While our research is customized for each client, the process we follow is consistent, and has been developed to ensure that you are participating in its structure every step of the way:
1. Research Strategy Development
The first step in any study is to gain an understanding of your brand or company, your chal-lenges, and the populations you’re seeking to understand. We will review any existing research you may have, discuss with your marketing and executive teams your current audience assumptions, identify the resources your organization may have to source study respondents, determine any specific issues or messages you’d like to evaluate during the research, and learn your goals in terms of marketing, operations and product development. The research strategy document will establish who we’re asking and what we want to know.
2. Survey Map
The research will be conducted via an online survey, and it’s important that you can view and approve the scope of the survey to ensure that we are covering all of your key topic areas and developing the survey to be as efficient as possible, which will increase completion rates.
Rather than asking you to follow the rabbit warren of skip-logic that can typify a complex survey instrument, we use mind-mapping software to lay out the flow and content of the survey. This allows us — and you — to easily see the entire survey at a glance, identify opportunities for consolidation, and be confident that we’ve included everything necessary to get the information we need.
3. Online Survey Development
Once the survey map has been approved, we build the survey online using SurveyMonkey.
That’s right – SurveyMonkey. Sometimes we’re asked why we don’t have our own proprietary survey technology. The simple answer is that we don’t need to, and any costs we would incur by developing our own survey engine would have to be passed on to our clients — in other words, you. Frankly, there’s already technology out there that does exactly what we need, and does it well, and that means that we can keep our prices low.
4. Respondent Sourcing
Obviously, it’s critical to have the right people take your survey, and enough of them to give you the statistically significant results you need to make your data reliable. There are many ways to source appropriate respondents for your study, including:
- Existing customers, lapsed customers and prospects from your own database;
- Customers intercepted at your brick & mortar locations
- Visitors to your website
- Members of a particular demographic or interest group
- Prescreened panel participants
- Respondents to an online advertisement
- Social media seeded invitations
If you’re a new company, or entering a new category, or simply don’t have your own list of possible respondents, no worries — we can help you determine the most cost-effective way to get the right people responding to your survey. We can also advise you on appropriate incentives to drive completion from relevant respondents.
5. Data Collection
With the survey underway, data collection begins. Depending on how your respondents are being sourced, how prevalent they are, and the target number of completed respondents to meet your goals, data collection typically takes from one to three weeks. You will be updated daily on the progress of your survey as well as interesting tidbits of survey results along the way.
6. Attitudinal Segment Identification
Once the requisite number of responses has been achieved we can begin analyzing the data and determining the attitudinal segments using a statistical approach known as factor analysis. A chief benefit of factor analysis is that it doesn’t rely on a predetermined “seed” to drive the segments — so the segments are free to develop organically based on the data from your respondent pool. Factor analysis focuses on identifying the “factors”, or combination of interests and motivations in our research, that are primarily responsible for the differences between people. It reveals the motivations that link members of a segment, and those that differentiate that segment from others.
The attitudinal segments are calculated and each respondent is assigned to a segment based on their factor scores.
7. Non-Attitudinal Profiling
Once the attitudinal segments have been established and each respondent assigned to a segment, we can use the rest of the data collected in the survey to develop a more robust understanding of each segment. Demographics, awareness of and purchase of your products and your competitors’, usage of various media, the impact of marketing messages — all can shed more light on who your segments are and how best to reach and convert them.
8. Results Reporting
The results of your study, often including over 100 pages of insights, is prepared and presented to your team.
9. Recommendations
A key aspect of our work, and one that differentiates us from typical market research firms, is our ability to translate your research results into clear and actionable implications for your marketing efforts. We will offer recommendations based on the data regarding the strategies and tactics that can help your organization achieve the goals identified and discussed in Step 1. The level of detail in these recommendations differs with each project, and are based on the needs of your marketing team, agency or executive team.
10. Tools
We can also provide you with tools to help spread the understanding of your target audience segments throughout your organization, including:
- “Cheat sheets” of segment characteristics;
- Key messages for each segment, as well as umbrella messages that appeal to all;
- Executive summary documents for senior management
- Training presentations for store managers, operational teams and customer service representatives.
