155 Posts Found

Teamwork is supposed to be about the efficient allocation of resources. And it’s no secret that teams can be bureaucratic, frustrating, and costly. So it is the leader’s job to figure out when it’s appropriate to deploy more than one employee to a task. After all, if an assignment can be efficiently completed by an individual, then creating a team to take it on is … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Brian Fielkow | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Market Research, Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

If you want to understand the future, just look at what rich people do today.

Content: Quotation | Author: Hal R. Varian | Source: Medium | Subjects: Future, Innovation, Management, Market Research

People are stuck between focus groups on the one hand and the Steve Jobs approach (“I will know what customers need before they know it themselves”) on the other. The Jobs way is compelling, but it’s risky. The challenge is the journey from today’s customer, whom most companies understand well, to tomorrow’s customer, whom they don’t.

Content: Quotation | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Customer Related, Market Research, Marketing / Sales

Early adopters get most of the attention from analysts and marketers, but focusing on consumers who are resistant to innovations is another way to bring new products to market.

Content: Article | Author: Matt Palmquist | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Customer Related, Innovation, Market Research, Marketing / Sales

During a typical customer research process, we will interview customers and might ask them questions like these. All of these questions are customer and product discovery questions, almost identical to the ones product managers use to understand if the company has unlocked product-market fit. In addition, these interviews surface insights about marketing positioning and true perception in the market; customer support effectiveness; overselling; and product … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Tomasz Tunguz | Subjects: Customer Related, Market Research

More decisions today are impacted by what we call O sources of information — “Other” information sources, such as user reviews, friend and expert opinions, price comparison tools, and emerging technologies or sources — whereas market research measures P sources — “Prior” preferences, beliefs and experiences. What market researchers often underestimate, though, is the degree to which consumers have difficulty imagining or anticipating a new … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Emanuel Rosen, Itamar Simonson | Source: Stanford University | Subject: Market Research

Online consumer feedback is growing exponentially and contains invaluable information about not only what consumers think of products and brands, but also about what they expect from a product. Some businesses view the vast amounts of online feedback about their products and services in a reactive light. Each positive review is a pat on the back that need not be investigated further; while each negative … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Customer Related, Market Research, Marketing / Sales

What do Porsche fanatics, a video game hater, and a person who cooked two weeks’ worth of meals in a rice cooker have in common? They are all “extreme consumers”—those whose tastes are so out there that mainstream market researchers tend to dismiss them as “noise” when trying to figure out how typical consumers think.

That’s fine if you only want to keep making incremental improvements … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Jill Avery, Michael I. Norton | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Customer Related, Market Research, Marketing / Sales

If these “harbingers of failure” love what you do, you are in trouble.

Editor’s Note: This is one of the more interesting pieces of research I have read about in a while. Based on the work of Eric T. Anderson, Song Lin, Duncan I. Simester and Catherine E Tucker

Content: Article | Author: Jessica Love | Source: Kellogg Insight | Subjects: Customer Related, Market Research, Marketing / Sales

The authors of a new book on market research explain how a shift in consumer decision-making affects marketing.

Content: Article | Authors: Emanuel Rosen, Itamar Simonson | Source: Stanford University | Subject: Market Research

Forget online surveys and dinnertime robo-calls. A consulting firm called ReD is at the forefront of a new trend in market research, treating the everyday lives of consumers as a subject worthy of social-science scrutiny. On behalf of its corporate clients, ReD will uncover your deepest needs, fears, and desires.

Content: Article | Author: Graeme Wood | Source: The Atlantic Monthly | Subject: Market Research

“Big data” can drive competitive advantage if companies follow a few timeless principles.

Content: Article | Author: David Meer | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Management, Market Research

In a multi-polar world—a volatile, interdependent, globalized marketplace where upstart rivals can emerge quickly from any corner—competitiveness at speed remains imperative. But many of the previous bases for competition are no longer viable. Companies offer mostly similar products and use comparable technology. Proprietary technologies can be copied quickly. Physical location matters less when customers use the Internet to search and transact.

What’s left as a … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Customer Related, Market Research, Marketing / Sales

How conjoint analysis, a tried-and-true market research tool, can be used to support organic growth.

Content: Article | Author: David Meer | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Customer Related, Market Research, Marketing / Sales

There is a better way to determine how many—what portion—of your customers were satisfied. Time and again studies have shown that customer loyalty is fleeting for all but the most satisfied of customers, because any customer who is not “completely satisfied,” is dissatisfied to some degree, and/or with “something.” That “something” is the “crack in the door” through which competitors can sneak and steal your … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: John Mariotti | Source: OPEN Forum (American Express) | Subjects: Customer Related, Market Research, Marketing / Sales

It’s a funny thing about demand: There’s often a huge gap between what people buy and what they truly want and need. That gap is revealed by the Hassle Map—and that gap is where the opportunity to create huge new demand is hiding. There are various kinds of Hassle Maps. Some Hassle Maps are lists of the steps involved in a process, often including … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Adrian J. Slywotzky, Karl Weber | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Management, Market Research, Marketing / Sales

Let’s face it: All too often, life is a succession of hassles. There’s an endless array of frustrations, inconveniences, complications, disappointments, and potential disasters lurking in most of our daily experiences. Even very good products and services (we’ll call them simply “products” for simplicity’s sake) have their weaknesses and drawbacks. My new smartphone sometimes drops my calls; my favorite hotel chain sometimes loses my reservation; … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Adrian J. Slywotzky, Karl Weber | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Management, Market Research, Marketing / Sales

Dan Heath and Chip Heath explain why it’s not enough to give people something they need.

Content: Article | Authors: Chip Heath, Dan Heath | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Market Research, Marketing / Sales

Twitter gets much more interesting and useful when you can filter out 99% of the junk that doesn’t apply to your objectives and focus on the stuff that matters.

The basic search.twitter.com functionality is fine for searching things that are being said about your search terms. The advanced search function offers more ways to slice and dice the stream, but still leaves some room for improvement … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: John Jantsch | Source: OPEN Forum (American Express) | Subjects: Market Research, Marketing / Sales

Data from mixed-mode questions are hard, if not impossible, to interpret accurately.

The first part of this article will give an example of a mixed-mode question and an analysis of how to interpret the results that such as question would produce. As you will see, mixed-mode questions, or scales, should be avoided.

The second part of this article will explore the problem of mixed-mode scales further and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Carey V. Azzara | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Market Research