Array
(
    [child_of] => 122
    [hide_empty] => 
    [orderby] => name
    [order] => ASC
)

Array
(
    [child_of] => 124
    [hide_empty] => 
    [orderby] => name
    [order] => ASC
)

Array
(
    [child_of] => 135
    [hide_empty] => 
    [orderby] => name
    [order] => ASC
)

Ah, a rose by any other name smells just as sweet! Roses? Well, instead of using the phrase Usage and Attitude, you might hear some people use the phrase Habits and Practices. And instead of shortening it down to U&A, they’ll shorten it down to H&P. Whether you’re interested in a U&A or an H&P, we’re generally talking about the same thing. Use the acronym you prefer and we’ll all gain more valuable insights into consumer behavior, attitudes, and usage patterns.

 

 

What is a Usage and Attitude Study?

Usage and Attitudes studies aim to understand a broad range of behaviors and attitudes related to the people experiencing a product or service. It’s relevant for all products like food, beverages, hair care, and electronics, as well as services like healthcare, banking, and education.

 

Most U&As gather information about the brand of interest, as well as competitive brands and the category as a whole. This ensures you gain a full understanding of any behaviors and attitudes that could eventually be relevant and important to the brand of interest.

 

 

Why is a Usage and Attitude Study Important?

U&As create a solid foundation for building a brand. They serve a number of important benefits in a variety of key areas.

 

People: Know your buyer and your consumer

• Create more relevant and memorable messaging by understanding the unique demographic and psychographic characteristics of each segment of users that has been identified in any segmentation research you’ve conducted
  
• Understand purchase drivers associated with each persona, e.g., price, availability, loyalty, packaging, sensory features, sustainability, durability
• Plan for the future by identifying what each segment needs and wants from an ideal product
• Differentiate between the needs of buyers (e.g., availability, pricing) and users (e.g., efficacy, sensation), and ensure the targeted message reaches each audience

 

Place: Know your buyers’ preferred information and purchase channels

• Focus your marketing spend in the most effective channels by identifying the marketing and sales channels and influencers that are most effective and important at each stage of the purchase journey

 

Pricing: Know your buyers’ preferred pricing models

• Create the most effective pricing model by understanding attitudes towards various pricing strategies, e.g., every day low pricing vs sales vs bundling
  

 

Promotion: Know your buyers’ preferred promotion tactics

• Create the most effective promotion model by understanding which types of promotions are relevant for your buyers, e.g., in-store promotions, OOH promotions, door-to-door promotions

 

Product: Know what your consumer needs and wants from your product

• Prevent switching and abandonment by identifying and resolving frustrations, complaints, and pain points
• Encourage purchase by identifying and reminding people of desired benefits and advantages
• Plan product improvements by understanding which product features people love and hate

 

Strategy: Know how to position and plan for the future

• Plan for a more competitive long-term evolution of your brand and potential brand extensions by understanding the competitive space
• Predict the growth and avoidable decline of your brand by maintaining and tracking accurate norms as they relate to current culture and society 
• Create a data-driven baseline that can be used to support strategic decisions unaffected by changes in leadership
• Forecast category and brand growth

 

 

What Questions to Ask in a Usage and Attitude Study

As with any research project, there is an unlimited number of questions that could be asked. The key is to identify the specific research objectives for the imminent research project and focus the questions there.

 

Then, select a set of engaging questions that will keep the entire questionnaire to less than 15 minutes long. Don’t try to do everything or the data quality will suffer.

 

 

Brand Metrics

• Awareness: When you think of this product category, which brands come to mind first?
• Aided Awareness: From this list of brands, which ones have you heard of?
• Discovery: How did you first hear about this brand?
• Trial: Which brands of this category have you ever tried?
• Trial: Why did you decide to try this brand?
• Consideration: When you think of this product category, which brands would you consider buying?
• Consideration: From this list of brands, which ones would you considering buying?
• Preference: When you think of this product category, which brand do you most prefer?
• Loyalty: If your preferred brand was not available in your usual store, what would you do?
• Perceptions: Which 5 of these words reflect your opinions about this brand?
• Perceptions: What 3 things do you like about this brand? What 3 things do you dislike about this brand?
• Perceptions: Which of these brands is most innovative? Fun? Likeable? Effective? Appealing? Different?
• Perceptions: What is your opinion about the effectiveness of this brand? Quality? Appearance? Texture? Taste? Scent? Sound? Durability? Sustainability?
• Perceptions: Overall, what is your opinion about this brand?

 

 

Product Usage

• In your household, which of these people use this category?
• In your household, who uses this category most often?
• Where in your home is this category used?
• At what time of day/week/month/year is this category used?
• How is this category used?
• What occasions is this category used for? Every day? Holidays? Religious days? Birthdays?

 

 

Purchase Journey:

• Who usually buys the product?
• What are all the places where this category/brand is bought?
• Where is this category/brand usually bought?
• Where do you prefer to buy this category?
• On the next shopping trip, which brands will be bought?

 

 

Purchase Frequency / Recency / Monetary

• How often is each of these brands bought?
• How often is each of these brands used?
• In just the last 7 days, which of these brands have been bought?
• When was the last time each of these brands have been bought?
• What size package of category/brand is usually bought? What size is preferred?
• At what time of the day/week/month/year is this brand/category usually bought?
• The last time this category/brand was bought, about how much was spent on it?
• The last time this category/brand was bought, were any coupons or cost savings used?
• What is your opinion about using coupons? Buying at regular price? BOGOs?

 

 

Personal Details

• Demographics: Age, gender, income, education, ethnicity, religion, household size, children in home
• Psychographics: Personal attitudes towards relevant category characteristics, e.g., sustainability, early adoption, pricing preferences

 

 

Why Ask About Behaviors that Can Be Measured Digitally?

 

If time and money were no objectives, many metrics could be confirmed visually or digitally. Sometimes, however, it’s faster and easier to just ask people. Sometimes the data isn’t available in a properly formatted, readable database. Sometimes the data isn’t available for purchase. And sometimes, we need to match attitude data with behavior data for specific people.

 

Or, and this is much more interesting, maybe we want to understand what people think they are doing. The way people think about or recall their behaviors is an indirect measure of awareness, loyalty, believability, and likeability. If people can’t remember which brand they buy, whether the name or the logo, that’s not a great indicator of brand loyalty which could permit a premium pricing strategy.

 

 

 

What’s Next?

Most brands are well served to conduct a U&A study. If you’re ready to discover top quality insights about your buyers, brands, and business, email your project specifications to our research experts using Projects at E2Eresearch dot com. We’d love to help you turn your enigmas into enlightenment!

 

 

 

 

Learn more from our case studies

• Customer Behavioral Segmentation to Support Targeted Marketing – A BFSI data analytics case study
• Increasing Enrollment Through A More Meaningful Brand Purpose – An education survey case study
• Modeling a Consumer Response Hierarchy to Guide Brand Strategy – A personal care survey analytics case study
• Understanding Patient Preferences to Inform Differentiation Strategy – A medical device patient survey case study

 

Learn more from our other blog posts

• Getting started with consumer, customer, and market segmentation
• 8 Engaging Question Types to Improve Participants’ Survey Taking Experience
• Journey Mapping from Enigma to Enlightenment: An E2E Research Webinar
• A Brand Manager’s Practical Guide to Brand Tracking

 

What is brand equity?

Think about a brand you absolutely love – a store you can never wait to go to, a product that makes you grin just thinking about it.

 

Now think about brands you absolutely hate – a product or company that makes millions of people roll their eyes and groan with disgust.

 

That’s brand equity! Or lack thereof.

 

Brand equity is a complex construct. At its core, it’s a subjective perception of a brand’s value, quality, performance, and personal relevance. It incorporates consumer perceptions related to the product and its packaging, presentation, mission, vision, and values.

 

An easy way to think about brand equity is that it’s the difference in price and preference between an unbranded (or store brand) product and a branded product. Even though they’re the exact same thing – soda, butter, oil, beef, corn, eggs, many people will choose the brand name version because of the higher value they perceive it to have.

 

It can take a long time to build brand equity but one wrong move and it can be destroyed in seconds.

 

 

Why is brand equity important?

There are many benefits to building brand equity, and collectively their benefits are massive.

• Premium pricing: One of the key benefits of high brand equity is the ability to charge premium pricing. When people believe in and love a brand, they will pay more for it. Coffee is coffee but people will pay more for coffee that comes in a cup with a Starbucks brand on it, a name they know and trust. That higher price leads to higher profits which, of course, leads to greater financial success.

 

• Low price elasticity: When people value a brand, they are more likely to purchase that brand even in competitive situations. High equity brands don’t have to worry as much that competitive brands will ‘steal’ their customers with a great BOGO or intriguing offer. And, they don’t have to spend as much time and money creating offers to convince competitive buyers to try their products.

 

• Customer lifetime value: When brands create high equity, their customers are more loyal to the brand and purchase more of their products over a longer time period. Even better, those loyal customers are more likely to try new products created by the brand, whether in the same or other categories. The trust has already been built and customers don’t have to overcome the fear of trying a new brand. They simply need to determine whether the new product meets their needs.

 

• Market resilience: Products with high brand equity are more likely to endure during uncertain circumstances. When environmental, social, and political events necessitate a change in purchase and behavioural patterns, people will still try to retain consistency in their lives. High equity brands offer consistency, trust, and reliability when consumers need it most.

 

• Market power: As a high equity brand that people trust and desire, you have increased opportunities to attract and demand the best. Your demonstrated power in the marketplace means you can attract the best employees, the best suppliers, the best investors, and also negotiate the best prices and rates.

 

 

 

How to Build Brand Equity?

Brand equity can take a long time to build. However, there are a number of strategies and tactics that companies can leverage to get there. The key is playing the long game.

• Understand consumer needs and values: By understanding what consumers truly want and need, you can ensure your products and services are relevant to them. Take advantage of quantitative questionnaires and qualitative focus groups and interviews to understand customer journeys, gaps and pain points, customer personas, and customer segments. Dig deep to uncover their physical, emotional, social, psychological, environmental, and spiritual needs so that you can discover what might convert them from casual tryers to long-term, loyal advocates.

 

• Understand product differentiators: Not only do you need to understand your buyers and prospects, you need to understand what attributes elevate your products and services ahead of your competitors. Primary and secondary research will help you understand the competitive marketplace, market positioning, innovation opportunities, or opportunities for product optimization.

 

• Fine-tune your messaging: Once you understand your consumers and your products, ensure your messaging is in alignment. Primary research will help you ensure your product messaging and campaign research focus on messages that resonate with your customers and address their key values, unmet needs, values, and pain points.

 

• Deliver on promises: It may sound easy, but delivering on your brand promise is tough. Most brands have many disparate channels, all of which need to present your brand and your products in an unrelentingly consistent way. Whether in-store, on the phone, or online, your brand’s character, values, and vision must drive every customer interaction and business decision in a consistent way.

 

• Foster loyalty: It’s important to foster loyalty among your existing customers. Pay attention to your most loyal customers and create opportunities to reward and encourage them. Give them reasons to continue loving your brand whether that’s special offers or enhanced customer service.

 

• Drive awareness: If you’ve been paying attention to the animated image to the right, you’ve probably been able to name the brand behind every single logo. Despite the fact that not a single brand name is shown. This is brand equity. And this is the level of brand awareness that every brand ultimately strives for. When your customers and prospects recognize your brand colors and shapes, it’s far easier for them to find and choose your brand off the shelf, virtual or physical. Run carefully targeted advertising campaigns on a variety of relevant channels that focus on your benefits, stories, and value to help consumers learn, and connect your messages and your branding. Try a variety of relevant tactics such as influencer marketing, celebrity endorsements, or event marketing.

 

• Create positive customer relationships: Customer experiences are no longer confined to the physical store. Brands need to create positive experience across every physical and digital touchpoint including their own online stores and social media channels like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Pay attention and respond quickly to customers sharing their opinions on review websites like Amazon, Foursquare, and Yelp.

 

 

 

Positive brand equity vs. negative brand equity

When people pay more for a brand even when there are equivalent yet lower priced brands available, that’s positive brand equity.

 

But, when people avoid or ignore a brand, even when it’s pricing is very competitive, that’s negative brand equity. For some companies, negative brand equity can destroy a brand such that consumers quickly forget it ever existed. For others, the negative equity is fleeting and at least somewhat recoverable.

 

Amazon: Since starting up as a book seller, Amazon’s focused effort on meeting customer needs has resulted in amazing brand equity. Because of their unquestioning return policies, unending selection, and ability to get product in hand in mere hours, customers are fiercely loyal. That’s positive brand equity.

 

Apple: Apple is another great example of a company with positive brand equity. Their customers are massively loyal. Even though Apple products are known to be pricey, customers line up every time a new product is released even if their existing product still works great. Customers trust the quality, reliability, and functionality of Apple products and remain loyal customers for years. Why? Because Apple focuses on creating innovative, self-explanatory products that meet customer needs every single time.

 

Chipotle: In 2015, Chipotle experienced a food poisoning crisis which led to a $25 million federal fine. After years of positive growth, that crisis caused the brand value to decline sharply. It was several years before they managed to regain consumer trust, and recover and grow their brand value. This is a great example of positive brand equity turned negative and then reverting to positive again.

 

McDonald’s: Though McDonald’s has been the #1 burger chain for years, they struggle with ongoing negative brand equity. Customers and consumers have complained about unhealthy food options for decades, and that perception seems relenting no matter how McDonald’s tries to head it off.

 

Starbucks: Want some high-priced coffee? Well, Starbucks customers are willing to pay a premium because they love the high-quality product and they love the top-notch customer experience – even when their name is accidentally (deliberately?) misspelled on their cup. Whether you’re a customer or not, everyone immediately recognizes the logo of this high equity brand.

 

Toms: People love the Toms shoe company. Why? Not only do they make a great shoe, they donate a pair of shoes with every purchase. This human centered value makes customers feel good about their purchases, and keeps them coming back again and again to support a company that matches their own values.

 

 

 

How to Measure Brand Equity

Because brand equity is so multi-faceted, measuring it isn’t simple nor templated. It’s important to incorporate a range of relevant quantitative and qualitative metrics, as well as financial and market assessments to gain a holistic view of brand equity.

 

Quantitative metrics: As part of a quantitative questionnaires, there is a wide range of questions that can be posed to consumers and customers to better understand your brand equity. As you’ll seen in the images below, these kinds of questions can be posed not simply as traditional radio buttons and checkboxes, but also as interactive, engaging image style questions.

• Brand awareness: What three brands come to mind first when you think of washing detergent? What other brands have you heard of?
• Brand perception: Which of the following words reflect how you feel about this brand of washing detergent?
• Consideration: On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely are you to buy the following brands of washing detergent the next time you go shopping?
• Loyalty: On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend the following brands of washing detergent to your friends or family?
• Loyalty: How often do you buy the following brands of washing detergent?
• Trial: If this brand of washing detergent were to release a fabric softener, how likely are you to try it?
• Customer experience: On a scale from 1 to 10, what is your opinion about the customer service you received from our online chatbot or our social media or telephone representative?

.

.

Qualitative metrics: Of course, there is far more to measuring brand equity than focusing on quantitative questions. Focus groups, interviews, and other qualitative tools like online communities are also excellent ways to measure brand equity.  By combining qual and quant methods, you can gain a more holistic view of this subjective construct. Here is a sample of some types of questions and tasks to incorporate in qualitative research, again with a couple examples of how more qualitative questions can be incorporated into traditional online measurements.

• What is your opinion of this logo and imagery?
• Describe 3 things you love about this brand and 3 things you hate about this brand.
• Why do you buy the following brands of washing detergent?
• Why would you choose one brand of washing detergent over another?
• Which of the following images reflect how you feel about this brand of washing detergent? Tell me why.
• If this brand of washing detergent was a person, how would you describe it?

 

 

Behavioral/transactional metrics: Financial and company metrics are also extremely important for understanding brand equity.

• Company metrics: What is the value of the company, and is it increasing?
• Brand metrics: What is the market share of the brand, and is it increasing? What is the profit of the brand, and is it increasing? What is the price difference compared to generic brands, and is it increasing? What is the purchase volume and frequency for the brand, and is it increasing?
• Employee metrics: What is the cost of employee acquisition, and is it decreasing? What is the average tenure of an employee, and is it increasing? How many applications per open position are received, and is it increasing?
• Customer metrics: What is the cost of customer acquisition, and is it decreasing? What is the average tenure of a customer, and is it increasing? How many customer complaints are receiving during a specific time frame, and is it decreasing?

 

 

What’s Next?

Are you ready to discover top quality insights about your brand and grow your brand equity? Email your project specifications to our research experts using Projects at E2Eresearch dot com. We’d love to help you better understand your buyers and your brand to help you turn your enigmas into enlightenment!

 

Learn more from our case studies

• Stretching Brand Equity into White Spaces Using Data Fusion – A pharmaceutical data analytics case study
• Benchmarking Brand Awareness and Competitive Brand Space – A consumer food survey case study
• Increasing Enrollment Through A More Meaningful Brand Purpose – An education survey case study

 

 

Books and Videos You Might Like

• Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity by Kevin Lane Keller and Vanitha Swaminathan
• The Strategy of Global Branding and Brand Equity by Alvin Lee, Jinchao Yang, Richard Mizerski, and Claire Lambert
• Brand Equity & Advertising: Advertising’s Role in Building Strong Brands by David A. Aaker and Alexander Biel

 

What is a persona?

Simply put, personas are short, simple descriptions of a group of targeted people but written as if they were describing one single person. The best personas are grounded in quantitative and qualitative research and summarize the demographics, psychographics, motivations, needs, and goals of those people.  You might also see them referred to as Buyer Personas, Customer Personals, Patient Personas, User Personas, or something similar.

 

Personas are a fantastic way to ensure that a business puts the customer at the center of everything they do, whether it’s product development, packaging, messaging, or customer service. As we all know, the most successful companies focus not on their own desires, but rather on ensuring their customers’ needs and desires are met. Building personas is a great way to get there.

 .

.

.

How do marketers and researchers use personas?

Personas are particularly useful when combined with segmentation and journey mapping research. After conducting segmentation research, you’ll have a list of very specific details and statistics about each of the various groups of consumers who are, or may become, relevant to your brand. You will also be able to identify which segments are valuable enough to pursue and therefore would benefit from having a persona. And, after personas have been built, you can use them to map the journey each persona would take as they progress on their path to learning about your category, your brand, and finally choosing a product to purchase.

 

There are many ways to use personas, but here are seven of the more common use cases for marketers and researchers.

 

• Understand your customers: Fundamentally, personas help you understand who your customers are. On just one page, they provide a clear description of the key traits, needs, and desires of each important customer segment, and what makes each of them distinct and valuable.

• Shared understanding of the target audience: Particularly in larger companies where people and departments are often siloed, personas help ensure that everyone has access to the same understanding of who they’re trying to serve. A single reference point means that messaging for each persona is consistent regardless of whether it’s used on packaging, in a campaign, or on the website.

• Fact-based decision making: Whether you’re in marketing, product development, or executive leadership, it’s really easy to generate ideas and run with them. But for decisions to lead to business success, they need to be grounded in fact not unconsciously biased, personal perceptions. With your idea in hand, confirm that it matches up with the personas that have been carefully built to support your work.

• Tailor campaigns and messaging: There is an infinite number of messages you could share about your products and brands but which one is the right one? As you brainstorm potential messages, regularly refer to the appropriate persona to ensure your messaging is relevant, and therefore heard and attended to.

• Target high yield channels: Sure, you can drop some funny or educational videos on TikTok or buy a Facebook ad. But if your best customers don’t like either of those channels, you’ve just wasted a lot of money. Using personas will help you make sure you spend your marketing dollars on the channels your targeted persona prefers to use.

• Prioritize product development: What do you do when you’ve got 5 great products on the go but only enough people and budget to work on two? You review your personas to identify which products would be most desirable to your high value or underserved personas.

• Tailor new product development: Is your product development team ready to work on a brand new product? It’s time to get out the personas. Which persona has the greatest needs or product gaps? Brainstorm ideas with that specific persona in mind.

..

.

How many personas do you need?

Depending on the size and complexity of your business, you might need 1 or 2 personas or 15 to 20 personas.

 

If you’re just beginning the process, start with 1 or 2 or your most important segments. You can work on more later as you better understand what you need from your personas and how you will use them.

 

Here are examples of three (excessively brief) personas that might be useful for a small, online company that makes cosmetics. Daisy and Chris could be the most important personas to concentrate on in the early years because they will form the core customers of the business. Then, over time, as the company grows into having a retail outlet, they might need to add another persona to incorporate occasional high spenders.

.

.

Tips for building an effective persona

As you build out your personas, remember a few key tips.

 

• The goal isn’t to include every precise detail about every research participant. Focus on shared commonalities and broad generalizations.
• Similarly, notice what makes each segment or persona different and ensure those differences are clear in the details.
• Even though personas are a generalized idea of a group of people, they aren’t stereotypes. Personas are based on data collected using scientific methods, not personal perceptions and opinions. If you find that a persona incorporates stereotypes, refer back to your research method and your data, and ensure that you’re not incorporating your own personal biases.
• Personas should be concise and clear. Sure, you could probably write a long essay with the information gathered from a segmentation study. However, the goal is to get a quick feel for each persona. When you’re just starting out, try to keep persona biographies under 200 words, particularly if you are working with many personas.
• Finally, if your personas don’t relate to a specific age, gender, ethnicity, disability, or sexuality, be sure to reflect a wide range of people across all of the personas.

.

.

Components of an effective persona

When you’re ready to build each person, make sure to consider each of these four key parts. None of them are as simple as they may seem!

 

• Headshot: As the person designing the personas, you need to make sure everyone who uses them remembers that they reflect real people. This is why you want headshots of real people rather than clip art drawings or illustrations. Further if there are no appearance differences among the personas, don’t be led down the erroneous path where they all end up looking like you ethnically and demographically. There are plenty of stock art websites that include people of all genders, ages, ethnicities, disabilities, sexualities, and personal styles (e.g., Pexels, Pixabay, AffectTheVerb, Jopwell, Nappy).
• Humanistic name: Come up with a meaningful name, not a gamey name like “Susy Shopper” or “Mohammed the Hoarder.” Your customers are real people, not jokes. 1) Think about the age of the persona and then search out a list of names from that decade. 2) Think about the gender of the persona. If the persona isn’t gender specific, choose a name that isn’t stereotypically associated with a specific gender (e.g., Chris, Noor, Alex, Blair, Nehal, Robin). 3) Think about names that have some kind of relation to the persona. For instance, “Heather” works well for a woman who is environmentally conscious whereas “Dusty” works well for a carefree, disorganized person. As before, avoid choosing names from a single ethnicity unless that is truly representative of all the personas.
• Biography: You’ve probably got a hundred bullet point details from the segmentation research. Now it’s time to weave those details into an interesting, short story about the person. Keep it short, simple, and interesting. You’re supposed to be writing about a real person so make the bio come alive. Don’t try to include every detail in the summary. Build a picture in your mind based on those details and describe the person as eloquently as you can.
• Quotes: As a bonus, you may wish to write a quote that reflects each persona. Think about whether that persona would use incomplete or full sentences, simple or complex words (e.g., “buy” or “purchase”), new or old slang (e.g., “spill the tea” or “chew the fat”), or casual vs extreme profanity (e.g., dang or f***).

 

Finally, what kinds of details belong in the biography? This depends on the type of product and target audience you’re working with. If you’re building a persona for a consumer product, you’ll want to pay more attention to personal demographics and psychographics. On the other hand, if you’re building a B2B profile, you’ll need to focus more on professional details. Here is a good list of starting details.

.

.

Demographics	Psychographics	Profession	Category
Age, gender, income, education, marital status, household size, children, religion, where they live	Personal life goals, personality traits, values, motivations, goals, pain points, information seeking Hobbies, interests, sports, music, arts Publications they read, channels they watch, use of online and offline media	Industry, company, company size, job title, job level, skills, qualifications, decision-making role, technology used	Brands they like and dislike, related categories they use and don’t use Favorite influences and channels Typical challenges, barriers, and pain points with the brand and category Consideration and purchase motivations, messaging preferences

.

After all your hard work, it’s time to present your findings in a creative, visual display such as what you see in this simple yet detailed example. If you want to see the full spectrum of possibilities, do a quick image search for “customer personas.” You’re sure to find inspiration for your own designs!

.

 

 

What’s Next?

Now that you’ve seen first-hand how helpful a user or customer persona can be, it’s time to build some customized personas of your own! If you haven’t already done so, start with a segmentation study to identify each of your customer segments and the details that will go into the personas. If you’d like some help along the way, email your project specifications to our research experts using Projects at E2Eresearch dot com. Let’s turn your enigmas into enlightenment!

 

.

Podcasts You Might Like

• Navigating the Customer Experience with Yanique Grant
• The Intuitive Customer with Colin Shaw
• Crack the Customer Code with Jeannie Walters and Adam Toporek
• The Chief Customer Officer Human Duct Tape Show with Jeanne Bliss

.

Learn more from our case studies

• Consumer Perceptions Towards Online Ordering – A retail survey + desk research case study
• Identifying Target Audiences of Two New Tea Variants – An IHUT + JAR analysis case study
• Increasing Enrollment Through A More Meaningful Brand Purpose – An education survey case study

.

Learn more from our other blog posts

• Getting started with consumer, customer, and market segmentation
• How to conduct a journey mapping research project
• Tips for the First-Time Conjoint Analysis Researcher

Journey maps are commonly created in the market and consumer industry to illustrate a set of steps taken to accomplish a goal. Well designed maps help marketers, brand managers, and researchers understand how people perceive and interact with overt and covert stakeholders, products, channels, and services along their way to completing that final goal.

 

Journey maps used to be simple, and the details and processes often seemed obvious. Today, however, with the internet in our pockets providing unlimited opportunities to talk to people around the world, learn about millions of new products and companies, and acquire nearly any product within hours or days of hearing about it, journeys are extremely complex. They’ve evolved from linear 5-step journeys into 30-stage ricocheting piles of spaghetti.

 

As such, it’s important to conduct well-rounded research to ensure erroneous assumptions and misconceptions aren’t included, and to ensure all aspects of the journey, both hidden and obvious, are accounted for.

 

Journey maps are more complicated and more necessary than ever.
..

.

What kinds of journeys can we map?

Nearly any journey wherein people progress through a set of stages, interacting with channels or people, over a short or long time frame to accomplish a goal can be mapped. Here are just a few of the more common journey maps that marketers and brand managers use.

 

• Customer journeys: How do consumers, or your customers, discover the need for and end up buying a product? Where do they learn about various products, who do they talk to along the way, at what point do they finally buy one and how?
• Patient journeys: How does a patient or care-giver discover a health issue and follow through to a treatment plan? What was the initial point of discovery, who did they talk to about their concerns at each step, when did they choose a healthcare provider, how did they choose from among the treatment options?
• Recruitment journeys: How does a person decide to seek employment and follow through until they have settled into a new role? What created the initial interest, where did they turn to for advice about hiring companies, how did they select a best role?
• Financial journeys: How does a person decide to buy a home and follow through on that major expenditure? What caused the interest in the beginning, where did they go for advice about large loans, and how did they choose a mortgage provider?

.

Why create a journey map?

Maps aren’t simply pretty pictures that make great wall posters. In addition to illustrating an entire journey on one convenient page, they serve a number of important purposes.

 

• Facts over factoids: Assumptions about processes, pain points, strengths, and weaknesses are easily affected by context and perspective. Every brand manager, marketer, researcher, and customer has a different view of the journey which is affected by their role, life experience, and current needs. Data-driven journey maps are simply more accurate and all-encompassing than anecdata-driven journey maps.
• Resolve issues: By mapping the journey, you’ll be able to identify strengths, weaknesses, and pain points that are negatively impacting people at any stage in the experience. You’ll learn which mobile apps need improved navigation, identify disjointed online and offline experiences that need fixing, and be better able to ensure people receive key messages at critical times via the channel they prefer.
• Optimize spend: Once you discover which channels people are accessing – or not accessing – during their journey and what the strengths, weaknesses, and pain points of those channels are, you can allocate your spend more wisely. You may discover new channels, realize the need to optimize favorite channels, or decide to eliminate out-of-date channels.
• Innovate: Journey maps will help you identify gaps in product development or processes that can be solved by creating new tools, products, or services.
• Plan for the future: When you understand where your business is today, you can plan for tomorrow. Identify which experiences can be enhanced and improved for everyone.
• Level-setting: When everyone has the same understanding of the journey, it’s easier to ensure that every touch-point meets your high standards and best practices. You’ll be better able to reduce silos and increase efficiencies of functions and tools across the company.
• Understand personas/segments: Every product or service can be represented by multiple journey maps, each reflecting a unique segment of people. As you understand each segment more precisely, you can improve each experience in a more targeted, relevant way.

.

How to conduct a journey mapping research project

Set Clear Goals: The most important component of every research project, including journey mapping research, is to set clear goals and objectives for what you want and need to achieve. In addition to creating the map itself, you will need to specify how you intend to use the map once it’s complete. For example:

 

• Why do so few people use the mobile app?
• How can we better serve omnichannel customers?
• Where are our communication gaps?
• Why do we lose so many consumers after they call our help-line?

Review Secondary Research: Take the time to review any existing qualitative and quantitative research you may have conducted over the last several years. Though it may not directly focus on the journey experience, there are likely to be important tidbits of knowledge that will help you design your data collection instrument – take note of people, processes, and channels mentioned and ensure they are covered in the new instrument.

 

Detail the Research Questions: As you prepare to build your data collection tool, focus on all aspects of the human experiences – who, what, where, when, why, and how. Let high quality data tell you how many stages there really are rather than trying to fit people into preconceived notions.

 

• Who: Which personas would benefit the most from journey mapping? Who are the direct and indirect people the consumer could possibly come into contact with? Consider people at the call-center, people answering questions on Twitter, people in finance, operations, and management who may be called in to help with more difficult problems.
• What: What messages and information people need at each stage? What are their motivations? What are they getting or not getting? What are their pain points and barriers?

• Where: Where do customers seek information or products? Are they experiencing the journey from home, work, school, or the retail outlets? Are they experiencing it on a mobile device, a desktop computer, or in person?
• When: Think about how journeys change when they are experienced in the daytime, evening, nighttime, or weekends. Is the journey one day, one week, one month, or one year long?
• Why: Why did customers start or stop each point in the journey?
• How: How do customers feel about each point? How do they perceive each stage? What are they thinking and believing? Where is their breaking point or their moment of exhilaration?

Identify the Research Method: Ideally, both qualitative and quantitative research techniques should be used to ensure you capture all potential aspects of the journey. Starting with qualitative techniques allows you to probe deeply and ensure that subsequent quantitative techniques are properly informed.

 

• In-Depth Interviews: Whether in-person, over the phone, or virtual, personal interviews are the perfect method for diving deep into every single aspect of an individual’s journey. Not only are first hand accounts great at creating empathy among company stakeholders, the ability to probe with multiple “whys” ensures you can dig down to the inner most held beliefs and opinions associated with a behavior.
• Online Communities: Most journeys last far longer than a few minutes. Buying shampoo could be a ten minute or ten-day journey whereas a house hunting journey could take a year. Online communities are an effective way to bring people together to discuss each other’s unique journeys and discover which steps are common or unique, and why. For consumer goods mapping, you could even ask participants to maintain and share a diary throughout their journey.

• Observational Research: We all know the saying that actions speak louder than words. That’s why it can be extremely beneficial to include observational research as part of journey mapping research. Most commonly, this research is conducted by researchers quietly observing people as they progress through their journey in retail outlets. However, observations can also be made of digital behaviors after first getting permission to record people’s browser activities.
• Surveys: Finally, finishing with a quantitative survey will help ensure your final outcome is not only comprehensive, but also reflective of the broader population.  Remember to build surveys that incorporate data quality techniques and include fun question types that help participants remain engaged during the research process.
  

 .

What’s Next?

Are you ready to gain a thorough understanding of your customers’ journeys? Email your project specifications to our research experts using Projects at E2Eresearch dot com. We’d love to help you turn your enigmas into enlightenment!

 

Learn more from our case studies

 

• Communicating More Effectively with Insurance Customers – A bulletin board case study
• Mapping a Patient Funnel to Mitigate Treatment Barriers – A cancer patient survey case study
• Removing Customer Barriers to Auto Insurance Renewals – An insurance survey case study

 

Learn more from our other blog posts

 

• How to Leverage TikTok as a Consumer and Customer Insights Tool
• 8 Engaging Question Types to Improve Participants’ Survey Taking Experience
• Everything You Need to Know about Conducting Effective Secondary Research
• The Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of Online Insight Communities

In market and consumer research, segmentation is the process of categorizing consumers, customers, companies, or markets into distinct groups or segments based on your desired criteria.

 

The hope is that each member of a segment shares a set of characteristics with others in their segment, characteristics that are distinct from members of the other segments. Oranges with oranges, and bananas with bananas.

 

Why is segmentation so important?

 

Well, we know that people don’t care about everything. They care about things that are particularly relevant to their situation – their demographics, their psychographics, their hobbies, their political views, their geographical location.

 

Rather than broadcasting the same market messages to everyone or the offering the same product to everyone, segmentation allows marketers and advertisers to increase the odds that people will notice, pay attention to, and act on messages they see because those messages are particularly relevant to them. That means directing chew toy promotions to people who have dogs, gardening products to gardeners who love succulents, and restaurant promotions to area residents who love Indian food.  This targeted approach leads to increased appeal, trial, and repurchase.

 

As with any research study, segmentation research is fluid. In response to cultural, political, social, and economic shifts over time, consumer opinions and behaviors evolve in response.

The behaviors and targeting strategies of marketers, advertisers, and business leaders must also evolve in response. When major events such as pandemics and extreme economic uncertainty take place, existing segmentation strategies can quickly become irrelevant, necessitating a refresh before a typical 3 to 5 year period is up.

.

.

What and who can be segmented?

 

Just about anything can be segmented!

 

• Consumers: Consumers are people who use products and services from food and beverage to personal care items to financial services – basically everyone! Consumers can be segmented into an infinite number of categories depending on your unique needs.
• Customers: Customers are a segment of consumers. They are the people who use or buy the specific product YOU sell.  Ideally, you want to find segments of consumers that could become your customers.
• Markets: Markets can also be segmented based on many criteria to find geographical regions, retailer categories, or channel categories where your product or service would be best suited for use.

.

.

What are the key benefits of segmentation?

 

There are many benefits of a market segmentation but what follows are a few key benefits. Segmentation allows you to:

 

• Identify most and least valuable people: Segmentation research will help you identify nuggets of gold, those groups of people who have the highest ROI, so you can increase your targeting and resourcing efforts with them. Similarly, segmentation will help you identify who has the weakest ROI so you can consider decreasing any resources focused on them.
• Identify unknown people: Segmentation research may identify an important group of consumers you were previously unaware of, or a product feature that warrants extra or different messaging or promotions.
• Improve connections with people: Following through on segmentation strategies proves to consumers you understand and will address their unique needs. This increases your likeability and top of mind awareness.
• Create products that are more desirable: When you understand the unique needs of various segments, you can improve existing and create new products and services that are better equipped to meet their needs, leading to increased trial and repurchase.
• Create promotions, pricing, and placements that are more desirable: Once you’ve created or improved a product, you will be better able to identify the best pricing and promotion models, and best channels for each segment. In other words, fewer dollars are wasted on ineffective strategies and more dollars go towards effective strategies.

.

.

What are the key features of a successful segmentation model?

 

Consumers, customers, companies, and markets can be described in many different ways. However, without these four characteristics, a segmentation strategy is sure to fail. As you build your model, make sure it incorporates each of these four requirements.

 

• Operationalizable: Each segment must have describable characteristics. For example, it’s impossible to target people who have some kind of, strange, well, you know, emotional sort of feeling about soup. However, you CAN act on people who visit a soup shop every month, who buy soup once a week, or who select “Strongly agree” to a question like “Eating soup makes me feel happy.”
• Actionable: Segments must be described in a way that allows members to be found. For instance, without knowing where someone lives, you cannot deliver a soup coupon to their door. Or, if they don’t use a TV, it makes no sense to create a television commercial for them about soup.
• Size of Opportunity: Segments must be large enough to warrant the cost of targeting them. You may be able to identify 400 people who would be interested in soup made with insects but…
• Value of Opportunity: Segments must have sufficient value to warrant the cost of targeting them. Targeting a segment of people who are interested in soup made with insects is not worth the investment if they’ll only buy it once as joke.

.

.

What are the types of segmentation models?

 

The best segmentation models are effective because they incorporates a range of complementary demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral variables.

 

If you’re a visual / audio learner, here’s a quick video summary for you.

.

.

.

 

Demographic Variables

 

Common variables: Age, gender, ethnicity, education, income, occupation, family size, religion, language, dialect, life stage.

 

Source of data: Questionnaires, focus groups, census data, third party data, data aggregators.

 

Because demographic data is so readily available, segmenting people based solely on their demographics is the simplest and most common strategy. Retirement homes target people based on age, and children’s campgrounds target people based on the presence of children in a home.

 

But, ease of targeting is definitely not always reflective of the quality of the targeting. Some older people move in with their families and not all families can afford to send their children to camp.

 

.

 

Geographic Variables

 

Common variables: Region, country, state, city, neighborhood, zip.

 

Source of data: Postal lists, mailing lists, census data, third party data.

 

Geographical data is also fairly easy to acquire and particularly easy to action on. It’s helpful for many products and services that are associated with distinct geographical regions. Restaurants target people in specific neighbourhoods with door-to-door flyers, children’s camps target families in specific cities, and some products may only be legal in specific countries. For increased relevance, geographic segmentation is often combined with demographic segmentation.

 

.

 

Behavioral Variables

 

Common variables: Product use or frequency, purchase behaviors, coupon use, retailer visits, lifestyle behaviors, hobbies.

 

Source of data: Transactional databases, loyalty databases, association membership lists, employee databases, website click-streams.

 

Behavioral data can be more expensive to acquire and, hence, this type of segmentation is less common. It focuses on how people behave, including what, when, and how they do it. That could mean which products they buy, whether they buy them in-store or online, or more personal behaviors such as how often they go to the movies or where they go on holidays.

 

As most researchers and marketers know, the best way to predict future behavior is by knowing past behavior. As a result, behavioral segmentation can be extremely effective.

 

.

Psychographic Variables

 

Common variables: Lifestyle, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, values, interests, personality.

 

Source of data: Surveys, focus groups, interviews, online communities.

 

Unlike behavioral variables that tell you WHAT someone does, psychographic variables tell you WHY they do those things. This type of segmentation is generally the most difficult because it is difficult to see and difficult to action on.

 

Psychographic data help us understand why people make specific choices such as why they use coupons even though they can afford luxury brands, or why they don’t watch musicals at the theater even though they love watching musicals on TV.

 

.

Business Variables

 

Common variables: Industry, revenue, company size, job title, decision making powers.

 

Source of data: Surveys, third party data, data aggregators, census data, secondary research.

 

It’s important to remember that, not only can we segment people, we can also segment companies for B2B purposes. There may be far fewer companies but businesses still need to understand the segments of potential buyers that are more and less relevant for them to target.

 

.

What’s Next?

 

Are you ready to discover top quality insights about your buyers, brands, and business? Email your project specifications to our research experts using Projects at E2Eresearch dot com. We’d love to help you turn your enigmas into enlightenment!

 

.

Learn more from our case studies

 

• Customer Behavioral Segmentation to Support Targeted Marketing – A BFSI data analytics case study
• Optimizing Treatment Pricing Strategies For Multiple Patient Segments – A pharmaceutical survey analytics case study

 

Learn more from our other blog posts

 

• How to Leverage TikTok as a Consumer and Customer Insights Tool
• 8 Engaging Question Types to Improve Participants’ Survey Taking Experience
• Everything You Need to Know about Conducting Effective Secondary Research

Confession time.

 

I’m addicted to TikTok.

 

 

What is TikTok?

TikTok is used by more than 1 billion people each month and, including me, they watch more than 167 million videos every minute. Wow!

 

If you haven’t used TikTok before, I’ll give you a quick explanation. Anyone, not just the tweens and teens, can set up an account to watch or post videos of up to 1 or 3 minutes.

 

“Creators” are people who make videos of themselves talking, walking, dancing, or of the world around them. Creators can be regular people with 3 followers, influencers with millions of followers, small business owners, or companies with large social media teams.

 

Personally, I’m a lurker. I don’t make videos (as you can see on my personal TikTok account) but I have a bunch of favourite accounts and favourite topics that I love to watch.

 

The topics are literally endless – whatever strikes your fancy, whether that’s cats and cheese or deep social, cultural, and political issues.

 

TikTok uses an analytical algorithm to decide which videos it presents to you. If you swipe past a video really fast, they’ll show you fewer of those kinds of videos. If you watch, like, or comment on a video, they’ll show you more of those kinds of videos.

 

The algorithm works FAST so if you ‘like’ a puppy video, you’ll be offered several more of those almost immediately. What it means is that you need to swipe past videos you dislike really fast or you’ll just get more of them – and that won’t make you happy.

 

 

Why do I like TikTok?

Even though I live in a city where more than 50% of residents belong to a visible minority community, my neighbourhood, my grocery store, and my social circle are not very diverse. I don’t see a lot of people who don’t look like me. And with the panorama (as I prefer to call it), I’ve been visiting diverse communities in my city far less often than usual.

 

This is why I love TikTok. I’ve found a Tok for so many communities different from my own. DisabledTok, DeafTok, AutismTok, IndigenousTok…. but I haven’t yet found “ResearchTok.”

 

Of course, ResearchTok is actually everywhere. You just have to listen carefully.

 

 

TikTok for insights

Naturally, TikTok can be used as any other social media channel is used for social listening purposes. Many videos come with automated or manual captions, as well as audio that can be transcribed and coded.If you want to collect opinions about brands, buyers, and businesses, you’ll get a first hand look at those opinions right here.

 

But TikTok is an invaluable research tool for people who design research, whether that’s quantitative questionnaires, qualitative groups and interviews, or something else. Here’s why.

 

 

People with disabilities: TikTok is where I get to actually see and listen to people who are disabled navigate their world. I see and hear first-hand the motivators and barriers they experience as they drive, shop, and consume in their everyday lives.

 

I see the struggles they face as cars block the sidewalks and ramps making it impossible for them to visit their favorite stores. I see how stores fail to accommodate their needs by not providing ramps or placing self-serve counters out of sight and out of reach. I watch how packages can’t be held or opened or poured because the package designers didn’t account for their user base.

 

I get a whole new and improved perspective on the types of issues I need to account for when I write questions about accessing and navigating stores as well as choosing and using product packages.

 

 

People of different ethnicities: Though I’m sure I’ve experienced some biases because of my specific demographic characteristics, TikTok is where I see the huge biases and aggressions experienced by people who are marginalized every single day, everywhere they go.

 

I see how hand driers don’t recognize darker skin, how brands frame people who are marginalized as victims, and how code switching means some people can’t be their authentic selves at work, at school, or while shopping.

 

It reminds me that it’s so important to ensure the research I conduct accounts for and respects people of all ethnicities. It reminds me that sticking to strict census balancing isn’t sufficient – I need to boost and weight sample for Black and Indigenous people so I can truly listen to and understand everyone.

 

People of different sexualities: Ever wonder what all the letters in LGTBGQIA+ stand for? TikTok has your back. People of all genders and sexualities are happy and keen to share their perspectives about the world around them and how they’re treated in it.

 

Listen first hand to how binary sex and gender options trivialize, diminish, and ignore their life experiences, and how relieved and heard they feel when they’re able to accurately describe themselves.

 

Sure, I might have decades of hard coded memory telling me that gender is binary, but I need to cancel that narrative and recognize that gender is a construct not a fact. I need to make sure demographic questions are accurate, respectful, and all-encompassing.

 

 

What’s the impact of TikTok on research?

As a relatively privileged person, TikTok has further opened my world to the rainbow of people who exist in it. My personal experiences may be common but there are millions, billions of people whose experiences I could have never imagined without the help of TikTok.

 

My questionnaires are better written. Not only am I far more careful and knowledgeable about how I write demographic questions, I’m more careful about how I write questions about brands, retailers, and product usage. I’ve always used my own experiences to write those questions, but now I am better able to consider a much broader range of experiences.

 

If you’re interested, here are a few of my favourite accounts. These folks are well-informed, educational, funny, and eager to share their personal experiences so that people like me can do better. Learn lots!

 

• Deaf community: patrickandbigbenv, smartguy85, djdeaftunez, deafinitlygary
• Blind community: asfvision
• People with other disabilities: peetmontzingo, laceyrichcreek, journywithcerebralpalsy, summershirtproject, colbycam722
• LGBT+ community: mrwilliamsprek
• BIPOC community: clarabellecwb, therealoverloadcomedy
• Indigenous community: brettstoise, itzeaglee, asinaabe, isapadeau

 

 

What’s Next?

Are you ready to discover top quality insights about your buyers, brands, and business? Email your project specifications to our research experts using Projects at E2Eresearch dot com. We’d love to help you turn your enigmas into enlightenment!

 

 

Learn more from our case studies

• Face-to-Face On-Site Medical Leader Interviews – A B2B interview case study
• Communicating More Effectively with Insurance Customers | A Bulletin Board Case Study
• Sentiment and Content Analysis of Qualitative Hiring Data | A Qualitative Research Case Study

 

Learn more from our other blog posts

• 8 Engaging Question Types to Improve Participants’ Survey Taking Experience
• Trackers Suck. Here’s how to fix them.
• Everything You Need to Know about Conducting Effective Secondary Research

What is an insight community?

In the market and consumer research industry, online communities are often called Bulletin Boards, Insight Communities, Market Research Online Communities, or MROCs. Though they can incorporate quantitative activities like questionnaires, insight communities are mainly considered a qualitative research technique.

 

Whether it’s a group of 5 people who chat with each other over several days or thousands of people grouped into segments engaging with each other over several months, insight communities exist within a dedicated digital space to allow people to share their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors about a common topic or goal. These digital spaces normally support the community with features like polls, surveys, image mark-ups, chat rooms, bulletin boards, video/image sharing, and more.

Insight communities aren’t just really large or long focus groups. Unlike focus groups that are often conducted in-person over a couple of hours with 4 to 10 people, communities are nearly always conducted asynchronously and virtually over several days, and with far more participants. (In the research world, asynchronous means that the researcher and the participants aren’t necessarily using the tools at the same time. A participant might share their comments in the middle of the night, and the researcher might respond to them the next day.)

 

Insight communities are generally NOT open to anyone with a pulse and an email address. While E2E Research has a Facebook page and a community that likes to read our posts, that’s not the kind of community we’re talking about. Using Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to listen to consumer and customer needs and opinions, and elicit feedback from groups or individuals doesn’t make a social media network an insight community.

 

There are no written in stone rules about how communities must be run. However, here are answers to some common questions that will help you think through the process more completely and figure out whether a community could be a wise choice to meet your specific research needs.

 

 

What is the purpose of research communities?

Like any market or consumer research project that intends to generalize valid and reliable findings to a broader population, every insight community needs clear planning, goals, and research objectives that lead to specific outcomes. “Signing up” or “finding lots of members” are not acceptable goals, nor is “getting lots of comments every day.”

 

For insight communities, clear goals could include working to:

 

• Understand how the psychological value people place in your brand changes over time
• Learn why some brands become stagnant over time
• Learn how people interpret and act on advertising campaigns and communications from specific brands or in specific categories
• Track detailed perceptions of brands’ marketing tactics over time
• See how the use of a new product evolves over time
• Gain insight into how world events or life-stages affect product usage throughout the year
• Understand how local retailers design their outlets throughout the year
• Gather ideas for new products and gain feedback on a variety of concepts and prototypes

 

 

Why are asynchronous communities valued over synchronous tools?

From focus groups to questionnaires, researchers have many data collection tools to choose from, each with their own benefits. However, insight communities that allow people to log in and out at their own convenience have many benefits for participants. They:

 

• Give shy or anxious people an opportunity to become familiar and comfortable with the research process before having to share their opinions publicly
• Allow people to share opinions as they arise rather than feeling pressured to perform on-demand
• Give people a chance to rethink and change their opinions over time
• Allow people to remain anonymous to the group and share their truths while still remaining known to the researcher
• Are not disrupted when someone has to join late or stop participating early
• Allow people who work rotating, weekend, or night shifts to participate
• Are more accessible to marginalized people who may only have internet access intermittently or at third party locations

 

 

How are insight communities moderated?

Communities aren’t a quick alternative to groups or interviews. Even if a community is planned to run over just a couple of days, it requires extensive pre-planning, moderation during those days, and lots of post-project analysis and identification of next steps. Without planning for this investment of time and resources, everyone’s efforts will be lost.

 

Once participants have been recruited and understand the guidelines they need to follow, moderators are still essential to:

 

• Engage with every participant daily so they know their contribution is desired and valuable
• Introduce daily and weekly tasks and assignments
• Ensure everyone participates in every task and meets all the task requirements
• Prompt and probe participants to share as much detail and insight as possible
• Identify and convert emerging issues into new goals, tasks, and outcomes
• Keep discussions focused on the important topics
• Ensure participants remain respectful to each other

 

 

Who participates in insight communities?

Most insight communities are private and more secure than public communities.  A dedicated community recruiter carefully seeks out participants who have the ideal characteristics and offers them appropriate incentives to complete the agreed upon tasks.

 

This careful recruitment ensures that generalizations from participants are relevant to the issue, category, or brand, and will lead to valid and reliable insights and outcomes.

 

Here is one example of a local government body recruiting for an insight community to better understand the needs of their constituents.

 

In addition to having digital, internet, and email capabilities, participants may be required to:

• Have specific demographic details, e.g., a child under 2 years of age, live in a rural area
• Own, use, or buy a specific brand or product category, e.g., use body lotion, buy Froot Loops
• Demonstrate specific behaviors, e.g., run at least twice per week, attend a music festival in the last year
• Hold specific opinions, e.g., strong feelings about the environment, clear ideas about gender roles
• Have a minimum level of written skills in a specific language in order to accurately express their opinions

 

 

What are insight community members required to do?

Insight communities also have clear rules for participants who wish to join and remain part of the community. They may include requirements to:

 

• Spend a minimum number of minutes in the community each day
• Answer at least one moderated question in detail every day
• Comment on other people’s posts at least once per day
• Participate in at least one poll or survey each week
• Share at least one image or video each week
• Be respectful of others’ opinions and refrain from using profanity

 

How do insight communities benefit participants?

Communities don’t just benefit brand managers, marketers, and researchers. There’s also a lot of good for the participants too. For instance, participants:

 

• Feel pride in knowing their contributions will help other people through the development of better products and services
• Feel a sense of accomplishment for their contributions
• Discover new products that might enhance their lives
• Discover unknown features of the products they already use
• Learn how to use their favorite products more effectively
• Learn innovative, alternative uses for their favorite products
• Learn how their peers have solved problems they might encounter in the future

 

 

How do communities speed up the path to insights?

Insight communities can take many forms. Sometimes, they’re just a few days long and focus on one or two specific products. Other times, they can last several months and focus on broad categories.

 

Longer-term communities offer researchers the capability to ask consumers questions about anything at any time. As such, when an urgent research question arises, there is no need to spend a week or two recruiting a selection of people – those people are always at the ready. Further, such communities run by companies with multiple brands may leverage those communities to learn about different brands and categories throughout the year.

 

In other cases, when unexpected issues arise, perhaps because of societal issues or emergencies, a great community moderator can have new questions and tasks lined up for their members in mere hours and have results flowing in by the end of the day. This speed can ensure that small issues are quickly resolved rather than letting them balloon into huge issues that destroy a brand.

 

 

How do insight communities reduce costs?

Online communities help lower costs in different ways. First, longer-term communities can take the place of multiple ad-hoc projects. This eliminates the need to recruit participants multiple times. Further, participants are already ‘trained’ in how research works and need far less time and guidance to navigate the software and complete the tasks.

 

Second, insight communities have a benefit of allowing marketers and brand managers to understand reoccurring issues customers are having. This early information gives them a chance to understand and fix small problems before they become large problems for their customers outside the community.

 

 

What’s Next?

As with any research technique, there are a lot of intricacies to learn and implement. Fortunately, a good partner will make the process easier for you. If you’re ready to leverage an insight community to discover top quality insights about your buyers, brands, and business, email your project specifications to our research experts using Projects at E2Eresearch dot com. We’d love to help you turn your enigmas into enlightenment!

 

.

 

 Learn more from our case studies

• Communicating More Effectively with Insurance Customers | A Bulletin Board Case Study
• Sentiment and Content Analysis of Qualitative Hiring Data | A Qualitative Research Case Study
• Understanding Teenage Needs, Lifestyles, and Communication | An online community case study

.

Great Reads About Qualitative Research

Most research methodology books cover online communities as a chapter in more comprehensive books about qualitative research. Here are a few of our favorites.

• Qual-online the Essential Guide: The Essential Guide – What Every Researcher Needs to Know About Conducting and Moderating Interviews Via the Web, by Jennifer Dale and Susan Abbott
• Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design, by Robert E. Kraut and Paul Resnick
• Building Brand Communities: How Organizations Succeed by Creating Belonging, by Carrie Melissa Jones and Charles Vogl
• Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation, by Sharan B. Merriam and Elizabeth J. Tisdell
• Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches Paperback, by John Creswell
• The Handbook of Online and Social Media Research: Tools and Techniques for Market Researchers, by Ray Poynter
• The Indispensable Community: Why Some Brand Communities Thrive When Others Perish, by Richard Millington

 

Conferences focused on Qualitative Research

• Doing Autoethnography Conference: Virtual, January 3 to 5, 2022
• The Qualitative Report Conference: Florida – January 19 to 21 2022
• QRCA: Virtual – January 12 to 13, 2022; San Diego, January 19 to 22, 2022
• WCQR: Virtual – January 26 to 28, 2022
• Qual360: Washington – March 8 to 9, 2022
• International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry: Illinois – May 18 to 22, 2022
• Ethnographic & Qualitative Research Conference: Virtual – March 21 to 22, 2022
• Qualitative Analysis Conference & Couch-Stone Symposium: Newfoundland, June 22 to 24, 2022
• Thinking Qualitatively: July 5 to 9, 2021

 

 

Research Objective

• The BFSI client needed to discover insights about the insurance industry and understand how to effectively communication with customers
• They needed to create educational material addressing concerns and guide consumers towards selecting the most appropriate type of insurance

 

Scope & Methodology

• A long-term bulletin board discussion was designed to enable consumers to freely express their views and concerns, and for the client to deep dive into areas of special interest
• It embedded surveys to allow them to quantify this knowledge
• It also included video diaries to accommodate private conversations encourage customers to share their own stories

 

Value Delivered

• The insurance company was able to become closer to actual consumer experiences and issues, and gain a better understanding of customer perspectives when it came to insurance products and services

 

 

Learn more from our case studies

• Automating Distribution of BFSI Performance Metrics – A BFSI automated reporting case study
• Building a Holistic Expense Management App with Client-Direct API Feeds | A mobile app case study
• Sentiment and Content Analysis of Qualitative Hiring Data | A qualitative research case study

The secret to successful research may not be a secret but in the hustle and bustle of work, we often forget one or more of them. If that describes your day today, then consider this your quick and friendly reminder!

 

 

#1 Don’t sell: solve problems.

As researchers, our job isn’t to sell questionnaire design, scripting, data analysis, report writing, and dashboards. Those may in fact be the specific services we offer but our real job is help our partners discover practical solutions to their business problems – Why isn’t this SKU selling, what new product do consumers want, who are my customers, how can I upsell to a target audience, how can I complete more projects when half my team is on holidays, how can I help a client when I don’t have all the services they need?

 

Our job is to thoroughly understand the business and research problems, and then translate them into appropriate solutions. Whether it’s concept studies, customer segmentation, journey mapping, market forecasting, or providing professional services, if we can’t translate a need into a custom solution, we’ve not done our job.

 

 

#2 Know your audience

A lot of market research starts by truly understanding a specific audience. Who are they – what are their hobbies, where do they live, where do they work, what does their family look like? It’s really easy to calculate a median age and the percentage of customers who are female but the last few years have taught us a lot about intersectionality – it’s not just “women,” it’s “disabled Black women.” In the research world, we understand this as customer segments or personas.

 

After conducting a well-designed survey, focus group, personal interviews, social listening, or analytics, you’ll have the necessary data to run a reliable segmentation and identify 3 to 5 distinct target groups of people within your ideal audience. For example, a couple of common ones are Primary Grocery Shoppers and Moms of Infants.

 

Once the data has spoken, you can then build a unique buyer persona, a fictional character, for each target group to clearly outline each one’s unique characteristics. This will make developing a set of products, prices, messaging, and marketing that genuinely resonates with each one much easier.

 

 

#3 Map your marketing

Researchers spend a lot of time mapping journeys – shopper journeys, patient journeys, student journeys, employee journeys. Building products that people want to use and buy means understanding the wants, needs, and challenges customers experience at every stage of the journey. You might discover that the most problematic stage, in fact, is not the most problematic stage.

 

Build a plan to understand every stage of the journey from end to end. As eloquently shared by Biz Davis from Abacus Agency, you need to understand whether your brand is lacking in awareness, interest, consideration, purchase, or advocacy, and whether consumers want to be entertained, inspired, educated, convinced, or delighted.

 

 

#4 Think like you search

If you’ve written a questionnaire before, you know how important this tip is. Sure, you could write a questionnaire as if you were Charles Dickens showing off his stunning, grammatically correct 200-word sentences with multiple, embedded clauses.

 

Or.

 

You could search on TikTok and Twitter and find out how people really talk. Use phrases regular people use. Use words everyone understands even if there’s a technically more precise word. Write questions and answers the same way people search and you’ll end up with a questionnaire that people want to answer!

 

 

#5 Promote your content

In the marketing world, this means thinking about native ads, social sharing, and cross-channel marketing. But for researchers, it means sharing your research across the company – from researcher to brand manager to innovation team to development team to marketer.

 

When everyone in the company is familiar with the results of your research, they can each do their part to amplify the outcome of the insight.

 

 

#6 Tell a great story

How do you get colleagues to share your research? Easy! Well, it’s not that easy. Storytelling is a necessary skill that will carry your research results throughout the company. Let people know what is exciting about the insights, how they could be used to reach consumers in unexpected ways, how they could personally benefit from understanding the results.

 

And sure, though the bulk of the research will be educational, informative, and standard, be sure to incorporate just a small bit of fun along the way.

 

 

#7 Become an authority

Don’t rest on the laurels of the research you did last year. That’s old news now. The theory may be correct but times and technology have changed. Follow up last year’s study with one that builds on what you’ve learned from your colleagues, seen among your competitors, and witnessed in related industries.

 

Show your colleagues what your brand could become if everyone worked together to leverage new, innovative research methods, techniques, and skills. Become the expert at your company who constantly pushes everyone forward towards building a better product and a better company. Get that seat at the table.

 

 

#8 Start small to grow big

You could build and execute a 5-year research plan.

 

Or, you could start small with a single project that gives you a solid overview of one product or target audience. Inhale it, memorize it, internalize it.

 

Then build the five-year plan. Because at this point, you’ve seen all the strengths and weaknesses among a specific product, how your colleagues work together, how your company systems work, and what’s happening in your industry. You have perspective now.

 

Now you get it. Now you can think really big.

 

 

My inspiration for this post?

I watched a webinar given by Biz Davis from Abacus Agency in Toronto in which he shared a bunch of his secrets for building an effective marketing strategy. The webinar will be posted on their website very soon so do go have a peek.

 

While watching, all I could think was how relevant his secrets were, in particular, for market and consumer researchers. The headers are his words, and I riffed on the ideas to bring you the research tips.

 

Are you ready to plan a great market or consumer research project from End to End? Email your project specifications to our research experts using Projects at E2Eresearch dot com.

 

 

Learn more from our other blog posts

• From Digital Fingerprinting to Data Validation: Techniques to Facilitate the Collection of High Quality Market Research Data
• Everything You Need to Know about Conducting Effective Secondary Research
• 8 Engaging Question Types to Improve Participants’ Survey Taking Experience

Market research is the foundation of any successful business. Within the healthcare industry, it helps us to better understand perceived strengths and weaknesses of medical devices and pharmaceuticals, gain a better understanding of key stakeholder wants and needs, gain a better understanding of the industry and competitive market space, gain a better understanding of advertising campaigns and promotions, and create fair and profitable pricing strategies. Let’s address each of these areas individually.

 

(Of course, feel free to skip to the end for a list of healthcare/pharma conferences and podcasts!)

 

 

Better Understand the Product Strengths and Weaknesses

At the heart of a successful business is a carefully researched and designed product or service that meets the key needs of its target audience. By conducting well designed surveys and product/sensory tests via IHUTs or Central Location Tests, you can understand:

 

• What needs does your product meet and what unmet needs need additional development?
• What features of the product are unique within the broader, competitive category and can serve as your unique selling points?
• How is the product correctly and incorrectly used suggesting needs for training or redesign?
• How is your product used in unanticipated ways such that new needs or audiences could be addressed?
• Does the memorability of your product require improvements in terms of its features, branding, colors, or logos?
• Should certain product lines be expanded or reduced based on growing or decreasing market needs?

.

    Review a product case study:

• Understanding the Relative Importance of Healthcare Imaging Features for New Product Development – Survey + MaxDiff

 

 

Better Understand the People: Patients, Caregivers, Physicians, Healthcare Workers, Payers

While a quality product or service is being build, it’s important to understand the perceptions of all key stakeholders. From users to buyers and those who will be recommending the product, it’s imperative that each group understand the strengths and weaknesses of the product in order to ensure maximum success. Using questionnaires, business intelligence, and secondary research, there are a number of key questions you will need to understand about your key stakeholders:

 

• Who is your target audience in terms of their demographic, psychographic, family, social, economic, and health characteristics?
• How does the patient journey evolve from the onset of symptoms through to diagnosis, treatment, management, and recovery while understanding medical, emotional, financial, and social needs and situations?
• What personal experiences do patients have within the category including adverse events from your brand and competitive brands?
• Which stakeholders come into contact with your treatments, medical devices, or healthcare facilities e.g., buyers, administrators, payers, technicians, clinicians, patients, families?
• What does each stakeholder group need, want, feel, and prefer?
• What drives each key stakeholder group to choose, use, buy, and recommend your brand vs competitive brands, e.g., clinicians, patients, payers, buyers, sellers
• Which stakeholders will influence your target audience to consider using or buying treatments, medical devices, or facilities?

. 

    Review a stakeholder case study

• Mapping a Patient Funnel to Mitigate Treatment Barriers – Cancer patient surveys
• Tracking Physician Perceptions of Diabetes Pharmaceutical Representatives – Physician surveys
• Understanding Patient Preferences to Inform Differentiation Strategy – Medical device patient surveys
• Face-to-Face On-Site Medical Leader Interviews – A B2B interview case study

 

 

Better Understand the Placement, Industry, and Competitive Market Space

Every product or service exists within a broad ecosystem of competitive brands and companies. By conducting questionnaires or secondary desk research, you can understand a wide range of business problems such as:

 

• Who are your primary and secondary competitors locally, globally, and virtually?
• What product, physical, emotional, social, and economic needs is the market needs failing to address?
• How has the competitive landscape changed over the last year and how might it forecast into the next 3 to 5 years within your country and potential expansion countries?
• Where are the white spaces to develop new products, extend services, or open new locations?
• Can secondary data help us understand how large our existing market is and how large it could be while remaining profitable?

.

   Review a market case study

• Building a Strategic Business Plan Grounded in Industry Data – Pharma data analytics
• Stretching Brand Equity into White Spaces Using Data Fusion – Pharma data analytics

 

 

 

Better Understand Promotions, Advertising, and Campaigns

With a great product or service built and the target audience well understood, a marketing campaign is normally required to reach out to the target audience and introduce them to your offering. Using questionnaires or data analytics, a number of key questions can be answered:

 

• Which online and offline information channels do your users and buyers use to learn about new products, gather recommendations, or make purchases?
• What types of messaging would be most successful at reaching your target audience and differentiating your brand from competitors?
• What types of ads would be most effective with each of your audience segments when considering likability, meaningfulness, believability and the likelihood to act?
• What types of healthcare marketing campaigns are more likely to be successful?
• What types of brands, companies, or influencers would your users and buyers like to be incorporated in an integrated marketing campaign?
• Which concepts are most memorable and would generate the most action from your target audience?

.

   Review an advertising case study:

• Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Campaign with Brand and Message Recall – Consumer media survey

 

 

Create A Fair and Profitable Pricing Strategy

There is more to pricing than picking a number that will generate profit. A price that is too high can reduce physician recommendations and insurance coverage. A price that is too low leaves achievable profit on the table. A final price can only be determined by understanding your true profit margin, market pricing, and stakeholder needs. To build the most effective pricing strategy for your medical device, pharmaceutical product, or service, conduct the appropriate surveys, interviews, and secondary research first.

 

• Based on secondary research, how are competitive products on the market currently priced?
• Using questionnaire data, what type of pricing strategy is most appealing to healthcare administrators and payers?
• What type of pricing strategy would facilitate product recommendations from clinicians and physicians?
• Which user segment has the least and the greatest revenue potential?
• Based on a Conjoint or MaxDiff questionnaire, which product features drive higher and lower prices?
• Which set of product features would drive the most profit?
• What type of pricing strategy is fair for and accessible versus out of reach to patients?

.

   Review a pricing case study

• Optimizing Trade Promotion Spends With A Pricing Simulator
• Identifying Optimum Price Corridors to Predict Volume Share – Advertising price simulator
• Optimizing Treatment Pricing Strategies For Multiple Patient Segments – Pharmaceutical survey analytics

 

 

 

Conclusion

Building a successful medical, pharmaceutical, or healthcare product or service requires a foundation of well designed and executed research coupled with well analyzed and actioned results. Whether you’re tasked with supporting the growth of an innovative new brand or helping a company understand their buyers and their business, our team has more than ten years of experience helping researchers, marketers, and brand managers generate great quality healthcare data and insights for the questions outlined above. Please feel free to email your project specifications to our research experts using Projects at E2Eresearch dot com. We’d love to help!

 

 

Learn at upcoming healthcare industry conferences

• Future of Pharma Marketing Summit 2022: January 25 to 26, 2022
• Pharma Multi-Channel Excellence: January 26, 2022
• Joe Public Retreat: Nashville, February 7 to 9, 2022
• Annual PMRC Conference 2022: Newark, February 9 to 10, 2022
• Medicare Marketing Sales Summit (MMSS): Las Vegas, February 16 to 18, 2022
• Pharma CI: Zurich, March 24 to 25, 2022
• Annual PMRG/Intellus Summit: April
• DTC National: Boston, April 20 to 21, 2022
• Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development (SHSMD): Maryland, May 4 to 6, 2022
• Pharma Marketing Summit: Boston, May 12 to 13, 2022
• Annual PMRC Conference: Bay Area, Summer, 2022
• Annual EphMRA Conference 2022: June 21 to 23, 2022
• Annual PMRC Conference: Europe, Fall, 2022
• Pharma CI: Newark, September 21 to 22, 2022
• OTC National: October

.

Listen to some great podcasts about healthcare marketing

• The Medical Marketing Podcast on Google Podcasts
• MM+M Podcast: Medical Marketing and Media Podcast on Spotify
• Healthcare Insight for Marketers True North Custom on Apple Podcasts
• Patient Convert Podcast: Healthcare Marketing on Apple Podcasts
• Healthcare Rap on Acast Podcasts
• Insight Marketing Group Podcast
• Syneos Health Podcast on PlayerFM
• RX Digital Marketing Podcast on PlayerFM
• The Pharma Marketing Podcast on PlayerFM
• Pharmacy Marketing Simplified
• Pharma Marketing 411 on Apple Podcasts