Posted on Wed, Jul 29, 2009
Have you used the downturn in the economy as an excuse for losing clients? While it is an easy explanation for lost business, it is probably not the only cause. Those clients have to go somewhere for the products or services provided, so it is likely they are going elsewhere—to a competitor.
What can you do?
No one wants to lose clients, especially to competitors, so it is important to periodically check the temperature of the business environment. By thinking through the following ideas, you can understand why clients are looking to others for products or services and find ways to prevent them from doing so.
Know your competitors
It is important to know who is offering similar services and whom they are serving. Not knowing about competitors prevents a company from competing effectively and drawing in and retaining clients. A thorough competitive analysis can tell you what your competitive landscape entails.
Keep an eye on the competition
Once competitors are identified, a company should understand what they provide, whom they serve, and how they market themselves. Because the business environment is constantly changing, competitors are also changing to fit the new atmosphere. As a result, watching competitors should be a continuous process.
Talk to your clients
Research goes a long way in helping better position a company in the business environment. Using surveys and making follow up calls are just a few tools that are helpful in understanding why clients have gone elsewhere. Customer satisfaction and loyalty studies can help you retain customers.
Understand where your company fits in
As competitors are identified and monitored, a company should analyze how it fits into the mix. Asking a few questions helps in understanding a company’s competitive health:
Based on the competitive environment…
- How does my company compare to competitors?
- What is my company’s differentiating factor?
- What could my company do better?
Competitors can be business partners
Remember that competitors do not always have to be the enemy. Building relationships with them could result in joint ventures. In understanding the strengths and weaknesses of competitors and your firm, opportunities may be revealed for partnerships and increase profitability for both sides.
Posted on Mon, Jul 20, 2009
New Coke - focus groups showed a significant minority hated the product
Oftentimes companies will solicit a marketing research project with the full expectation that the results will come back positive. They expect the newest ad campaign to be a big hit with the target audience, that all of their customers are fully satisfied, and that their website is 100% user friendly.
More often than not, the results don’t work out that way. The target audience may not like certain aspects of the new ad or understand the message, some customers may have had a bad experience, and some features of your website may not be as user friendly as you thought.
Some people, especially those new to marketing research, might assume that the research is flawed, dismiss the results of the study, and hesitate to commission future research. After all, nobody likes hearing that their work is less than stellar.
But it is important to keep in mind that bad news can be good news.
The goal of research is to uncover what works and what doesn’t, so you can capitalize on the positive and fix the negative.
While it’s frustrating to hear people make negative comments about the concept ad you’ve been slaving over for weeks, it would be more frustrating to spend all the money on production and buying ad space only for it to flop or produce mediocre results. Everyone in the office might love the fancy design and cool widgets on your new website, but if users cannot figure out how to use them they are likely to leave and go to one of your competitors.
Research is an investment, but one that drives the success of your work. Don’t fear the research – embrace it.
Posted on Wed, Jul 08, 2009
Our first unofficial High 5 Award goes to One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning.
This company delivers a consistent and positive brand experience through quality and reliable service.
In addition to this, they have a great, yet simple, market research focus.
Following every single customer engagement, the office calls to check that everything is running as it should, if the technician met expectations and if they can answer any follow-up questions.
Not only does this information give One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning insight to monitor and enhance their service, it also lets the customer know that they have their best interests at heart.
Great job!
Posted on Mon, Jul 06, 2009
To conclude our tips for conducting better focus groups, here are five more things to remember:
- Over-recruit: Always recruit 12 to 13 respondents to achieve a focus group of 8. You’ll have to pay everyone who shows up and turn some people away, but it is much better than being left short-handed.
- Use 8 to 10 respondents: Even if you have all 12 or 13 recruits show up, don’t be tempted to use them all in a group. Groups of more than 10 people become a lot harder to manage which dilutes the data – you tend to spend more time managing the group than actually asking questions. We always limit ours to 8.
- Record everything: If you’re moderating, then you probably aren’t taking notes (in fact, we’d recommend solely concentrating on managing the group). Record everything to video so you can review and take notes at a later date.
- Use team analysis: If you have the staff to spare, get as many to review the groups as possible. Discuss your findings after the review – extra input can take analysis to the next level. If you can, have a member of staff take notes during the groups – this aids in analysis.
- Be ruthless: An hour and a half can go by very quickly, and you want to make sure that you have all the data you need. If respondents are going off-topic, kindly let them know. If one respondent is talking too much, politely tell them that you would like to give others the opportunity to speak. If a respondent is being disruptive, rude or uncooperative, kindly ask them to leave. Our policy is that during the groups respondents are working for us and are there to talk about the topics we’re paying them for.
By following the tips above and here, you will be running great focus groups in no time. Of course, to run really magnificent focus groups, contact us.