Enter with Caution

Before jumping blindly into your business, it’s very important to determine whether your product or service is a good one. Beliefs alone will not sell products; market research not only confirms your beliefs, but it might also help find a manufacturer interested in making your product. Stephen Key presents two out of five options for market research in the beginning phases in this post on All Business. Here are the first two:

1. Pull-Through Marketing. Use your sales sheet as a basis to show to potential licensors. If they would license it, then you have a good idea of whether or not your product will sell.
2. Focus Groups. Focus groups are generally for those with bigger budgets, but it can be modified to work for your budget. It consists of collecting the demographic the product intends to sell to, and posing questions such as: Would you buy this product? Be creative in selecting a target audience. Stephen gives an example of going to the mall if you are planning on targeting kids.

What other strategies have been useful for your organization in the initial stages of market research?

Ethnography is powerful form of market research

In a recent article at the Jakarta Post, Amalia E. Maulana looks at what role he plays as a market research and an ethnographer. He states the goal for ethnographic research is to capture the telling moments that reveal what consumers actually do with products, rather than what they say they do.

Tasks for ethnographers when researching a certain subject should be:

• consumers' lives in dealing with products; to look closely at their experiences with the products
• to learn intensively about the product's role in its original setting
• to reveal what is in the consumers' mind from the very beginning
• when they first decide they need a product until when they finally buy and use the product.

The goal of the ethnographer should be to connect the lines between what researchers observed in a setting and what really goes on when customers are using products within their homes. According to Manulala, ethnography can be used to fill the gaps in between what customers are receiving from a product and what new uses would be of a value to them.

Do you use ethnography when conducting your market research? If so, what benefits have you seen that have helped you improve your products?

New Marketing Research Tool

A new patent pending research tool has hit the market thanks to Synergy Research Group as mentioned in this press release from marketwire. It is called Synergy Interactive Analysis (SIA), and is a web 2.0 tool that will help users

“SIA leverages the wealth of market intelligence Synergy has developed over the last decade in the Networking and Telecom industries. SIA allows clients to instantly create any type of report or chart, using any unit of measure, for any company, anywhere in the world.”

SIA will cost users $499 per seat per service, and will provide consumers with 38 separate SIA Market Share, and Forecast services. In order for individuals to experience the value of their tool Synergy will be offering 2 SIA Market Share and Forecast services free, for a limited time.

The potential benefit to organizations is that this will allow them to efficiently gather and manipulate important market research. As Troy D. Jensen, from Piper Jaffray stated

"SIA is an incredible new tool which helps us quickly and intuitively access Synergy's highly regarded market research. Synergy's SIA research tool is a great example of what happens when entrepreneurship and technology come together. Synergy has created a powerful and easy to use Web-based research application that will enhance our research efforts and save us time."

What’s wrong with Market Segmentation?

This article on Bnet.com highlights how most companies do not derive real value from implementing a major marketing-segmentation initiative. Why is that? A study conducted by the Harvard Business Review reveals that segmentation generally focuses in on different “types” of consumers. This practice makes it easier for advertisers to develop and tailor messages directed to specific segmentation groups, but it does not tell companies whether or not these consumers will actually buy the product or service.

Yankelovich and Meer from the Harvard Business School suggest tailoring your segmentation to a strategic decision. Define segments by consumer current consumer behavior and also their likely behavior. Over time, redefine segmentations as the market changes. They suggest these tactics in order to segment markets effectively:

· Identify a strategic decision that would benefit from information about different customer segments.

· Determine which customers drive profits.

· Analyze actual and potential purchasing behavior.

· Segment in ways that make sense to senior management.

· Revise your segmentation as market conditions change.

Read the full article here.

Speaker Profile: Kelley Styring

With the The Market Research Event quickly approaching, we would like to begin to introduce you to the keynote speakers we will have this year at our event. This year, The Market Research Event will take place from October 13 - 16, 2008 in Anaheim, California at the Disneyland Hotel. To start, we would like to introduce you to Kelley Styring. Well known for her “In Your Purse Study: Archaeology of the American Handbag,” Kelley has been involved with companies like Proctor and Gamble and Pepsi Co., managing their market research divisions.

In 2003, she founded Insight Farm, in Newberg, Oregon, a customer strategy and market research consultancy to help Fortune 100 companies improve their customer insight. Her well known study, “In Your Purse” had Kelley looking through 100 purses to see how the purse connected a woman’s home to the store she was shopping at. She was able to pinpoint a few innovations that companies could use to improve when trying to vie for room in a woman’s purse.

Kelley’s latest research project is researching what people carry in their car. Her new research study has been called In Your Car Roadtrip. She’s recently completed her road trip around the nation to find out what the people of the United States have in their car and what innovations can be made to lure in the American public. You can follow up on her blog and Flickr photos of the trip. She’ll be explaining her findings the first night of the Market Research Event.

We invite you to come see Kelley Styring at The Market Research Event as she presents his keynote speech on Tuesday, October 14^th, Hitting the Road to Uncover Innovations.

Watch an interview with Kelley Styring from Good Morning Texas:

(Sources: Style Fix, Insight Farm, CNN)

Tips for Google’s New Keyword Tool

Pertaining to market research, I agree with this article’s quote from Avinash Kaushik stating that “The goal is not to collect more data – it’s about extracting insight from this data.” It is especially important to remember at all times when going through data. To help accomplish this goal the article gave tips on how to better utilize Google’s new Keyword Tool. Specifically as the article states they are providing

“tips on how you can tailor Google Keyword Tool’s data to you needs (much like you would with Google Analytics), and how you can apply this research beyond your SEO and PPC campaign to other marketing activities.”

The tips cover these topics: Selecting countries, generating keywords, setting match type, adding and removing columns, jumping to data, and sorting data. Do you have any insights on marketing research tools that others may find useful?

Bio-Logical Insights: Sensory Emotive Effectiveness in Marketing

Just a quick reminder to register for the free webinar that Dan Hill, keynote speaker for The Market Research Event 2008 and president of Sensory Logic, will be presenting on Thursday, July 24^th from 2:00 to 3:00 pm eastern standard time. Here’s a quick synopsis of what he will be presenting on and what you can expect to learn from it:

Too often, marketing materials suffer from an insider perspective. A company becomes so caught up in the messaging, for instance, that it fails to recognize what will and won’t catch people’s attention, and when too much is definitely too much. In turn, the advertising agency creatives run the risk of getting so close to their execution that how the visuals and lay-out will play for people gets lost. And sometimes, the agency understands better or differently from the target market what the client is trying to communicate.

This webinar tries to help both parties out. It seeks to back up and take consumers’ point of view. What will they notice? What’s the window of opportunity and the guidelines for getting attention? What kind of underlying emotional benefits are key to address? Learn about these key insights and more in this presentation.

What you will learn:
- What are 3 keys to making gaze activity work in your favor?
- How fast does the eye move in connecting the dots of a given layout?
- What visual, layout design principles help in making advertising more effective?
- What are the core motivations that draw people in?

Register for this webinar, and don’t forget to hear Dan Hill, the recipient of the Speaker of the Year award for 2007 by Minnesota Meetings, speak at The Market Research Event 2008 on October 13 – 16, 2008 in Anaheim, California.

Enterprise Feedback Management finds way to track customer sentiment

In a recent article at Manufacturing Business Technology, they discuss how enterprise feedback management can measure customer attitudes overtime. Through users reporting and survey tools, they can solicit input from employees and customers. Then, by using customer surveys and market research, they can put together a compete picture to determine customer attitudes. By tracking direct responses, companies are able to see how customers attitudes about their business change over time. This allows companies to determine why things happen with their customers, giving them insight behind what’s happening.

Marketing Academia Needs to Change Market Research Teachings

There was an interesting article regarding how marketing academia is needs to change the principles of what is taught. In today’s organizations, more and more, the focus of marketing research is centered on consumers and the idea of customer insight. It’s about finding out what current customers are saying, and finding ways to improve and incorporate these suggestions into final products, rather than surveying a random sampling of a predicted target audience. Based on this articles research, schools that teach marketing need to move away from just teaching “classical marketing.” Instead they need to consult more with companies, and find out the actual marketing practices in place in order to keep up with changing face of market research. As the article states:

“Commercial market researchers and applied academics share a requirement to make their research accessible, engaging and even actionable. There is little overt acknowledgement of this at present, and until this changes, the current academic cultural norms may erect barriers to our messages getting across.”

Nature and Characteristics of Market Research

I stumbled upon this document posted by Richard Cataman on .docstoc in which the author provides a clear understanding of the difference between pragmatic, applied market research and the much more common academic theory of market research. Cataman does a particular good job in explaining how although statistical analysis is important to market research, it is not the only factor needed to be an effective market research manager. Take some time out to read this article.

Recent Study shows Consumers are Most likely to buy more if distracted

A recent study performed by Bryan Gipson, a psychology professor at Central Michigan University, found that customers who are distracted are more likely to make an impulse decision that involves choosing one brand over another.

Newswire had this to say of the study:

Results of Gibson's study found that implicit attitudes, or those that people may not be conscious of and able to verbally express, predicted product choice only when participants were presented with a cognitive task, suggesting that implicit product attitudes may play a greater role in product choice when the consumer is distracted or making an impulse purchase.

Listen to Community Conversations

Searching the blogosphere, I came across this post from Warner on Adventures in Internet Marketing. In this post, he details many conventional and FREE ways to find out what people are talking about and what they are searching for.

Amazon top selling products, eBay pulse, and eBay keywords are some of the best ways to check out the new buzz. Sites like technorati and Del.icio.us are great because you can view different sites that people have been saving and analyze interested keywords. Marketers are beginning to look at social media as a great way to analyze information. The shift from traditional focus groups and surveys are changing as people are making information readily accessible on the web.

Market Research is Changing

Martin Edic points out in his latest post that market research is currently transitioning from acquired research to observed research. Acquired research involves creating a structured environment and forcing participation. Examples of these are focus groups and surveys. Responses from participants to both of these strategies are many times forced and not genuine.

These findings are turning many marketers to start using observed research to gather their data. People are most genuine with their responses when they feel as if no one is watching. The explosion of web 2.0 technology has transformed social media into a great resource to track trends, listen to conversations, and to define demographics. Does your company currently use social networks, blogs, and other forms of social media to collect information about your customers?

Economic Concerns are Changing Spending Habits

With ever-growing prices at the gas pump, consumers are looking to save money in other way besides automobile expenses. One of those ways includes weekly visits to the local grocery store. A study conducted by the National Consumer Agency shows us that Irish consumers are thinking twice before picking up conventional items at supermarkets. Here are some of the findings from the research:

• 30% of grocery shoppers have changed grocery shopping behaviour since the start of the year
• 26% spreading their spend over different supermarkets
• Lidl and Aldi are main beneficiaries of the spend spreading to different stores
• 32% of groceries bought are the supermarkets' own brand items
• 26% buying cheaper versions of products

What does this mean for marketers? Trends in consumer shopping and spending habits are changing, and so we must carefully analyze research to ensure that we are stepping in the right direction to effectively promote products and services.

Decrease in Media Budgets

Advertising Age had this informative article about a study conducted by Advertising Perceptions, a market-research firm. According to the research study, media buyers are pessimistic about Broadcast TV, magazines, newspapers, radio, and outdoor, and have plans to decrease their advertising budgets for these mediums. Broadcast TV, and newspapers are the hardest hit, with 30% of the respondents citing a decrease in their expected spending over the next six months.

On a positive note, online, cable TV, and mobile are not experiencing the same downturn. For online media spending, 72% of study participants are anticipating an increase in their spending, and for cable and mobile the percentages were 28% and 53% respectively.

Audrey Siegel, a VP Director of Client Services for TargetCast, believes that,

The decline indicates that marketers need their dollars to be flexible during times of economic uncertainty so they have the opportunity to pull back on spending if necessary.

On a contradictory note, as reported in the NY Times in this article, Mr. Coen senior VP and forecasting director at Magna, is optimistic citing the Olympics, and the political campaign as a reason why advertising will not be as hard hit as the Advertising Age article suggests. Coen was quoted as saying,

“It will get better in the second half of the year. I think the worst is over in terms of the slowdowns.”

In summary his belief is that while the economy has played a huge role in the hesitance of media buyers to spend their advertising budgets, the decrease may not be as noticeable while the Olympics, and Political campaign remain a hot topic in the media. His predictions also have him quoting that 2009 will be better than this year with advertising spending up 3.1%. It will be interesting to see which perception will prevail.

A New Social Platform to Share Market Research

I came across this blog post today about a company called UnLtdWorld, a social networking site for entrepreneurs, that has a unique proposition. As the post describes it:

The platform will allow anyone logged into the network to access all the data behind the UnLtdWorld Research Lab for comparative and historical analysis. It will allow for real-time and dynamic use with other datasets, and within mash-ups and applications that can be deployed anywhere on the web.

This means, that companies and organizations will effectively have a focus group like statistics that are being updated constantly. Market research as it stands today is very time consuming and by the time the data is collected, may no longer be relevant. This will provide users the unique opportunity to have all of the information they need at their fingertips with the ability to manipulate the data as they require.

The UnLtdWorld website states thee following as their goal:

UnLtdWorld aims to help build the capacity of social entrepreneurship, and enhance the efficiency of relations between social entrepreneurs, relevant stakeholders and the general public. We aim to do this mainly through the UnLtdWorld Research Lab, the world's most powerful mapping and graphing of social entrepreneurship, and of social and environmental issues.

Changing Face of Pods

Pods, which are sets of advertisements displayed during commercial breaks, may get a new facelift. Earlier this year, Dove aired Fresh Takes commercials featuring singer Alicia Keys, which were actually dubbed as a “micro series”, during MTV’s the Hills. This new form of advertisement was different in that instead of simply being a 30 second commercial, the product was instead integrated into a series that played for the duration of the commercial break. This source indicated that these commercials generated three times as many visits to the Dove website as that of the previous two years worth of television ads created by the company. Also as this article states regarding comments made by MTV’s SVP of Integrated Marketing, Tim Rosta,

As for the Dove/Keys series, Rosta said the retention around those "was nearly perfect" from "Hills" numbers and that brand recall was high.

In related news, the NY Times published an article discussing the change in traditional TV ads. Here are the examples that they gave regarding potential television ads of the future.

Brief programs, called mini-sodes, micro-series or bitcoms, are sponsored by marketers. Think of them as shows that interrupt commercials that interrupt shows.

Clips, also sponsored, combine elements of commercials and programs. Many feature cast members of the shows in which they appear.

Promotions for network shows appear inside episodes of other shows, thanks to special effects. For instance, a truck in a scene of the Discovery series “Mythbusters” briefly displayed a reminder to watch a coming episode of another Discovery series, “When We Left Earth.” The embedded tune-in, as Discovery calls it, lasts three to five seconds.

How Consumers Communicate Reviews of Products

As reported in this post from Church of the Customer Blog, BIGresearch conducted a study of close to 16,000 people regarding consumers use of online research to determine which products to buy. The results of the study, as shown below, indicate that adults who actively research online, are more likely to pass on the information that they have found.

	Active Online Researcher	All adults
Regularly gives advice	47.0%	29.4%
Occasionally gives advice	49.8%	63.4%
Never gives advice	3.2%	7.2%

Source: BIGresearch, SIMM 11 (December 2007)

The study also reported findings that a majority of individuals, 72.7%, communicated their findings face-to-face. Still many others, 63.2%, passed on information via e-mail, where as 11.8% talked using online communities, and 6.8% used blogging as a medium. These findings indicate that while forums, such as blogging and online communities are starting to become more and more relevant, especially in terms of research about products, a majority of individuals still see an importance in discussing product reviews in person.

Brad Fay, study co-author of a Keller Fay study, which concurred with BIGresearch that 75% of individuals communicate product reviews face-to-face stated:

"Apparently, the value of eye contact, voice and perhaps even non-verbal communication provides a boost to credibility and the likelihood that we'll do something about what we've learned."

Bio-Logical Insights: Sensory Emotive Effectiveness in Marketing

We’d like to invite you to attend Bio-Logical Insights: Sensory Emotive Effectiveness in Marketing webinar. Dan Hill, President of Sensory Logic and keynote speaker at the 2008 Market Research Event will be our featured speaker. Register to view the webinar on Thursday, July 24^th from 2:00 to 3:00 pm eastern standard time.

About the presentation
Too often, marketing materials suffer from an insider perspective. The company is so caught up in the messaging, for instance, that it fails to recognize what will and won’t catch people’s attention and when too much is definitely too much. In turn, the advertising agency creatives run the risk of getting so close to their execution that how the visuals and lay-out.

About the Speaker
Dan Hill. President
Sensory Logic

Dan Hill is a recognized authority on the role of emotions in consumer and employee behavior with over a decade of experience running his scientific emotional insight consultancy: Sensory Logic, Inc. Inspired by breakthroughs in brain science and facial coding, which correlates facial expressions to specific emotions, Dan challenges traditional ideas of understanding and measuring people’s decision-making process for consumer insight testing. Recognizing that the body doesn’t lie, Sensory Logic utilizes

both verbal and non-verbal methods and has developed a systematic approach that accurately reflects the new scientific model that intuitive, and often subconscious, experiences drive consumers toward decisions that eventually determine a company’s market share and profits.

During this Webinar, you will learn how to:
- What are 3 keys to making gaze activity work in your favor?
- How fast does the eye move in connecting the dots of a given layout?
- Other visual, layout design principles of aid in making advertising more effective.
- What are the core motivations that draw people in?
- What causes the greatest amount of interest/resistance?

This is a Market Research Event sponsored webinar. The Market Research Event will be October 13 – 16, 2008 in Anaheim, California.

Register for this web seminar here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/658191493

Market Research Event Keynote featured in USA Today

Kelley Styring, a featured keynote at this year’s Market Research Event, was featured in an article today on USA Today. The article Is there junk in your trunk focuses on the new study Styring is doing on what Americans carry with them in their cars. Styring did a study in 2007 focusing on what American women carry around in their handbags. There were many useful findings for marketers with her initial research on purses which led to her interest in examining another storage vehicle, this time cars.

Styring is traveling to seven US cities, and studying the contents of people’s cars. She takes two hours to chronicle what each car has to offer. One of the most interesting things she’s found so far is the use of the cup holders. She says a lot of the cup holders don’t actually hold cups, but instead coins, golf balls, air fresheners and other items.

Her research will help both car manufactures and companies looking to fit consumer’s needs. Car companies are trying to find a way to maximize the storage capacity in cars, and there are many opportunities product manufactures are missing when it comes to the usability in the car. Styring is chronicling her adventure at her webpage, and you can read her experiences at her blog.

Don’t forget to come see Kelley Styring kick off The Market Research Event October 15 at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California!

Banking Institutions fall in Customer Satisfaction

A new study out by Forrester shows that customer satisfaction from US banking institutions is at its lowest level recorded. Insurance News Net wrote about the study here. The study was conducted by Forrester and 5000 US customers evaluated 41 banks, brokerages and insurers. The low level of satisfaction is attributed to the fact the consumers think that banks do not have the interest of the customers in mind. The study attributes this to the drop in consumer confidence, caused by things such as the subprime mortgage crisis.

USAA held the top spot for highest ratings as a bank. The study also found that property and causality insurers are the highest ranked, as they are five of the top ten organizations ranked in the survey.