MARKET RESEARCH
Want to know how people really perceive a product category or new idea? Or how they socialize concepts? Qualitative research is one excellent way to get there.
Think of qualitative research as a cross between a cocktail party and a psychotherapy session.
First,we recruit people who are important to the product or issue at hand. We pay them to spend an hour or two with us. A trained moderator makes them feel comfortable and engages them in a highly structured conversation. The discussion starts out broadly, establishing the context for the subject. And then gradually narrows to focus on the specific issues or concepts we want them to tell us about.
Typically, qualitative research is executed in two formats: either in one-on-one conversations with people (called IDI’s or individual directed interviews) or in a group setting (called focus groups). They can take place in a facility that has been designed to have people (clients) view the discussion from behind a two-way mirror. Or they can be held in a more informal setting.
Usually, these sessions are video recorded. That way, clips from the sessions can be used to bring alive the things we learn from the respondents, when report on the findings. Often, we find that starting out with a small-scale qualitative research effort actually improves the results you get from quantitative research. Core Strategies has conducted hundreds of qualitative studies since we started in 1996 over dozens of product categories. We can help you determine the best way to get the answers you need to make decisions.
Need to know how many people actually like your product concept or advertising pitch? How many of them are old, male and also purchased green tea? Quantitative research is your vehicle for finding this out. Historically, people use surveys to quantify what people think or intend to do. They randomly select people who are relevant to them and ask them questions in a non-leading way. They ask enough of them to be statistically reflective of the group they represent.
In the old days, people went door-to-door to ask people questions. Today, they mostly use the internet or the telephone. There are some technical strengths and weaknesses involved in every research technique. Picking the right one requires some thought and depends on what you are trying to find out from whom.
Increasingly, people are using new techniques that observe people’s behavior in large numbers and draws conclusions from those behaviors. The web, which can aggregate lots of behavior quickly, is an essential tool for this, as is software that recognizes patterns of behavior.
At Core Strategies, we have used all of these methods for our clients at various times. Sometimes, we use a combination of them when the situation demands. Let us help you figure out the best way to get the insight you need to make those important marketing decisions.
Truly revolutionary new products fill needs that people were not conscious of. When Quicken® was created by Intuit, it was successful because of the frustration people had manually reconciling their checkbooks. How did Intuit figure out that solving this problem represent a major opportunity? By observing them in their “natural habitat”, the same way anthropologists observe peoples’ behaviors in other cultures.
In marketing, we are limited by the time we have to observe. It is unrealistic to spend 30 years observing people to figure out which products they really need. So, we created a method that we call “Active Ethnographies”. We observe people in either their usage or shopping environment (online and store-based) and then actively engage them in conversation about what we have observed. This interaction takes 90 minutes and focuses on how go about making category and brand purchase decisions.
At Core Strategies, we use these Active Ethnographies to not only provide insight on product needs but on identifying the most important benefits people seek from products.
If you are reading this, you are probably looking for marketing research to help answer a burning question in your organization. While you care somewhat about how you get to the answer, you care far more about what you will learn and how that affects the decisions you have to make.
We get it.
All of us at Core Strategies come out of line marketing and strategy functions in global companies. We have had to harness the power of marketing research to help guide our real-world decision making. Why is that important to you? Because it means we are focused on getting to answers quickly and cost-effectively. There are some wonderfully interesting tools available in marketing research. There is a great deal to study.
Our value to our clients comes from simplifying, not from complicating. We focus on designing research that yields genuine insights that affect your strategic decisions. Not on generating knowledge for knowledge’s sake (as intellectually stimulating as that may be).
Every presentation of findings we provide to our clients has a section called, “Strategic Insights and Implications”. We weigh in on the questions facing you and give recommendations like, “Do not bring concept X to market”, or “Focus your marketing dollars first on market segment Y.” We do not create 700-slide PowerPoint decks that end up in file cabinets. We create compelling, one-hour presentations that provide strategic insight that clients can act upon.