Tag Archives: Market research

26 Practical Marketing Ideas That Require Research

Posted on November 9, 2011 by | 2 Comments

It’s not always the economy, and you’re not stupid.  The marketing process is a lot like the laws of physics, for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.  The trouble with sales is that there are so many variables, that it’s hard to pinpoint where the problem is so that you can fix it.

The following is a list of 25 DIY Marketing strategies that you can try to build your sales back up to where they need to be.  I originally published this article on AMEX Open Forum.  But when I looked at it again, I realized that it’s not enough to grab any of these strategies and just run with it.  You’ll want to do some research to support your plan.

  1. Customer research.  Although it’s tempting to jump in and try to do anything, take the time to ask your customers what’s important to them and what other alternatives they are considering to solve their problems.  Check out online survey tools like QuestionPro and SurveyMonkey.
  2. Offer different sizes at different prices.  Pricing expert and author of 1% Windfall, Rafi Mohamed says that people will buy at price points that are appealing to them (assuming they have a need or interest in your product).  Give your customers the opportunity to try and buy.
  3. Add new products.  Consider the possibility your customers want something else. Do your research and check your profit margins before you expand your product lines.
  4. Drop Unprofitable products.  Profitability is more important than sales.  Evaluate your product lines and drop products that aren’t passing profit muster.  Another option is to raise prices on products that are unprofitable.
  5. Bundle products.  McDonald’s is king of the bundle.  Create a value offer that moves product at good margins and gives customers great value.
  6. Find new markets.  This is a favorite strategy.  Look for emerging markets that have a need for your product or capability.  Open your mind and ask “what if” or “in what ways” questions to see how to penetrate more profitable markets.
  7. Provide home delivery or offer monthly delivery.  Combine a distribution strategy with a subscription model to create repeat sales.
  8. Develop new, more varied uses for your product.  We wouldn’t know that there were millions of uses for baking soda if Arm and Hammer didn’t pull them together and advertise them.
  9. Change the name to reflect new market. If you’re launching into a new market, change the name of your product to better reflect the benefits your product provides.
  10. Test higher and lower prices in different markets. You don’t have to charge the same price in the same market. Different markets have different needs, charge accordingly .
  11. Try different distribution channels.  Distribution means being within arm’s reach of your customer and their wallet.  Think of the different ways you can do that; email, direct marketing, catalog, direct sales, kiosk, manufacturers rep.  The possibilities are endless.
  12. Try new sales incentives and commission structures.  Sales people spend effort where they will make the most money.  Take a close look at your commission structure and make sure that you are rewarding sales people for profitable sales.
  13. Change how you sell.  Don’t just assume your current sales strategy is optimal. Consider using affiliates, partners, home parties, catalogs, internet, etc.
  14. Change or adjust your sales process or system.  Your sales process might be out-dated.  Take the time to explore new strategies such as Craig Elias’, Trigger Events or Jill Konrath’s  SNAP Selling.
  15. Develop or focus on lead generation program.  Where are your leads coming from and are they good leads.  Take a good hard look at your conversions from trade shows, web sites, etc and start optimizing all of them to attract your ideal customer.  For help, check out HubSpot – they are masters of inbound marketing.
  16. Develop a personal follow-up program.  Most sales are lost because our follow-up systems stink.  Map out your sales process and develop a follow-up system that touches your customer at least 7 – 10 times.  For help, visit Constant Contact, aWeber and InfusionSoft  and the new Nimble.
  17. Provide free troubleshooting. Don’t sell and run, help your customers over buyer’s remorse by providing them help in using and loving your product or service.
  18. Build a customer/user community.  Don’t forget the power of social media.  Create a customer community using a Facebook page or Twitter, these tools aren’t just for big companies or consumer groups.  If social media isn’t your thing – create a customer community using the SurveySwipe mobile survey platform and ask your community questions.
  19. Institute a referral program. Word of mouth is powerful, so create a referral system that rewards fans of your company or product.
  20. Use QR codes to drive customers to coupons.  Research shows that customers love grabbing coupons from their mobile devices.  Use QR codes to reward them for buying.
  21. Create a video couponing page. Groupon has gotten mixed reviews for small business – but Video Coupons are a whole new ball game.  Customers love video and remember twice as much as ads they see on TV and Video coupons are inexpensive and easy to do.
  22. Offer financing or multiple payment plan.   QVC already knows that customers will buy more and spend more if you offer a payment plan.  Remember customers love to buy in increments of $20. So make your monthly prices $19.99, $39.99, etc.
  23. Volume discounts or bundle discounts.  Reward your customers for buying more items more frequently.
  24. Establish a customer club.  Even restaurants can have a customer club.  Charge a monthly fee to receive coupons, free gifts and invites to special events.
  25. Develop a contest to build leads, communities and excitement.  Contests build community and customers.  Use powerful social media tools to manage yours.  There’s even an online app to help you create and manage contests – Wildfire.
  26. Direct marketing to target customers.  Three-dimensional, snail mail marketing is still extremely effective.  Select a target group of customers and send them special offers.

And there you have it.  This list is long but not even a sliver of the possibilities that are available to you.  Look at declining sales as a signal that it’s time to change it up and use this list to get you started.

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5 Steps to Making Market Research Part of Your Product Offering

Posted on August 18, 2011 by | 1 Comment

I recently ran into a terrific article by Christine Brown from Branding Marketing about Marketing your Market Research.  Her main observation is that companies cut market research budgets because they see it as a luxury.  But if they were able to use that research in a variety of ways —  call it recycling or re-purposing — they might be able to justify those projects.

She goes on to give several examples that inlcude:

 Other Ways to Use Market Research as Part of Your Offering
Christine’s article got me thinking that many businesses see market research as an expense rather than a revenue generator,  There is an opportunity to “spin” your research projects or design them in such a way that they provide industry insights and information that your customers may want to gain access to.
If you participate in industrial markets that include highly engineered technical products or instruments, you will find profound gaps in information about what customers value.
  1. Create a separate brand and URL for the information and research service that you will provide — literally treat it as a separate product line.
  2. Start a subscription section of your web site.  You can use WordPress  and their Wishlist membership plugin to create a subscription function that allows you to take payments and distribute information based on membership or subscription level.
  3. Run YOUR research and use some of your data for your own decision making and the other data for re-sale to the industry.
  4. Offer to run surveys for customers or competitors in your industry. This might freak out your management, but it’s simply called “contract manufacturing”  it happens in manufacturing all the time — companies who have tools and capabilities built into their infrastructure will make another company’s product just to keep the equipment running — it’s selling unused time and space.
  5. Run regular tracking surveys and sell the reports and data.  Simply include general market and industry question in your surveys and run them regularly and then sell the results.  One area of research that is always difficult to get for specific industrial segments is market share information.  By simply asking a few questions, you can generate this valuable data and sell it.
Don’t let budget cuts eat away at the information that your company and industry need.  Try these ways of engaging your management team in the research and creating products and services around research to get it to pay for itself.

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Market Research Around the Web

Posted on August 15, 2011 by | 1 Comment

There have been a number of exciting developments around the web that I thought I’d share with you this week:

Market Research University Recordings are Available

Over at Research Access, they held an all day program called  Market Research University – an all-day, online market research training session run by Kathryn Korostoff of Research Rockstar. The event took place entirely on Twitter; you may have followed along with the hashtag #MRXU.

In case you weren’t able to attend, though, Kathryn and the participating “professors” were gracious enough to have posted some additional resources from the training session:

  • Diane Hagglund, of Dimensional Research, has shared fantastic B2B project management insights here: LINK.
  • Michaela Mora, of Relevant Insights, has shared a generous post on her market research project management tips: LINK
  • Greg Timpany has provided a script of his tweets, here: LINK.
Be sure to avail yourselves of their expertise! This is terrific material, and could be of use to any market research professional.
While you’re at it, you may also want to take a look at another recent post from MRXU contributor Michaela Mora, entitled, “Survey Tools Race to Improve User Experience.” It offers a great look at how online research tools are making major enhancements to leverage developments in new technology (including text selection, heat maps, etc.).
GameAccess.com Gamification Blog Launched
There is a new blog in town that is part of the Survey Analytics family called “Game Access” edited by Betty Adamou.
If you’ve heard the word “Gameification” and wondered what it’s all about, then you’ll want to become a regular reader.  The idea is that people are enthralled and engaged by video games primarily because they challenge us, provide immediate feedback and are something WE CHOOSE rather than some task that is thrust upon us.
There is a trend and a movement toward incorporating elements of game play into our real lives that both engage us and make us more productive.
In the latest article, Andrew Jeavons , the executive VP of Survey Analytics discusses the power of game play.

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Free Webinar Wed 8/24/11 @ 8AM PST: How To Create Your Own Panel Management Solution in 30 Minutes

Posted on August 10, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Wednesday August 24th, 2011

8:00 AM PST

Click here to sign up now

Panel management solutions are popping up everywhere for companies to explore. The main objectives to getting started is that it’s too difficult to learn, It’s too time consuming, or it requires to much dependent on the software company and slowing down the panel debut. With SurveyAnalytics solution, MicroPanel, implementing your own panel management solution doesn’t have to be difficult and require 2-3 months of set-up time to get started. The webinar “How To Set Up a Panel Management Solution in 30 Minutes” will help familiarize you with the following:

-Trends & Advantages of creating and managing your own panel solution

-How to get started : 5-point focus to kick off your panel solution

- Customized site behavior: Get Your panel & Panel Portal the way you want it to

- Profiling Surveys: Capturing panel info while you ask questions in your survey

-What Are Knowledge Bank Questions: How to Implement them and connect them to your Panel profiles

- Sampling Portal: Pulling specific data for your surveys

A Question and Answer session will follow prior to the conclusion of the webinar.

A recording and webinar slides will be posted on this blog in the afternoon. Make sure to check back and download your copy to view.

To learn more about http://www.micropanel.com

Click here to sign up now

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Start Your Research Project With a Sense of Discovery and You’ll Come Out With More Knowledge

Posted on July 12, 2011 by | Leave a comment

One of the most common things I’d hear upon completion of a market research project was “I already knew that?!”

There is this idea that at the conclusion of some market research endeavor the heavens would open up and we would somehow know something amazingly new and different that had never occurred to us before.  Yet, when you think about it — that is the last thing that should happen.

After all, you know your business, and you are doing the research to make better decisions.  You aren’t doing it to KNOW something — you’re doing it to learn something.  I heard a quote yesterday that struck me “Knowledge is in the speaking and wisdom is in the listening.”   And when we’re talking about market research, it helps to be in the mode of discovery and listening.  That is a very different way of being than gathering information for the sake of knowing it.

Match the Tone of Your Invite to The Audience of Your Survey

You may not think it matters, but the spirit with which you enter into your research is more transparent than you might think.  It starts with the tone of your survey invitation.

These days you don’t get much real estate in which to invite your respondent.  Even if you are lucky enough to use an email invitation to an existing customer, attention spans are short and time to take surveys is even shorter.  The tone of your invitation can make all the difference to your response rate.

If your tone is too academic and rigid, respondents may already know that this will be long and painful.  If your tone is too casual for the audience, they may not take you seriously enough and skip over the survey.

Take the time to match the tone of your invite to the audience.  It also helps to create survey invitations via Twitter (if your survey is open to the public) or Facebook and schedule those throughout several days.

How Would a Spirit of Discovery Change the Questions in Your Survey?

First what is the difference between discovery and knowledge?  When you are in “discovery” mode, anything can happen.  The possibilities are wide open.  And more importantly — YOU are wide open.  You don’t know and you are open to what shows up in the process.

When you “KNOW” something.  You know it.  There is nothing to discuss, nothing to learn.  It just is.  We now know that California lies beyond Ohio there is no discovery there — there is knowledge.  But a couple of hundred years ago, as Europeans were trekking across the country, they didn’t really KNOW what lay ahead.  They had a sense of discovery around their journey.

How would your survey look if you created questions from a mindset of discovery rather than proving something or someone right or wrong?

More importantly, how would your results be reported if you looked at them as components of discovery rather than fact?

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Start Your Research Project With a Sense of Discovery and You’ll Come Out With More Knowledge

Posted on July 12, 2011 by | Leave a comment

One of the most common things I’d hear upon completion of a market research project was “I already knew that?!”

There is this idea that at the conclusion of some market research endeavor the heavens would open up and we would somehow know something amazingly new and different that had never occurred to us before.  Yet, when you think about it — that is the last thing that should happen.

After all, you know your business, and you are doing the research to make better decisions.  You aren’t doing it to KNOW something — you’re doing it to learn something.  I heard a quote yesterday that struck me “Knowledge is in the speaking and wisdom is in the listening.”   And when we’re talking about market research, it helps to be in the mode of discovery and listening.  That is a very different way of being than gathering information for the sake of knowing it.

Match the Tone of Your Invite to The Audience of Your Survey

You may not think it matters, but the spirit with which you enter into your research is more transparent than you might think.  It starts with the tone of your survey invitation.

These days you don’t get much real estate in which to invite your respondent.  Even if you are lucky enough to use an email invitation to an existing customer, attention spans are short and time to take surveys is even shorter.  The tone of your invitation can make all the difference to your response rate.

If your tone is too academic and rigid, respondents may already know that this will be long and painful.  If your tone is too casual for the audience, they may not take you seriously enough and skip over the survey.

Take the time to match the tone of your invite to the audience.  It also helps to create survey invitations via Twitter (if your survey is open to the public) or Facebook and schedule those throughout several days.

How Would a Spirit of Discovery Change the Questions in Your Survey?

First what is the difference between discovery and knowledge?  When you are in “discovery” mode, anything can happen.  The possibilities are wide open.  And more importantly — YOU are wide open.  You don’t know and you are open to what shows up in the process.

When you “KNOW” something.  You know it.  There is nothing to discuss, nothing to learn.  It just is.  We now know that California lies beyond Ohio there is no discovery there — there is knowledge.  But a couple of hundred years ago, as Europeans were trekking across the country, they didn’t really KNOW what lay ahead.  They had a sense of discovery around their journey.

How would your survey look if you created questions from a mindset of discovery rather than proving something or someone right or wrong?

More importantly, how would your results be reported if you looked at them as components of discovery rather than fact?

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How to Use Research to Develop an Offer Your Ideal Customers Can’t Resist

Posted on June 20, 2011 by | 1 Comment

One of the terrific benefits of DIY market research is that you can reach out to more of your audience more often and get to know them better.  As you profile your audience and learn more about them, you can use their feedback to develop new product and service offers that will blow the competition away — simply because they didn’t take the time to get to know their customer.

Use your subscription list to begin the profile

Many companies have “subscription” lists that they’ve collected from their blogs.  People subscribe to newsletters or download a free e-Book or white paper and then they often just sit there.  Take the time to get a profile of these folks that starts the process to see if they are your ideal customer.

  • Use the MicroPoll feature to build an advisory panel of people.
  • Send them a profiling survey that includes all the standard demographic info and some psychographic questions.
Find out what they want
If you have an existing panel – you can start sending them short surveys either via email or maybe even using their mobile device and the SurveySwipe app.  If you already have a list of customer wants that you’d like to prioritize, then these apps are a dream – you can literally have an answer to a quick question in less than an hour!
If you aren’t sure if what your customers want – try using IdeaScale to start that discussion.  Get your audience to register and start contributing ideas.  IdeaScale is a great way to use crowd sourcing to collect voice of the customer phrases that you can use in your surveys later.
Sometimes your customers will give you “features” and sometimes they will give you “capabilities” and sometimes they will give you “benefits”, your job will be to scrutinize their answers and be sure to classify them accordingly.  Here is my cheat sheet:
  • Features are actual “objects” such as a button or a software function. 
  • Capabilities are what the feature allow you to do
  • Benefits are the value they offer
Here is an example:
The RX 100 has a 30 second saving function (feature) that saves your work as you write (capability) so that you never lose hours of your creative work (benefit).
Your goal is to separate their “wants” from the “features” and the “benefits” — you will use this in developing a great offer, so you want to make sure that you’ve classified their feedback correctly.
Match the WANTS – FEATURES and BENEFITS
The next step in developing your irresistible offer is to match up your customers’ wants to the features that you offer and the benefits.  I like to use this handy template that you can download here:  Irresistible Offering Template
The “What if…” Column is your secret competitive weapon
The template I’ve provided has one last column called “What if…” .  This is a very powerful component of the offering development worksheet.
Here’s how the “what if” column works.  As you go through each customer want, features, capability and benefit your brain will get very engaged into the customer’s world.  Suddenly you’ll find yourself asking questions like “what if we were able to let our customers  _______”
Here is a real example – a local lawyer had clients that were over 65.  The work they did required these clients to drive downtown to get papers signed as well as drive to various banks and offices to sign documents.  Left to their own devices, they often put this off too long and often their legal work didn’t get done in time.  This was a problem for them and the lawyer.
As a part of this exercise, the lawyer asked himself “What if I hired a limo to drive them downtown and to all the other offices?”  This option was actually cheaper than letting them wait too long and miss out on the legal timelines.
So what will you come up with for an irresistible offer?
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Are Market Research Tools an Alternative for Social Media Haters?

Posted on June 3, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Social Media has been around for well over five years, yet many CEOs just don’t see the point.  Most of them leave the social media activities to the marketing folks in their organization.

In a post on DIYMarketers, we explore the idea the some of today’s newest, coolest market research methods can actually be a great alternative for CEOs who hate all the hassle of social media, but want all the results.

Here is a summary of the alternatives:

  • If you hate the idea of losing control of your message, then create your own customer community.  You can create a customer or user panel with whom you are in regular conversation.  Ask the panel questions, via survey, they will give you answers.
  • Still question the ROI of social media?  Create a crowdsourcing space on your site where your customers can tell you their ideas for improvements and new products and you can respond.  Create a real-live brain trust and conversation that gets your customer involved in creating a product they will love and talk about.
  • Sick of people’s stupid updates?  Run surveys and polls on the SurveySwipe mobile platform.  You can blast out a question to our existing community or upload a list of your own.  You’ll get feedback in less than 2 hours!
I was one of the first people in line to criticize CEOs who weren’t taking advantage of the power of social media.  But as I got to really listening to their complaints — I really GOT IT.
The alternatives I’ve described here use the social media platforms, technologies and elements of fun and then target them toward ROI rich, time saving and customer engaging results.
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Learn to Design Killer Surveys From our friends at Research Rockstar

Posted on May 19, 2011 by | Leave a comment
Want to take a crash course on survey design?

Our friends at Research Rockstar are hosting an in-person survey design class on June 9th in Waltham Massachusetts.
This is a fast, practical class that answers key questions about planning and writing online surveys.
The fee is $89 per person, but we have a discount code for our readers: enter code 10FFL to get $10 off.

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How to Use Market Research Techniques to Drive Sales

Posted on May 16, 2011 by | 3 Comments

Traditional market research functions used to live on the more analytical side of most big companies.  The product and marketing managers come to them as technical advisors to ask questions.  They would create and structure scientifically valid focus groups and surveys and weeks or months into the project and much analysis, a marketing campaign would come together and sales would start coming in.  This process didn’t happen EVERY time — but it did happen quite a bit.  Even in the industrial bare bones marketing companies I worked with.

But with the onset of social media and DIYMarketing tools, the time lag between marketing research to sales has shrunk significantly.  I’m struck by how many traditionally “marketing research” functions have migrated to other areas of the business.

Take design testing for web sites.  This used to be a marketing research function, but with Google Analytics and Google Optimizer Landing Page Oprimization and the testing of message effectiveness has earned a new name and a new place in the marketing function.  In my opinion it’s still “research” of sorts, just called by a different name.

Net Promoter Score as also moved into a more active role in business.  Of course companies still ask if you’re “Likely to refer” but in addition to that, they also give you the opportunity to put your money where your mouth is and refer right then and there – by giving you the option to tell a friend.  Another twist on this is to give your site visitors the option to give you feedback on the spot.  I saw this example in the Marketing Technology Blog:

Of course, you can also use tools like IdeaScale and MicroPoll to create other customer engagement opportunities on your web sites and blogs.    Then use the information that customers provide to create an offer that they are more likely to buy more quickly.

The idea isn’t that market research is smaller or less.  The need for customer information hasn’t gone away, in fact, it’s become more important than ever.  What’s missing is the creative applications and strategies that market research provides to help shorten the information to closed sale .

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