Tag Archives: Colin Auton

Top 10: Market research tips for small businesses and start-ups

24 Jul

Ahead of Ci Research’s Colin Auton appearing on the Guardian.co.uk expert panel – “How to get started with market research” – we have posted a “top 10” on the ways in which market research and consumer insight can benefit small business and start-ups.

If you fancy logging on to hear some wise words from Colin, the link to the Q&A is below – discussion is live from 1pm to 3pm on Tuesday 24th July 2012.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/small-business-network/2012/jul/20/get-started-in-market-research

10. Consultation with customers helps build stronger relationships. Your customers value being asked their opinion, and the need for brands to forge stronger relationships with their customers is more relevant than ever before.

9. Understand that you have one chance to get it right. Customers are less forgiving than ever before – getting to the heart of what drives trust and loyalty is critical

8. Test before invest. Use market research to test new product ideas, concepts and propositions before committing too much resource to their development

7. Collaborate with consumers to develop new concepts and propositions. Get the prospect customer to help you with the design process.

6. Differentiation wins. Use market research to find and monitor the unique territory which your brand / product occupies in the market place

5. Monitor satisfaction levels –and be hungry for feedback on your products and services – use market research for “warts and all” feedback and learn from mistakes

4. Understand what really drives satisfaction, trust, loyalty and advocacy. Understand not just what customers SAY is important, but find those more elusive buttons to press that will deliver beyond what customers THINK they need

3. Use technology. Online and mobile methods mean that means that quantitative and qualitative market research is as affordable as ever before

2. Use positive research findings for PR and influence. Use survey findings to prove to potential investors or retail / wholesale partners there is demand for your product / service

1. Proactive monitoring, environmental scanning and trend-spotting. Use market research to learn from competitors successes and failures – and observe what is happening in adjacent markets

Our final assertion would be D.I.T. (do it thoroughly) and not D.I.Y.

It is important that the big ‘front end’ decisions are given the necessary time, and not taken on the back of questionable samples and questionable interview techniques. Professional research is an investment and will make a significant difference. Although several “DIY” survey tools exist, our advice would be to always entrust a quality agency to provide the design, delivery and interpretation. Not only for independence and objectivity, or for the specialist skills involved, but for the years of experience of having conducted many such projects before.

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Top 10 Market Research Projects for 2012

20 Jan

The New Year has arrived, along with a new set of challenges for clients across multiple sectors. Insight is integral to understanding what customers want, and how to deliver value for their discretionary spend. In these increasingly competitive and straitened times, here are ten insight projects that should be considered in order to give your business the edge.

1. Use research to generate ideas and solutions

More clients are using open exploratory techniques, including video observation and communities, to identify behaviours, frustrations and opportunities for innovative solutions. Such projects are essential if a business is committed to ensuring its product/service development and innovation is aligned to delivering solutions, not products.

2. Use research to test designs and concepts

Qualitative and quantitative methods can be used to refine and improve designs and concepts, giving them greater chance of success.

3. Use research to monitor your brand alignment

The value of brand alignment is becoming increasingly realised, and more businesses are using techniques such as the Brand Alignment Monitor (BAM™) to measure the extent to which they are aligned to a clear and differentiated vision – across multiple stakeholder groups (customer, prospects, influencers, staff, etc.)

4. Use research to measure customer satisfaction

Maintaining a satisfied client or customer base is a pre-requisite to building and sustaining a successful business. Beyond generating measures of satisfaction, a customer satisfaction survey can generate actionable insight around what service elements have most influencing on driving satisfaction, advocacy and loyalty.

5. Use research to understand the customer journey

Customer needs, attitudes and expectations change as time passes, and more clients understand the importance of monitoring and understand this through quantitative and qualitative research. Such consultation allows us to understand experiences and requirements at key stages of the journey, thus maximising revenue opportunities and minimising the risk of churn.

6. Use research to test your communications

Ensuring your messages are clear, easily understood and on brand.

7. Use research to understand needs and motivations

As incomes are squeezed further in 2012, businesses need to better understand the customer’s end goals and objectives – what are they looking to get from that product, service or experience?

8. Use research to measure usage, behaviour and attitudes

How exactly are customers using your products and services versus competitors? What is the wider context for their usage – what occasions exist and how are these fulfilled? How does usage and behaviour differ across different groups, locations, and through time?

9. Use research to identify priority segments

How does the customer base / wider market segment? What unique and differentiating attitudes, needs, behaviours, motivations and traits exist? Segmentation research allows businesses to understand which discreet groups deliver the greatest value, and which show the greatest opportunity for future growth.

10. Use research to generate competitor intelligence

Research can be used to engage with your business ‘prospects’ to understand their requirements, but also to understand what your competitors do differently in order to shape acquisition strategy. Insights about the competition can allow you to make decisions on all element of your own business – pricing/discounting, product, service, innovation, communication, etc.

For more information on any of these example projects, or to request case studies, please contact Colin Auton or Richard Walker at Ci Research on +44 (0)1625 628000.

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Top 10 tips for using market research to evidence Return on Investment (ROI)

3 Jun

In these straitened times, businesses need to justify all expenditure – marketing and market research spend included. Furthermore, in conducting product tests and concept tests, we need to do more than simply identify a winning idea – we need to prove the potential for a financial return.

Below are ten top tips to consider when undertaking these types of market research projects:

1. understand what ROI really means for your business – Very simply, a return on investment is the financial benefits observed as a result of a financial investment, or a cost. It is also referred to a cost-benefit analysis and calculated using a benefit to cost ratio (BCR). In purely financial terms this bottom-line figure if often all that is required to evidence ROI.

But in market research terms it’s more complex. The Phillips Return on Investment™ Methodology seeks to evidence this ROI through a chain of impact. In doing so the research captures the impact of a ‘product’ in terms of:

  • The reaction within the market place (participants)
  • What the market had gained; new knowledge or a greater understanding
  • How the behaviour of the market is changing – what is it doing with this new knowledge?
  • What the benefits of these changes are; financial and non-financial
  • Hence the ROI

2. Ensure the remit, scope and objectives within the research brief are clean – In some cases the research brief may not warrant, or allow for a credible ROI assessment. For example if you are commissioned to measure a reaction to a new sports centre amongst the local community then this alone cannot prove ROI. However if you are commissioned to evidence how the sports centre has improved the communities quality of life then this CAN evidence ROI.

It is equally important that the expectations of the commissioner are managed. They may be forced into thinking they need to evidence ROI but not fully understand the resource required for this. Leave no stone unturned. Continue reading →

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TOP 10 – Recommended statistical techniques for market research and customer insight

11 May

There are a wide variety of statistical techniques that either form the main research process or act as a ‘bolt on’ in order to glean maximum insight from a research study. Ci Research has over 20 years’ experience of applying advanced statistical techniques to survey data. We recognise that ‘the language of stats’ can be daunting for some and, indeed, statistical analysis may not be relevant for a variety of research scenarios. We therefore only utilise advanced techniques when they will bring further valuable insight and will always deliver the output in layman terms. Most importantly, we also ensure that results are actionable with total clarity around outcomes and implications. 

Our top 10 statistical techniques are as follows:

1. Factor Analysis – Factor analysis is a useful data reduction technique, helping the researcher to see the ‘woods for the trees’. The technique groups’ issues together into a more manageable number of factors. Factor analysis can therefore help determine the underlying factors that summarises customer opinion from a whole host of product / service issues.

The technique is often used as a first stage in an analysis process. Factor analysis can be used to reduce the number of variables utilised to model customer behaviour, satisfaction etc. More concise variables will lead to a more robust model and an outcome, which can be easier for clients to interpret. Factor analysis can also assist the development of perceptual maps of customer opinion.

2. Regression Analysis – Regression analysis is a widely used modelling technique and comes in a variety of forms. The basic aim of this technique is to establish causal relationships between a dependent variable, for example, sales, and one or more explanatory variables, for example consumer spending, season of year, interest rates etc.

The technique can be used to gain a snapshot of the drivers of a variable under analysis. A successful analysis will identify which issues best explain the movement in the dependent variable and so can help a client decide which parts of their business to concentrate upon in order to improve sales, satisfaction etc. Regression analysis is also commonly used as a forecasting tool. Continue reading →

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TOP 10 – Questionnaire design tips

9 Feb

This week’s top ten is a blog post from Ci Research Managing Director, Colin Auton, on the “art” of good questionnaire design.

When working as the company’s head of market research or insight, there is nothing more frustrating than stumbling upon someone who has decided to conduct their own survey without consulting you first. More often than not, you are handed a fairly basic questionnaire and are left thinking “If only I knew you were doing this. I could have designed this survey so you could have got so much more from it”.

Perhaps it is not surprising that people take it upon themselves to dive in and design their own questionnaires. On the surface it seems an easy thing to do. On the other hand would colleagues start to take on other marketing tasks themselves, such as designing creative materials or doing their own PR? Typically not!

 In all honesty it is only likely that this trend to “do-it-yourself” will continue, particularly with the emergence of the likes of Survey Monkey. With this in mind we would simply like to highlight to non-researchers that there is an art to designing a good questionnaire, and some useful rules to follow. Our top 10 tips are listed below:

 1. Think about your introduction

Positioning the survey upfront is important. Try to make the respondent feel that their views are important and look to highlight what the benefit is to them in taking part. Also be open and honest in advising on how much of their time will be required, and more specifically how their feedback might be used. True market research can’t be used to generate sales leads, and where individual views are to be fed back to the client you should get permission to do this and explain how this will be used.

 2. Screen out anyone that might be inappropriate

As a general rule of thumb you would always look to exclude anyone that works in marketing, advertising or market research. The theory is that they will have insight into why certain questions are being asked, and may therefore bias the results. For similar reasons you should look to screen out anyone who works in your sector.

 3. Think about the flow

The best questionnaires flow in a logical order for the respondent and thus make for a more survey friendly experience. For example, it is deemed good practice to order questions for satisfaction surveys in line with the order that the customer will have experienced the service.

Continue reading →

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