Paid advertising, word of mouth, Internet marketing, and so on. Marketing campaigns are as successful as their implementation and, in this digital era, these techniques have evolved up to a point where we wouldn’t think possible of some years ago. The best example of this is Sentiment Analysis.
The name in itself sounds like something from a sci-fi film, and it kind of is. Sentiment Analysis consists in mining text to extract subjective information in that text. In other words, it takes the content, reads it, and analyzes it to understand the whole meaning of it. One company could, for example, know how their customers feel about a new product launch by using this technique to read through the comments in the announcement video on YouTube.
Of course, a multinational organization shouldn’t have to hire hundreds of “text analysts” to actively read through hundreds of thousands of websites to extract the public opinion about their brand. They would actually use Natural Language Processing (NLP), a Machine Learning approach that chatbots and digital assistants like Amazon Alexa use to understand the meaning of a human-written text so the machine can give an accurate response.
Companies can either contact specialized services or hire Artificial Intelligence engineers to program their own NLP system designed for Sentiment Analysis. These systems would take your customers’ opinions in your selected channels (Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, Amazon, etc.) and break it down to you in easy-to-understand metrics dashboards like this one from Hootsuite:
Sentiment Analysis Dashboard. Source: Hootsuite
Many organizations already use Sentiment Analysis given its many use cases, and today we are going to explore some of the most relevant ones:
Manage your brand'S reputation
Mining your customers’ opinions every time they mention you will give your company more insights about how they feel about your brand and products. By knowing what your clients think about you, you will be able to highlight your strong points and improve on your weakest spots.
Your marketing team will take this data and apply it to their next campaign. They will have all the intel they need to establish a positive brand presence in the media and avoid making the same mistakes that might have caused negative feedback in the past.
Improve customer support
By tracking sentiment data, you will have more information to work with. Your customer support team can benefit from this by using this intel to deliver a better service. They will know what’s coming their way and be prepared with a plan to tackle complaints even before they arrive.
Enhanced customer service. Source: Salesforce
Your customer service team can also benefit from applying Sentiment Analysis to measure customer satisfaction. This will allow them to deliver a better experience by improving their strategies, knowing what to say and what not to say to clients, and driving better sales based on the data they have acquired.
Perform deeper market research
When a company is launching a product into a new market for the first time, it is a must to do some heavy market research.
Sentiment Analysis allows you to take your research to another level. Not only you’ll be able to thoroughly know your new market first hand, but you’ll also monitor it more precisely while it unfolds. You’ll be provided with insights into how the product is being received by your target audience just as it happens.
Analysis tab example in Brand 24. Source: Brand 24
Eagle-eye your competitors
You always have to watch your brand reputation, but never forget about your competitors. With Sentiment Analysis, you will be able to compare your company’s perception with those of your competitors. For instance, you can put similar services that you and your rivals provide next to each other and see how you stand against them.
Sentiment Analysis comparison (McDonald's vs Burger King). Source: Talkwalker
By applying powerful opinion mining techniques, you will gather more relevant information for your competitive research, allowing you to reevaluate priorities within your organization and be always one step ahead of the competition.
Act more quickly in times of crisis
Mining your customers’ opinions in real time when something goes wrong allows you to be faster and more efficient to fix the problem. Your company can set up alarms that get triggered by an increased amount of mentions on Twitter, for example, or when too many negative reviews are left by a certain product you are selling on Amazon.
The faster you act, the easier it would be to stop a time bomb from exploding and causing massive damage to your brand that might be very hard to recover from. By tackling these issues quickly, you will also show your audience that you know how to deal with difficult situations, then take advantage of it to prove yourself as a responsible company that cares about what your clients say, and they will love that.
We at Empirical love to say it: Data is powerful, and the amount and quality of data that Sentiment Analysis provides is a gold mine. When used wisely, you can empower your marketing team and vastly enrich your company’s research. You could even find some use cases specific to your organization if you look hard enough.
Are you interested in starting your opinion mining journey but don’t know where to start? We provide Sentiment Analysis for our clients across a wide range of uses. Book a meeting and we’ll gladly do the work for you!
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References
- Raval S. (2019, January 28) Sentiment Analysis. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/3Pzni2yfGUQ
- Walther, C. (2019, January 2) Sentiment Analysis in Marketing: What Are You Waiting For? Retrieved from https://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/sentiment-analysis-in-marketing-what-are-you-waiting-for/
- Gallantra Business Intelligence (2018, January 11). Sentiment Analysis in Marketing: Time to Profit. Retrieved from https://becominghuman.ai/sentiment-analysis-in-marketing-time-to-profit-155b5a1cca7a
- Brand 24 (2019, February 3). How sentiment analysis lets you find out what your customers like (and dislike). Retrieved from https://youtu.be/_nKM_ZWMatw
- Krasinski, M. (2019, June 18) Sentiment Analysis: What Marketers Need to Know. Retrieved from https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/sentiment-analysis-what-marketers-need-to-know/
- Wonderflow (2018, November 14). 10 Sentiment Analysis Examples That Will Help Improve Your Products. Retrieved from https://www.wonderflow.co/sentiment-analysis-examples/
- Gupta, S (2018, January 7). Sentiment Analysis: Concept, Analysis and Applications. Retrieved from https://towardsdatascience.com/sentiment-analysis-concept-analysis-and-applications-6c94d6f58c17
- Wertz, Jia (2018, November 30). Why Sentiment Analysis Could Be Your Best Kept Marketing Secret. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jiawertz/2018/11/30/why-sentiment-analysis-could-be-your-best-kept-marketing-secret/#5ade4b582bbe
- MonkeyLearn (2019) Sentiment Analysis - Nearly Everything You Need To Know. Retrieved from https://monkeylearn.com/sentiment-analysis/