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Crowd sourcing customers 101

I watched this fantastic video by the guys behind Flight of the Conchords, a hilarious duo folk band by Bret and Jemaine. I’m sure most of you are familiar with their TV show Flight of the Conchords, a self-defeatist comical satire, if you aren’t be sure to watch some of the episodes. These guys got involved with the New Zealand Children’s Hospital and created a song and video to help raise money for the sick kids. What made the video so great was the way that they did it. They interview a bunch of kids and ask them to co-write this song with them. It’s a great example of crowd sourcing you customers.

At our office we have been hard at work segmenting our customers and sending out email surveys to better understand our customer’s needs and gather valuable insight into our consumers. So the timing of the video by Bret and Jemaine couldn’t have been more perfect. The video itself isn’t pretending to be anything more than just a hilarious song created by asking kids questions and getting their humorous responses. But whether by accident or by purpose the video demonstrates perfectly the goal of crowd-sourcing information. Creating a better product because you talked to your customer first.

I don’t think I have ever understood the importance of that basic principle better than in the past week. When you ask your customers the right questions you know what your customer actually needs, what shifts to make in your marketing and how to improve your feature offering. It’s the difference between brainstorming and guessing the next pivot (shooting in the dark) and actual consumer data that clearly outlines what customer expectations and demands are.

Enough chatter, here’s the lighthearted video.

By Jonathan Whiting

I enjoy sharing what I am learning and hopefully it's of interest and help to you. I live in Canada with my wife. Follow me on Twitter.

One reply on “Crowd sourcing customers 101”

I have not checked in here for some time because I thought it was getting boring, but the last several posts are good quality so I guess I will add you back to my everyday bloglist. You deserve it my friend 🙂

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