This article is part of our extensive series on Reddit Marketing. If you haven’t read our Complete Guide to Reddit Marketing, we suggest you start here. Enjoy!
Reddit is one of the most brutally honest places on the internet. It’s harsh, critical, and unashamedly truthful. But to be fair, those are some of the reasons why we love it.
Masked behind anonymous handles and avatars, Reddit users are free to state exactly how they feel or what they think, without the fear of risking their reputation or coming across favorably.
And believe me, they take full advantage of that anonymity.
This brutal honesty can have its positive and negative effects, making Reddit one of the best places for performing market research and seeking open, honest reactions from millions of users.
Simply put, Reddit is a goldmine of user data if you can learn how to cultivate genuine user responses, both positive and negative.
But how do we do this most effectively? What are some of the common tactics for performing market research on Reddit?
This article will provide an overview of how you can conduct market research on Reddit and save you the learning pains of figuring it out for yourself. If you’re interested in learning more about marketing on Reddit, take a peek at our Reddit Marketing Guide.
How to perform market research on Reddit?
1. Locate your audience
Reddit is a massive platform, and good market research starts with finding the proper subreddits. It might take some time and energy because there are many different subreddits surrounding each topic.
You’ll need to do a deep dive to understand how each subreddit operates since all subreddits have different rules of engagement. In order to avoid being banned from various subreddits, you’ll want to read each subreddit’s list of rules.
Additionally, different subreddits can have vastly different audience demographics and user engagement rates. Some are very active and informal, with users posting dozens of times per day, while others are more structured with far fewer posts per day.
You’ll need to consider all of these factors when determining where you’d like to focus your Reddit market research. Here are several ways that you can look for the correct subreddits to target:
Your brand’s products
The obvious first place to start is with a search for subreddits that discuss your products. If you can find any, it’s relatively easy to join the conversation and lead it in a direction where you can ask the participants about their experiences and what things they like or dislike.
Of course, this is the easiest step of them all because the discussion is already centered around your product.
Your competitors’ products
Another way to find appropriate audiences is with a quick search for subreddits that are talking about your competitors’ products.
If your competitors have products that are reasonably similar to yours, then you can still gain a lot of market insight from talking about their products. Check out sites like Redditlist.com to get a list of subreddits to investigate.
More than likely, you’ll learn about some likes or dislikes that you can apply to your products. Even better, you might be able to work your product offering into the discussion. Please be subtle, though, because Redditers don’t like “spammy” marketing tactics.
If you’re looking for more ways to hijack the conversation and help to lead it without being spammy, we have a guerilla marketing guide that offers Reddit digital marketing hacks to get your brand in the conversation.
Industry keywords
The third and the most general option is to search for any well-known keywords that are common within your industry.
While these subreddit topics may not be as specific to your product, you’re still able to reach audiences engaged with your industry, and thus, you might be able to generate a discussion surrounding your products.
2. Ask questions and generate feedback
Once you’ve decided on your target audience and found the appropriate subreddits to target, it’s time to jump into some subreddit threads and get started with your market research. There are several methods you can use to generate more sincere responses to your questions.
Engage in the thread
The best way to understand your target audience is to engage them within a topic thread. Contributing valuable input to the conversation (without being promotional) will gain the participants’ trust, and they’ll be far more likely to give you honest feedback about where your product shines and what you can do better.
Ask questions like “What products in this space are you most familiar with?”, “Have you purchased this product before? If so, what most influenced your purchase decision?” or “What would make you purchase X product instead of Y product?”
These kinds of questions will help you get to the heart of what most influences purchasers’ decisions. Always remember to find the right time to post on Reddit, so you get the highest engagement.
Post surveys
Surveys are an efficient way to collect tons of user responses. This method works well because you can collect responses en-mass, with all participants receiving the same standardized questions. Surveys save time and energy that otherwise would have been spent tediously eliciting responses one by one.
If you’re having trouble generating interest in the survey, you might offer a small participation prize, like a gift card, to the participants. Alternatively, instead of offering a smaller reward to all participants, you might offer a larger prize, with the winner being drawn from the pool of survey participants.
3. Monitor and analyze responses
Finally, it’s time to do a deep dive into the raw user data you’ve accumulated to discover any feedback that can help you improve your product offering. Take all the responses you’ve received and analyze them to see if there are any recurring trends.
Look for positive aspects that are consistently listed:
- Did they like the design?
- Was the price more reasonable than your competitors?
- Was the warranty what sold them?
Any of these positive aspects might be features to promote in your marketing strategy.
Alternatively, if any negative aspects keep popping up, this might be a sign that there are some flaws that you should look at resolving. If the detrimental aspects of your product are severe enough, they might cause your customers to buy from a competitor. Therefore, always seek to maximize your features and minimize your flaws.
It’s also essential to continue to monitor your response channels. Continue to stay active in relevant subreddits and keep your surveys active. Your product offerings will change, and with that comes new features and faults that you need to remain aware of.
Summary
Reddit is a largely untapped wealth of raw consumer data. The key to unlocking this potential is knowing how to generate actionable data from the millions of users that make up the platform.
This includes locating the relevant subreddits, engaging with your target consumers, and discovering the positive and negative factors that drive their consumer behavior. You can then use this information to improve and promote your products beyond your competitors’ products.
Our recommendation is to develop your own subreddit and grow your community within. Get brand mentions across other different communities and get trending posts to go viral. These steps will guarantee you the results you are looking for.
Market research is not a “one and done” process; It’s a process of continuously seeking to improve your products, using the input you receive from your target consumers. Reddit is an invaluable resource for generating honest consumer feedback that will help you outperform your competitors over time.
Were we able to convince you that Reddit is the perfect place to perform market research?
If you’re interested in learning more about exactly how we do it, or how we can automate this process for your brand, we’d love to schedule a call and help you create a game plan for world domination… Well, the world of Reddit, anyway.
Send us a message or schedule a call. We’d love to hear from you.