Virtual Audiences: A New Frontier in Market Research

WHAT ARE VIRTUAL AUDIENCES?

Virtual audiences are representative groups of individuals generated through sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithms. These audiences mimic real-world consumer behavior, demographics, and psychographics, enabling companies to make strategic decisions for their business.

This innovative new approach offers many advantages for businesses seeking deeper insights into their target markets, including concept testing, product development, and marketing strategy refinement. Additionally, virtual audiences offer flexibility and adaptability, allowing for real-time adjustments to research parameters and immediate access to results.

Virtual audiences are cohorts of ‘virtual’ people created using synthetic (or augmented) data analysis and algorithms. They are designed to represent specific target demographics and can be used to gather deep insights.

Instead of depending solely on surveys or human participants, generative AI acts as a stand-in for human feedback, ‘pulling’ data from multiple sources and synthesizing this data to create the virtual audiences.

For example, if you are a company specialising in car insurance, generative AI will find any relevant news articles, customer reviews, technical trade papers, automotive sites that pertain to your specific questions. AI will collate and summarise this data into tangible insights..and virtual audiences that share similar characteristics.

“As a business, you are about to invest thousands, 100s of thousands, even millions into launching into a new market, but many of us don’t even take the time to do our research first. What can we do today, to guarantee success tomorrow?

Do your due diligence - do your research. It's worth the investment."

Key Benefits of Using Virtual Audiences:

Speed and Efficiency

Virtual audiences provide insights fast! Traditional research often required week or event months for recruitment, scheduling, interviews and analysis. Instead – virtual audiences can gather insights in a matter of hours or days.

Cost-Effectiveness

Compared to traditional research methods, virtual audiences can significantly reduce costs associated with travel, logistics, incentives, and facility rentals etc. This makes them a more affordable option, especially for smaller businesses or projects with budget constraints.

Flexibility and Customization

Virtual audiences can be easily tailored to specific demographics, interests, and behaviors, allowing for highly targeted research. Researchers can adjust parameters like age, gender, location, and purchasing habits to ensure the virtual audience accurately reflects their desired target market. This allows for more nuanced insights and personalized recommendations. Virtual audiences are particularly handy for small, hard to reach targets.

For What Can You Use Virtual Audiences For?

Virtual Audiences give you access to unlimited insights to answer your research questions. Once you have your clear research objectives set, we can help you:

Build personas and specify your desired audience using demographic and behavioural characteristics
Provide you with instant answers to your questions using augmented data
Interrogate the data for further analysis to explore further and create actionable insights.

Type of research

Market and/or customer segmentations
Attitudes to brands
Market explorations (i.e expanding to new markets)
Discovering new trends

"By leveraging the power of AI, virtual audiences allow for rapid, scalable, and cost-effective data collection and analysis"

Nichola Quail, Founder and CEO.

Can I Use Existing Data To Support Virtual Audiences?

Yes – you can create a brand new virtual audience and personas, or you can combine your existing data to conduct quality research and reach difficult-to-access audiences. This could include:

CX Studies
UX / Design Studies
Support tickets
Customer chat logs
Internal knowledge base or FAQs.
Product description or documentation
Academic articles
Market reports
Etc i.e. Any type of text data not available publicly on the internet that can better inform your specific project.

Can I Tap Into Virtual Audiences On A More Frequent Basis?

You sure can! We can set up your virtual audience and then tailor this around your business needs:

Run additional and regular analysis on your data (i.e. ‘Always-on brand trackers)
Ask your data questions
Download and visualize your insights

Can’t I Just Use ChatGPT For That?

AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude are a great tool to gather generic summaries, but they only skim the surface of what information is collected. At Insights Exchange, we use a unique platform specifically designed by researchers using a proprietary augmented data model. This means we can gain access and gather information from much wider sources (i.e. behind pay walls etc.). The data is also rigorously tested to ensure it is high quality.

What does this all cost?

Much less than you might think! Depending on the size and scope of your research needs, our packages start as little as $5K and average around $15K.

Book in for a chat today and explore the insight possibilities of virtual audiences.

Virtual Audience Persona: "Donald Harris"

Name: Donal Harris
Age: 65
Occupation: Retired Business Executive
Location: Napa Valley, California
Family: Married with three adult children
Education: Master’s degree in Business Administration

Demographics:

Income Level: High-income, with substantial retirement savings and investments
Living Situation: Owns a luxurious home in countryside, with a focus on privacy and tranquility.
Lifestyle: Enjoys a leisurely pace of life with a strong focus on personal passions and family

Virtual Audience Persona: "Sophia Bennett"

Name: Sophia Bennet
Age: 30
Occupation: Marketing Manager at a Tech Start-up
Location: Sydney, Australia
Family: Married with a 2-year old daughter
Education: Bachelor’s degree in Business with a focus on Marketing