. This means that the data can also be observed over different cultural systems that are collected on your behalf in real time.
To learn more about how Merren can enable brands to automate their feedback collection, book a call with our team or or sign up for our 14 day free trial with our software. You can easily create an account and get started with our free tools here.
