Sentiment is attached to everything, including the trillions of bits of aggregated data collected by consumer and marketing research tools. And brands need to understand what these sentiments attached to social media posts, online reviews and forums mean for them. Let’s find out.
We are going to explore and define just what is sentiment, as we cover:
As we lift the lid on what is sentiment in marketing, we have some facts that speak to why sentiment is critical for you to understand, including:
Sentiment is the product of emotion. Once a consumer feels a certain way, they establish their sentiments towards brands and products based on how those brands/products made them feel. And it’s this little, but very complex aspect of the consumer, that brands need to consider for messaging, campaigns, product innovation, influencer marketing and almost anything else you can think of. It’s that important. There are eight emotional mindsets that influence your consumer, including:
Now, let’s look at how you can better understand these emotional states and use sentiment analysis to aid your brand in making better connections to your consumers!
Understanding your customers isn't always cut and dry. That’s why it’s imperative to have sentiment analysis tools which can pull the customer sentiment from the words they use. This provides deeper insights into what a consumer really thinks, and feels, and how this influences their purchasing decisions.
For example, below we have a word cloud with top emotions expressed for a leading water brand, and one of the biggest "negative" words is hate – what is the sentiment analysis here?
Digging below the surface and unearthing the posts driving this sentiment, we find that people feel this top seltzer water brand makes products that are not flavored well enough – comparing its taste to a “water truck which happened to pass by fruit.”
In other analyses, we found there are also numerous comparisons made with other preferred brands. It's crucial to understand what the competition is doing differently and where your brand falls short, so we can see why this brand is winning so much praise beyond just the flavor profiles – this is the benefit of sentiment analysis.
There are many ways to influence your consumer, but you have to understand your audience and who they are to know how to target them. Advanced demographics, aka psychographics, can help you separate your audience by more than just gender, age, ethnicity, and other demographic details.
With quality sentiment analysis tools, you can dive deeper and discover interests, professions, brands, and even lifestyles and ideals those consumers have in common. Consumers want to support brands whose ideals line up with their own, so having this intel helps brands create better targeted messaging for their audience.
Here, our water company shows that the outdoors and religion are top priorities. These insights could be valuable in personalized marketing, and in gaining a deeper understanding of your customer behavior can help you understand what should, and shouldn't, be a marketing focus for you.
Or, one could use this data to find the right influencer to reach consumers on a level they relate to, beyond just a demographic basis.
Speaking of influences; you don’t need a celebrity or famous influencer to promote your brand. In fact, micro-influencers have a 60% increased engagement rate compared to macro influencers, and a 20% higher conversion rate for sales. People engage with content they relate to, and often smaller influencers in their same circles or niches are a more effective and personalized spokesperson for your brand.
This micro-influencer boasts 5,719 followers and likes to share about what beverages are getting her through the week, along with being a style and fashion blogger.
She could be a great option for our water brand to monitor and analyze, to see if she is reaching the same audiences they would like to reach within the beverages and shopping industry. And if so, it could mean more eyeballs on their offerings – and more money in the bank.
One of the best things that you can do as a brand is keep an eye on your company’s brand health by monitoring consumers’ perception of it over time, as well as any spikes or changes in negative and positive sentiment.
You do this in Quid Monitor simply by tracking consumer sentiment to your brand over time and setting alerts for any change in mentions or net sentiment – or even keywords mentioned more than average (think #boycott). Positive sentiment that lasts is created with small and consistent steps, not a single large one, and starts with proactive brand health monitoring.
Once you know where you stand, you’ll need to delve below the surface to demonstrate to stakeholders what sentiment analysis is, how to utilize AI sentiment analysis datasets, and how you can use it to boost brand health. Turning sentiment analysis into actionable insights is the last, and most crucial, step.
Using personal narrative themes and analyzing consumer sentiment for every step your brand takes, from product releases to a social media post, can help you uncover the good, the bad and the ugly about your brand. What do you consumers want to see more of? What do they not like at all? Being able to quickly take action on negative sentiment, or capitalizing on spikes in positive sentiment, can help your brand understand what works with your customers, and what doesn't.
At the end of the day, understanding what sentiment analysis is and how it can be utilized in marketing is straightforward.
It’s consistently tracking sentiment, watching for any blips on the radar, and then exploring deeper to understand what these changes mean. The intel gathered can aid you in reaching your consumers on a more intimate level, creating potentially loyal customers for life.
But you need to do more than scratch the surface. And when you’re ready to dig a little deeper and raise your brand health and sentiment awareness level to defcon 4, reach out for a demo!