What is Consumer Intent and Can Polls Help You Uncover It?

Something is wrong. You believe you have a good understanding of your customer personas, and you're hitting on all marketing cylinders and channels. But sales are still declining. Here is how you can use exit polls to uncover customer intent and increase conversions.

Taking the Pulse of the Market with CPG Polls

CPG marketing that fails to do a steady pulse check of its target audience is destined to miss the mark. CPG polls, like A/B testing, are valuable ways to check in on the voice of your consumers to see what they're saying, and perhaps, uncover what you may have missed. Understanding consumer intent helps companies shift their approach to give customers what they want. 

For e-commerce, exit polling is a good way to test how the wind is blowing, then shift your efforts to maximize your return. For example, if your goal is to optimize your e-commerce site, you can poll cart abandons or end-users that simply leave without buying. (Tip: Give them a discount to incentivize taking the poll and ultimately, to make a purchase.) It's basically a two-step process to collect both quantitative (numerical) and qualitative (opinion) data to help improve your site and increase conversions:

1. Gather quantitative data: Look at Google Analytics to see which website pages are gaining more traction. Which pages do they hit coming in from a Google search? Where do consumers go when they leave? Which pages have the longest view rates? (Conversely, which pages have low traffic?)
2. Gather qualitative data: Exit polling is critical for finding out why people leave your website without buying. Do they understand your product descriptions? Are the pictures confusing? Is there a competitor with a better price?

Intent polling is a specific type of CPG marketing. This methodology seeks to get beyond the fact that 70% of all shopping carts are abandoned and determine why they are abandoned on your particular site. Intent polling can help you determine if your shipping costs, or lack of free shipping, are thwarting the conversion. Or, maybe your website lacks a shipping timeframe estimate, which, thanks to Amazon, is now an e-commerce standard.

Intent polling helps companies consider the needs of each type of consumer segment within each potential conversion channel. When coupled with numeric, quantitative data, you have a robust CPG marketing tool. CPG polls should be done regularly, but they are particularly important if you notice your sales have started to decline. It's a good indicator that a competitor is outselling you, or perhaps a downshift in the economy is hampering conversions. 

CPG polls help all companies know more about the audience they're trying to serve and can suggest minute (or grand) shifts in CPG marketing efforts to accommodate demand. They are a kind of crystal ball that will help your organization stay ahead of any variations in the marketplace. Without these tools, you are simply flying without radar, and the success of your brand will be guesswork.

To put CPG polling to work for your business, download our free sample by filling out the form below.