[00:00:00] Speaker A: Actually look at the data. You don't need to hire agencies, you don't need to spend money. All you need is your passion for your own product because you know your product best and the time to sit down and actually look at all those tools. And AI has the ability to multiply your efforts or the small business owners efforts into 10 and no budget required.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Welcome to the B2B Breakthrough podcast.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: We're here to bring you all the.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: Best knowledge, insights and strategies from e commerce experts, successful business owners and the
[email protected] that you'll need to grow your business business and achieve your next big breakthrough. I'm your host, Ciara Christo.
Today on B2B Breakthrough, I'm joined by Sveta Kalinska, founder of Rila Global Consulting. Sveta helps businesses uncover who their customers really are and how to use those insights to grow smarter and faster. In this conversation, we're diving into how small business owners can level up their audience research without needing big budgets or big teams. Sveta, welcome to the show.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me. What an honor to be here, honestly. Thank you so much.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: It's such an honor to have you. I'm so excited to chat. We talk about audience research and audience insights all the time with our guests. And to have a real expert to really break down how important it is is truly an honor. So I'm really excited to dig into all of the details, but before we get into that, I would love for you to just lay some groundwork for us on who you are and what Rila is and what Rila does for small businesses.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: My name, as you mentioned, is Tveta Kalinska. It's a very long one and very complicated one because I'm actually from Bulgaria. So I moved here about 17 years ago. And back in Bulgaria, the education I received was very heavily focused on data, statistics, math, I mean, basically everything that has to do with numbers. So having moved to the States, one of the things that I realized during college and post college at all of my jobs was that there were not many people who loved numbers. And I don't know why. So I almost stuck my hand down and said, hey, I love numbers, I love research, I love analyzing data. Can I do that for a job? And it actually became my calling in a way.
So what I do is I analyze data. I analyze most of the time consumer data. And consumers come in different shapes and forms. I mean, we work with such a variety of clients, they could come in the shape and form of a patient data or HCP healthcare practitioner data or just a regular consumer shopper, be a mom, a dad.
So anything that has to do with basically the end buyer, I come and analyze them, their behavior and their conversations. And that's where the idea for my own business came up. I worked at research agencies and I analyzed billions and billions of data points on a regular basis in multiple languages. So I speak five languages myself. And I wanted to bring in all of the knowledge, especially for the global teams that I partnered with, with one sitting. I wanted to just not have to deal with five different vendors or five different people and just go and analyze, go and analyze my European data. So that's how I started the business. I said, I want to have a business that's going to come and within basically one person or one sitting can analyze all the data points possible and do it very easily for the end client to of course, make the data compelling and just tell a great story because all the data is, is basically it's a beautiful story.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: That's incredible. I think, you know, storytelling is such a huge part of, of my world and in marketing. And so having having all that data and being able to transform it into something really narrative and compelling that feels strong in ways to, to engage your consumer is huge. And so you can't do that without data. I want to take one quick second to pause and back up because if anyone is like me out there, you said you speak five languages and I need to know what those five languages are.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: Well, I' the first one, Bulgarian, as I mentioned. That's my mother's tongue, native language. I learned English afterwards, so that's my second language. And I'm always, by the way, like, when I do interviews, I always think, oh, can people hear my accent? I really wonder about that. My third language is Spanish, so I went to a very accelerated program in Europe. European schools teach multiling languages, multilingual programs. So I did accelerated Spanish and French and then the fifth one, I always say Italian. Although my Italian, I call it my broke one.
It's my poorest knowledge, but I do, I can definitely carry a good conversation. Those are my. That's my superpower. I call it my superpower.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: I love it. That's incredible. I'll, I'll try to avoid slipping into Italian with you here. Mine is also broken, but it's always exciting to see that there's another speaker in the room. So I'll try to keep this one in English for our listeners.
But let's talk a little bit more about audience research because that's why we're here.
So why does audience research matter? That's the big question that I want to dive into. And so you know, this is clearly something you're passionate about, how data can help drive a story.
So what, beyond just being armed with information, what makes it a necessity and not a luxury for a small business?
[00:05:20] Speaker A: I love that this is your first question. Can I just say research and data, right? You're starting a business. Our listeners are small to large business owners who are always wondering who is my audience? Who am I selling to? The whole ideation of the product itself starts with understanding your audience. So that's why, as you mentioned, it's not just a nice to have. It is absolutely essential to be conducting audience research in order to understand who you're selling to. And audience research, it sounds so fancy. So again, I put myself, I always put myself in the shoes of just someone who has no idea what market research is, what social listening is. When I hear concepts that are far away from my understanding, I instantly just shut off. I don't want to hear more. So if I'm a business owner and I would like to sell, say a children's store online and I, I know that my audience is obviously children and actually they're not technically my audience. I'm selling to because I'm selling to the parents, to the purchase power and the actual buyers. How do I understand what my audience's interests are and how do I attract them? The competition in every field, every product out there is fears. So how can I make my brand stand out among the crowd, make it unique and make my offering so compelling to the end buyer that all doesn't just come up with a TikTok trend or with just a fun viral video once there's actually a whole science behind it and that's why research is a necessity. But I have so much empathy for these small businesses who don't have a research arm, they don't work with agencies, they don't have the budgets or the time to invest in understanding really research.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: I think, you know, anecdotally from, from my side, we talk to a lot of small business owners who build a product because of their own exposure to, to this audience or being a part of the audience themselves, knowing that there's, you know, X, Y or Z struggle, you know, among this group.
So trying to expand on that and build on your, your understanding what hurdles come up and what mistakes do you see small business owners, medium sized business owners making in that process as they better grasp what this audience is Contending.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: With what I see actually not just from small and medium sized companies, but also from really large brands who we work with is that you can't just focus on the anecdotal evidence and your very small niche of audience who you think you're targeting, the messaging and the research and the product. Again, ideation and product launches, everything goes hand in hand. There's a whole process and steps that businesses should take when it comes to understanding the final audience. So the mistakes that the most common mistakes that I see that businesses make are the fact that they just focus on the anecdotal and not so much on the larger picture and on understanding the larger audience that they potentially could go after.
So while reading five or 10 or 15 reviews online about your own product could give you a good idea directionally what customers think about your product and where you stand in the market, that would not be sufficient. So again, how can you think bigger picture? Even if your product is maybe not so big, and even if your category is not so popular and there aren't maybe enough reviews or enough mentions about you, your product, your brand, maybe expand and look into the whole industry or direct competitors that you may have, because you will learn, inevitably you'll learn a lot about their customers and how maybe you can expand your audience by targeting their customers included and growing your focus. And again, your niche and your own audience. One comment, one video are not enough. Expand to as many audiences and as obviously larger per view as possible in order to get the best sense of your own audience.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: That interesting. So, you know, one thing that this is conjuring up for me is understanding the difference between an anecdotal tidbit and anecdotal insight versus qualitative research. So I think they kind of go hand in hand. When you're seeing these comments online and you're able to learn a little bit from it, it's not enough to build a model after. So what is truly the difference between actual qualitative research and anecdotal insights?
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Great question. So this really goes hand in hand with the product ideation, product development, and then product selling. So when it comes to qualitative and quantitative research and how businesses should think about both, they can think of it two ways. One gives you the numbers behind the question, so what is my product and how many people talk about my product? And then the other gives you, I call it the color or the actual information about the actual product.
So in research world, how we think about when we measure product performances, we see how many times a product has been mentioned so could be 1,000 times online in the last month, or it could be a hundred thousand times. And then what are those colors and descriptions and again consumer information that they're adding on to those hundred thousand mentions about my own brand.
So when I think of research, I think of it as the numbers and then I call it the colors. One gives you the hey, where are we in the world? Are we top performers? Are we bottom of the funnel performers? And that has to do with how much hype there is about the product and how much hype or need there is in that specific niche. And then the second one just tells you more about the product itself and how, what are those key traits that maybe the product has that then the marketers or the small business owner can use for further promotion? And again like differentiating their own product on the market.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: And so how are, how are you able to do that especially in the early stages?
We talk to businesses at every stage in their journey. It's a little bit easier when you're several years in, you have some, some proven success in the market to evaluate what, where you are, how people are responding to you. But if, if you're just starting out and trying to carve your space in a particular category, how do you apply this, this numbers and colors theory, this concept to, to an early, early entry for a product?
[00:12:06] Speaker A: One of the things I've learned in my experience as a marketer and as a data researcher is we can't just be in the present or think of only the future. We actually have to go to the past as well.
And how to actually answer those questions and get started. If you're especially really early in the journey would be again, there's always the formula of success.
Finding and identifying maybe top three to top five businesses within the category or within another category with a similar product like the one that you're looking to pitch and identifying what they have done in terms of marketing strategies, penetration into different markets or where they're selling. So again, again like the retail arm of like where they are and copying the best and kind of like the traits that speak most to you as an owner to your product would be one place to start.
So having seen their trajectory from several years ago to present day to again like basically now the small business owner technical would be competing with those same products would be a good start. Of course we live in the era of digital and there are so many ways that you can actually almost get a pulse check I'm starting new product. I have this grand idea about the product I think is going to sell like hotcakes, but I don't really know. Is this actually popular? Well, there are free research tools that you can use and they're at the tip of your fingertip. So I would actually start off by literally pulling my social media, any of the social media platforms and leveraging the search function into typing in, whether in a hashtag form or just in a keyword, as if you're using Google.
Say you're selling a children's toy and say it has to do with something with movement. I would literally use social media to see what kind of toys are being spoken about on social media channels by customers, your potential future customers, what are they saying and how much volume is there.
So that's where the idea of the hashtag comes. So in research, when we think practically. And again, these are all free. So obviously if a hashtag is very popular about the same product you're looking to launch, that gives you a really good idea that maybe that's a great product, great audience, where the audience is and who you are selling to. If I were about to launch my business, I would just use those quick, almost low hanging fruit platforms and research methods to get that data because you get the numbers, so you get how many times people have used hashtags or a specific word, you get the color, you get the idea of who the end audience is based on obviously the photos or videos that they've shared with the product. And you can combine and create a holistic strategy into how you want to talk to those people.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: Nice. I think that's such a useful resource to think about the practical applications of these products in the marketplace and how folks are engaging with it. The other thing that I want to throw out there, just from the Alibaba.com side of things, I'm listening to you and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this is a great application for Axio as well. So I want to take a quick moment to plug axio.com because that's also a great AI tool to test market viability and see what else is out there in that competitive landscape once you have an idea of what kind of product is out there. So AI has certainly helped pave the way for some businesses in this day and age. Is that something that you're implementing into your own strategies at Rila as well?
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Absolutely. AI is a multiplier. That's what I call it, the multiplier. So I, and every owner, business owner, has limited amount of time. How do I maximize my time? My effort again, my product selling, I mean, I just take the multiplier and I go ahead, let it run mundane tasks for me, and then figure out how can I basically implement it in pretty much every aspect of our business.
As you mentioned, for small business owners, I mean, what an amazing tool and resource to have at your fingertip. Right? So you have the AI tool offered by Alibaba. You have free social media networks that you could use again, you have free search engines you can go to to, and all it takes is for you to be able to just sit down, carve out the time and actually look at the data. You don't need to hire agencies, you don't need to spend money. All you need is your passion for your own product because you know your product best and the time to sit down and actually look at all those tools. And AI has the ability to multiply your efforts or the small business owner's efforts into 10 and no budget required. I'm all about, by the way, no budget. I'm a small business owner myself. When I started, I'm also Eastern European. So again, when I hear dollar signs, I'm like, this is too much. So how can we cut and do it? Honestly, the cheap way or the free way? We know how difficult it is to start a business. We know the economy is also challenging for small business owners specifically who are starting out with no capital.
So all the free tools that they could get, they should absolutely put to work.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Totally. We love free. Free is great.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, I'm thankful to platforms like Alibaba for being able to provide those small business owners with those free tools.
Now I'm on the other side, on the receiving end, so I can definitely tell you make such a big difference.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: That's awesome to hear. That's great. Now, when, when we integrate these free tools, especially in, in the AI realm, how are you implementing them and verifying them at the same time? I know, you know, there's, there's a little bit of that trust but verify practice when it comes to leveraging AI for your business, in your life in general. Of course, you know, you want to have that human touch after you're generating data, you're generating insights on, on platforms like these. So how are you, as someone who is so well versed in the market research space, taking all of this data which, like you said, it's multiplying, it's magnifying all of your efforts, and you're ending up with a lot to sift through. So how are you managing evaluating Whether this data is accurate, whether it's applicable and relevant, how is that human filter coming into play for you and your practices?
[00:18:40] Speaker A: So we are very, very careful when it comes to anything related to AI. At Rila, we created our own AI and we have our own large language models ensuring the data quality, accuracy. And again, a lot of the data that we work with as a company comes from social media.
And there's the big always questions, well, is this from a bot?
Did the bot just retweet 500 times my product?
That's where our own large language models come into play and our technical team reviews and puts in a lot of effort into ensuring that the accuracy of the sources and the accuracy of the data and how we look at it is implemented pretty much real time. We love using AI. I mean again, I think we're into like the next stage almost. So we're now a medium sized enterprise, but what we love doing is actually blending data and that's something that when small companies start business, first they only look at one data set. So for example, how is my product discussed online?
When you get to the medium size of your own enterprise, you realize that now you have to look at several data sets. So how am I selling? Where are my sales? Where were my sales last month?
How much net total there were? Obviously revenue versus profit, but then actually starting to look at the smaller focuses like by market, by town, by city. If you're selling online, could be by country, geography. Sometimes you could see demographics within who you're selling to. And then when multiple data sets between the conversations online about your product and who you're selling to, how much money you made by market, then it starts getting very quickly complicated into how you look at all of this data and how you make sense of the data. Because all of this data is what gives the end customer the opportunity to create a marketing strategy that is data driven, well thought of and also in a way predictive.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Struggling with tariffs and rising costs. Looking to discover new winning products or just need a little inspiration? Alibaba.com co create is back. Join us for our leading sourcing event in Las Vegas on September 4th and 5th at the Paris Hotel Tour, a global supplier showcase featuring top manufacturers from over 20 countries. Get hands on experience with Alibaba.com's latest AI sourcing tools and connect with industry experts, successful entrepreneurs and e commerce thought leaders ready to future proof your supply chain and build lasting partnerships? Head to alibabaco create.com and use code breakthrough for up to 20% off admission, see you there one question that I have for you in this space as we talk about all of these free tools, what are some of those initial questions you should be asking? I think as we go into them, we know the power of social media, we know the power of AI, but knowing how to use it efficiently, I think is a bigger question. How do you initiate those conversations either with an LLM or with social media? What are we searching for?
[00:21:52] Speaker A: Great question. Again, there is so much.
Where do you even start from? I always like to think, even when I work with customers to this day I always say I think in buckets. I need something to be broken down to something very simple. And it's always like a 1, 2, 3. That's how I think of every single search that I do and research. I need the one, two, threes from the beginning that that will take me through. Basically the end goal, which is to sell my product. Where I would start from would be I would think of my product and my business as a brand, my brand, my product and my brand.
I would first start off with the brand itself. So who am I as a brand and who are the other brands in the same space that I may want to analyze?
And I'd first start with my analysis around my direct competitors. You could think of those as companies in the same market, in the online market or the physical market, meaning a retail store or an online e commerce store.
And you identify those. I always say three to five, three to five brands that are the same players that you're competing with.
The second bucket or the second search, I go into my product, my exact product, my specifications. So I would search for anything related to the actual product specification. So if I'm selling a pen that will be blue, I would look at blue pens, you know, all the descriptions of the actual pen, whether it's made out of metal or plastic. And all this keywords are incredibly important. I think you know way more than me on this topic. But every single one of the words and the descriptions of the actual products would be what I go after. Because that's going to help me understand specifically within the market, within my brand, within my niche, what are the triggers when they talk about the product, what do they say about the same keywords? So when they search about a pin, what do they specifically say about it? Because those are the natural ways that people describe your product, future or existing product. And you can tailor your strategy or update your strategy based on those conversations.
And the third large bucket I would say I think of is my industry.
So who else is in the industry that I maybe not competing with, but I would love to look up to and be like in the future because again, we're going from past to present to future. Our past is we ideated the product, we have the product, we're in the present. We need to come up with the strategy and we want to get to the future of how we want to become like someone else in the same industry and we want to take the same steps. So the research is crucial when it comes to understanding your product and your audience. So it's almost like a dual take of being able to understand the whole market from product perspective. And again, like who you're selling to, who is the endpoint. That will be my 1, 2, 3, because again, I love 1, 2, 3 brand product, industry.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: It's amazing how much more achievable that feels to even me without a product that I'm ideating against.
Just, just. It makes it so clear of how to break down the information and, and really process my own goals as well. You know, it's easy to say, like, I want to, you know, let, let's stay with your pen category. I want to be like Bic. I want to, I want to be, you know, a giant in the space. But to really narrow in on what you like about them and why they're. They're a target, you know, a role model as a company that's, it's. It's important to think about. So it really helps to narrow your focus, which for me is huge.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: And one of the things I've learned as an entrepreneur is there is a formula for everything.
You want to be a successful business owner, Get a product to launch, sell it on a retailer, whether E commerce or in person. You know, brick and mortar.
There's a formula. Just copy and paste it and you will be successful. Take one successful example of another company that has done it and just copy exactly what they've done and you'll get there. That's exactly what I did when I started my agency. I mean, again, everyone said, why is there a need for another consumer research agency?
And I said, I need to try. I had my own frustrations with the industry itself and I literally copy pasted formula from successful other businesses that I looked up to, who I at the time consider competitors. And I mean, here I am six years later and 12 people strong.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: Amazing. That's amazing.
We talk so much about needing to have a differentiating factor in the marketplace, but it's true.
You come up with a concept, an agency idea, a product idea because there's a gap in the market and there's your differentiator. But you're not the first, you're not the first to start a business. And so there's, there's a path, there's a path that's, that's been established. There's several paths that have been established. So you know, you can kind of learn from, from those processes and not feel so alone in the journey as well.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: It's very true. And again, no one has to feel alone or confused. You just have to really focus on prioritizing the 1, 2, threes and just follow the steps. Copy paste, that's all I, it's simple as that. Copy paste, but not one to one. Again, you have to differentiate yourself. Take the idea, put in your soul and your mind and your preferences and your thoughts, your creativity and implement it. Easy as that.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: Remember why you started.
Why am I here? And that kind of maintains the soul of it.
[00:27:46] Speaker A: I feel like I agree. Absolutely.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: So when we're talking about doing this research, establishing our 1, 2, 3, one of the things, and I want to call back to an episode we did a few weeks ago with an entrepreneur, entrepreneur named Jeff Lauber. He created this, this brand called Marbles. And they're these really fun magnetic modular toys that he originally created for kids as an art toy. And then he discovered anecdotally, you know, we'll go back to that anecdotal insight that his audience was larger than he thought. It expanded to 20 and 30 somethings, using it as a fidget toy, a desktop toy, just to keep your hands occupied and focused.
So when, when you're discovering these things in real time, you know, on social media, through conferences and talking to people, how can you expand on your vision and kind of shift the focus of your research to welcome this new audience and kind of integrate those new thoughts into your plan?
What are the best ways to adapt as your product grows?
[00:28:49] Speaker A: Adapt is a lovely word to use.
I think every business at every point of their journey is constantly adapting to change and to updates. It's inevitable. It's just part of the journey.
Quick ways to think of adapting and expanding your product category or your product audience could be simply again, just by looking at who else in the industry may be offering the same or similar product to a similar audience, that'll be the first kind of like thing that I mentioned. Social media is, is beautiful. I work in social and I've my whole career pretty much. I've always been in, in the media space. And social media reveals A ton about potential consumers, their preferences, their shopping behaviors, where they shop and what they prefer shopping for. So social media would be the second place I actually lean on when it comes to understanding how do I expand my own audience and how do I sell to them. But then the third thing I can point out and mention is that just being a bit more generic sometimes is fine. Like you don't always have to be niche. So maybe having more generic messaging in general in marketing campaigns, instead of really focusing on a messaging just for one audience, sometimes just speaking simply to everyone is better.
Unless the product, of course, is something very, very, very specific to a targeted audience. Go bigger and go wider and the audience itself will attract itself to your product organically.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Nice. And so from there you can kind of build and establish a deeper relationship with them and dive into their insights individually. But it helps to cast a bit of a wider net in your brand marketing from the jump.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. Wide net and just a bit more generic. And again, simplified.
I've learned another thing from marketing aspect when it comes to data, because we analyze keywords, we analyze the brand campaigns themselves and how they perform based on the specific keyword search too.
And I've learned that the more generic and simple words you use, so one word versus a phrase actually gives you a better return on the campaign because it's simplified. So more people can understand it and more people can relate to it versus if you're incredibly niche. So let's say if I only did a campaign just in Bulgarian language, there will be only 6 to 8 million people in the whole world who would be targeted. Right? But if I use a more generic, so English international language, you're attracting much more. So regardless of, you know, who the product is meant for, I say go generic and simple. Simple, as simplified as possible is always best. That's always. See at all times within marketing campaigns, have something punchy, something short, something generic, something wide, and the audience itself will come to you. So you might think you're pitching one audience, but in the end, your own consumer is going to show you like who this product was meant for.
Nice.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: They reveal themselves.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: That is literally the way that it happens.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: I like it. I like it. So, you know, as we're, as we're talking a little, I want to get back to the data element here. So how are we integrating quantitative data with our qualitative insights and some, you know, to a lesser extent, anecdotal insights? How are we bringing it all together to create a really full picture of your business, of your audience and the potential for you in the marketplace place.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: So all of the data combined, not only from research standpoint but also from sales standpoint, if the product is already launched, has to be reviewed together. So putting side to side the performance, whether again like however you're looking at month over month or quarter over quarter, everything has to be reviewed in one place because otherwise it would just be so disjointed and it wouldn't make sense. When marketers think of the different types of data set, as you mentioned, you have have qual, you have quant, so you have the colors, you have the numbers, then you have the anecdotal from social media. People tell you exactly like the anecdotes and the reviews. Also review data is big.
What to do with it is to literally review it by your audience segment and base it off of your marketing strategy. So prime example, small business owner, let's use selling pens is looking to implement a marketing campaign that's targeted for a specific audience demographic online on their e commerce shop. What they should do is taking all of the data available, whether it's publicly available for free or if they've done any market research and social media research, they can take the pointers to the specific audience that they're targeting and compare the same audience. I would say month over month. Have any of the reviews changed between let's say May and June and July all these months? Like has anything changed? It could be about the product itself or maybe a specific area where this is sold.
Taking also blending the data of the actual performance between sales and the traditional research data can also reveal for your branding or your marketing campaign where you should probably focus your effort on. So again if there are highlights and successes within a specific key area or market, maybe that's the place to focus on. So taking the research piece piece which should be done on a regular basis. So research is a continued process. It's not a one off piece that you do at the beginning and at the end. There are many ways that you could be reviewing this data, but you have to do it continuously. And on the same point, by the way, we didn't mention another free tool that actually small businesses and medium sized businesses have at their fingertips at no cost, that is survey.
So the people who buy your product from you, who you have shipped to or sold an item to, what do you do with those people? You don't need a research agency to come and do this for you. You can literally type your own form which lives online and ask them maybe to answer five key questions whether Those questions you basically have to create based on the exact focus of the product and the exact questions that you have at the present time. So it could be around the product itself. It could be again, like, would you be more willing to buy another product from us within the next six months? If so, why? Was it the speed of shipping? Was it the quality of the product? Was it our marketing Instagram campaign that we launched? Like, you can actually ask those questions. And survey data is, I mean you could literally, I hope all of the businesses out there are doing surveys because you have to keep your audience also warm.
So remind them of you, send them a survey every once in a while and then take it and analyze it. And if you don't have the time to analyze it, use the free tools, upload the data and have the free AI tools multiply your analytic efforts and team efforts into helping you understand the data.
And maybe if there are any questions that are open ended, the answers from those what are keywords that maybe people have mentioned the most most are those keywords you should be implementing into your strategy, etc. But that's another great free tool that I hope all of the owners are using out there. Creating your own survey.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: Totally. So this is all, it's all culminating into this one really beautiful rich story that's helping you better understand your audience. But how are you actually as a small business owner taking that data that you've learned, all of these insights sites, this beautiful narrative and morphing that into a growth strategy, how can you really transform that data into something that you are going to see returns on as a business owner?
[00:36:43] Speaker A: That's a complex question, very good one, but very complex and hard to answer. But again, it's nothing is rocket science. I always say as long as you have a good example in front of you, you can basically just copy and paste all of the data. Whether it's from surveys, whether it's from social media and hashtag analysis, whether it's from Alibaba's AI tool, All of the data could be downloaded in simple Excel format. Literally all the platforms offer Excel format. If you're not an Excel wiz, that's okay. All you have to do is literally take the points that are in the data set and just line by line analyze them and look at what comes up. Repetitive. So when you look at and pull all the data sets from different places, it could be that again, a keyword has revealed itself as the most popular keyword people are using to describe the product.
That may be a trigger of an idea in your mind for branding and marketing in the future, but take the data, take it into its role format, use large language models and AI that is again, compliant and safe for data storage, where you can upload all of the data and have it help you craft the story. It's again a multiplier of ideas, of effort, of analytics and it should be absolutely used. But this is where I say, hey, why not use AI here?
[00:38:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest struggles that we talk to solopreneurs and business owners operating with lean teams about. It's how, how can you magnify your efforts and really continue to create impact for your audience. Do you have an example, and I hate to put you on the spot, but do you have an example of a case where good audience research has really had a strong impact on a business that was trying to scale and increase their, their footprint?
[00:38:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I do. We've worked across such a wide portfolio of products. One of the best stories. I'm very passionate about small businesses because as a small business owner myself, I understand the struggles. And one of the businesses that we worked with was actually a feminine care product and they were selling in South Africa. They had pretty much no budget, but it was a, it had a mission, which was the feminine care products were not only sold at local stores on the market, but they were also donating 10% out of the revenue for are specific female causes in the country.
So we, using research, we were able to optimize their branding, their strategy, their marketing, and also find them new markets within the same country. All the data that we used was actually from social media itself and it was not about their brand. We started by literally implementing research strategies for the general category of feminine products and feminine care. And we narrowed it down to the themes that we saw within key markets that they had three cities that just appeared as the most popular for feminine products and then again the retailers where those feminine products were sold.
So we did find out that one of the retailers actually nationwide, there were some issues with the stand of the same feminine care brand.
So then they actually realized that the retailer wasn't selling their product basically the way that it was supposed to be branded. So that right away was a huge find which resulted in additional sales once that was fixed. And yeah, we saw great results. I mean, it was a very interesting project. It was very close to my heart because of the kind of giving back aspect. And again, as a female myself and understanding how complex the topic could be, we had a great success with it. I love Talking about it, I, yeah, the brand now is actually really large. We did the project several years ago. They're now, they've expanded, they've blown up and yeah, they're doing amazing. We're very proud of them.
[00:40:50] Speaker B: Oh, that's amazing. That's so cool to hear. I know we're coming up on time here, so, you know, as, as we wrap up, I just wanted to check in with you. If you had to give a pep talk to a small business owner just starting out, what would you say to them to encourage them in their journey?
[00:41:05] Speaker A: There's just one sentence. Just do it.
I was so discouraged when I started my business business. Everyone I knew asked me whether that was a good idea. And actually looking back, I am glad that I didn't listen to anyone. So I would say to all business owners out there, like, don't listen to anyone. Follow your gut, follow your dreams. Everything's achievable. And again, I mean, I now have lived in the States for many years and I mean this is again, like best opportunities in the world and the most inspirational markets and people that you could be surrounded by, like, just, just get up and do it. Follow an example, follow their lead, follow their footprint. You'll get there and be patient.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm inspired if that means anything to you.
[00:41:52] Speaker A: It does, it does.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: That's awesome.
Are there any final resources or websites, anything you want to plug at the end here?
[00:42:00] Speaker A: I'm always afraid when it comes to free plugs. Of course I, I'm happy to plug our our own website and just mention that Rila does also implement and do research. We love helping small business owners. Every year we do work with at least one organization we provide free research to with the idea of giving back. So if there are any businesses out there that have a mission who would like our support. Our basically research is valued at $25,000 and once a year we do look for those businesses who are changing the world around us or giving back to the community.
So if you are one of them, please reach out to us via our website. We'd love to connect with you.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: That's so heartwarming to hear. I love that you provide that opportunity. Can you just say the URL for the folks listening in?
[00:42:49] Speaker A: That would be rilaglobal.com r I l.
[00:42:54] Speaker B: A global dot com. All right. We will definitely make sure that that link is available in the show notes and the description on YouTube so everyone can access it and look at all the good impact that Reala Global is having in the world. So Sveta, thank you so much for joining me on the show.
Really cool conversation and it was such an honor.
[00:43:12] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me. The pleasure was all mine and thank you. I really appreciate it.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: B2B Breakthrough is produced by Alibaba.com to find out how Alibaba.com is empowering its customers with the tools, services and resources they need to grow their business, visit Alibaba.com and then make sure to search for B2B Breakthrough on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcast. Make sure to follow us so you don't miss future episodes. On behalf of the team here at alibaba. Com, thanks for listening.
