Using Market Research to get Sales, Inspiration & Understanding

from your CustomersPart 1: Surveys/Interviews

Borrowed liberally from:

Goodthinking, A Guide to Qualitative Research

&

Hitting the Sweet Spot, How Consumer Insights can Inspire Better Marketing and Advertising

Consumers Say:

“ Give Us What we WANT!”

How do we find out what that is???

MARKET RESEARCH!

Who Are Your Customers?• What Are 3 things Somebody

Ought To Know About Me?• How would you answer that?• Go beyond basic

demographics & purchasing habits

• Every sale is a personal• Find the revealing things that

show you want to really understand your customer

• Make sure you know your Heavy Users (80/20)

Understanding Your Customers…

• Am I defining my customers the way they think about themselves?

• Am I looking at life from their point-of view?

• Am I thinking about ways to bring my products & services to them, rather than expecting them to come to me?

• What do they pick up & put down, what excites them?

• LISTEN and LEARN to read between the lines

• OBSERVE• BE CURIOUS• IMMERSE YOURSELF

• Gather COLOR, TEXTURE, INSIGHT

Creating Surveys-Quantitative Research

SURVEY QUESTIONS (See handout)

• It’s a start to getting to know your Customers….“Involvement Device”

• Open-ended, Long or Short Answer, Multiple Choice, True or False, Likert Scale (1-5), Fill in the Blanks, Matching, Image

• Check out surveymonkey.com, zoomerang.com and more if you need help

What’s Your Objective

• Be clear what you want to accomplish

• Brand or Product Quality, Personality, User, Service, Advertising Recall, etc.

• Customer Demographics, Psychographics, Behavior, Usage, Media Habits

Group Interaction• Write a survey using

questions suggested from the group—try for open-ended answers that give you the “whys” & “hows”

• Be creative & engaging in creating your questions. Have a sense of humor & don’t be afraid to get bad news.

Sample Survey• CUSTOMER SURVEY-Please answer these questions as best you can and turn this survey in at the register. • How frequently do you shop at Anna’s Linens?• Every 2-3 months____ Every month____Twice monthly____ Every week____ First time____ • How long have you shopped at Anna’s Linens? • 1 yr or less____ 1-3 yrs_____ Over 3 years_____ Over 5 years____• Do you shop at the same Anna’s Linen location all the time? Yes____ No____• If no, how many locations do you shop? ____ • Do you get our ads? Yes____ No_____• What do you usually buy? (Check all that apply.)• Sheets____ Comforters ___ Towels____ Curtains___ Window Treatments___

Tablecloths___• Pillows_____ Frames/Accessories____ Other____ (Please name)• Do you come to Anna’s Linens for the (Check all that apply.)• Values____• Selection____• Customer Service____• Famous Name Brands_____• Other______ (Please name)• Where else do you shop for Linens and products Anna’s offers?• Target____ K-Mart ____• Walmart ____ Linens and Things ____• Mervyn’s ____ Macy’s ____• Other______(Please Name)• Would you join a Frequent Shopper Club at Anna’s if we had one? Yes___ No___• If you were a member of Anna’s Frequent Shopper Program, would you rather be rewarded with a small discount on every purchase or a $5

gift certificate every time you spent $100? • Discount______ Gift Certificate_____• Would you carry an actual frequent shopper card from Anna’s? Yes____ No____• Would you shop more often if you had an Anna’s Frequent Shopper Card and got rewarded for shopping? Yes____ No____• Thank you so much for your help today!• Name___________________________________________• Address_________________________________________• City__________________ State______Zip__________• E-mail address____________________________________• Add Privacy Statement here…

Qualitative Research

• Individual Interviews

• Group Interviews (i.e.., Focus Groups)

• Observational Methods

Depth vs. Breadth?

• Individual interviews provide more detailed info on attitudes & behavior of individuals

• Group discussions provide breadth in terms of the range of behaviors & attitudes between individuals attending the group

• Maybe a mix of these methodologies is really what you need

Group vs. Individual?• Why the Group Interview? • Less Intimidating Environment

(Safety in numbers & generates anticipation, excitement, energy)

• Encourage people to build on each others’ views

• Highlights the range of behaviors, attitudes, POV of group in relatively short time

• Window into the cultural/social experiences of the group

Negatives of Group Interviews

• People have different levels of knowledge & understanding-could create unbalanced groups and intimidation

• Social norms & the need to conform to an ideal which is socially or politically correct will predominate

If detailed behavior and attitudinal histories are required…

• Intimate subject matter

• Difficult to recruit respondents

• Complex political/social issues

• Matters of fashion & taste where personal preferences are likely to be extremely varied

Interviews• Respondent selected according to agreed

criteria (age, life stage, gender, social class, marital status, usership profile, etc.)

• Usually 20 minutes (focused issue)-1hour in length & conducted in an agreed venue--place will influence nature of responses-may need to be in real context

• Can help reconstruct process of decision-making

Planning The Interview• Important to plan beforehand• Needs to have an introduction, a warm-up,

open-ended questions to find the unexpected, a topic outline and stimuli to generate response

• From the Surveys and Interviews Handout:• It’s not easy to ask or answer questions• Hard to Recall• What is truth?• Hard to put into words• May not want to tell you • May tell you what you want to hear• May not know themselves• HOW do you talk to customers face-to-face?• Representative of target• Look into their eyes• Keep interviewing until you find the underlying

insights

Interviews: More Tips• The STAR of the interview is the

Consumer • Keep it comfortable for consumer/Treat

like a guest, not a subject• Dress the way your consumer is

dressed• Don’t take notes if you can possibly

avoid it• Tell the consumer WHY he or she is

there• Tell him or her you have no vested

interest in her answers• Act interested in what he has to say• Make the first questions easy to answer• Tell them they don’t have to answer

every question

Interviews: and just a few more…

• Move in from the general to the specific• Most important question: WHY?• Watch someone who interviews people for a

living• Listen HOW people express themselves• Listen for what people DON’T say• Listen for patterns across interviews• Don’t take everything a customer says too

literally• Don’t filter what people say through

preconceived ideas

Projective Questioning/Guided Fantasy: Can be used in Interviews or Group Discussions

• Situation or stimulus that encourages a person to project part of him or herself or an idea system on to an external object or bring to interview. Light-hearted and safe exercises.

• It encourages people to “disown” their thoughts & feelings by attributing them to a “hypothetical average person or group” & to voice beliefs & opinions in complete safety that they might have otherwise withheld.

• “What if …?” leads to better understanding, heightened sensitivity, trust, process

Projective Questions

• Word association, Picture Association, Collages, Brand mapping, Stereotyping

• Projective questioning is a useful way to challenge a group or person by using a hypothetical POV or to test out hypotheses ….

• “People are so different, aren’t they? I was speaking to some students (faculty) yesterday and they said “….” …

• What kind of person do you think they were & why would they say that?

Projective Questions

PRODUCT & BRAND PERSONALITY

• If ____ were a person or an animal, what would he or she be like?

• Strengths or hidden weaknesses, up and comer or passé

• Can tell you about the user’s personality/aspirations

• It is essential for the group members to explain the reasons for their choices and push the explanation towards traits and characteristics.

LADDERING• (Think of a child who keeps asking why

and do the same thing)• For every response from the person you

are interviewing, ask why until you get to the level of detail/involvement that gives you insight

• Attributes: Property of a product/brand• Benefits: How product relates to a person• Values: Needs internal to person• Why, Why, Why?

????

Great “guided fantasy” for Branding Your ______

• Let your mind go back to the last time you visited the______. Put yourself back into the situation and imagine yourself thinking about being there.

• How does it look? What do you see? Hear? Smell? Feel? What kind of thoughts are you having?

• Now you are in the ____-what do you see/hear/feel/smell? • What kinds of thoughts run through your mind? • Now you have left the _____-What do you see, hear, feel

and smell? • What are your thoughts now?

Guided Fantasy

• See if there’s a way you can use this fantasy to elicit feelings about your brand

• OR …do for brands like “Visiting a Starbucks, Barnes & Noble”, etc.

Some examples of projective questioning

• Thinking back on your life, is there anything you’d go back and do differently?

• If you could go forward or backward in time, which way would you go? Where would you go? Why?

• Have you ever seen a movie that could have been made about you? Is there any movie that really captured your life?

• How would you like to be remembered?• If you could change places with anyone for a

day, who would it be?• Ask some of your friends or customers these

questions and then think how would you position your ________ to them?

Comparing Brands/Projective Cont.Imagine that you are walking down a grey

passage. You are going to come to three doors that lead into three worlds & you are going to visit each one in turn and let whatever is in your head come to the surface.

The first door you come to has Coca Cola on the door. Go inside and take a look around. What do you see? What kinds of colors, what kind of people, what are they doing, what is the scenery like, where is this place? What do you hear? How loud or soft is it? What do you smell? What do you taste? How do you feel in this space-is it a place you feel comfortable in or is it one you want to go away from? What atmosphere and mood does it put you in?

Now you are going to leave and go to the next door which has Pepsi Cola on the door….[repeat prompts]

Surveys and Interviews• Now try it, and do

surveys or interviews with potential customers or users. Use these ideas going forward to create better research and insight about your projects, etc.