There are 4 essential steps to any successful marketing research project:

1. Collaborate with business leaders to define a significant business problem or opportunity, and describe the information, insights and understanding which will be needed to solve it.

2. Identify the most likely sources of the necessary information, and design a methodology to gather, analyze and interpret the information.

3. Execute the methodology.

4. Use the resulting information, insights and understanding to help decision makers solve the original problem.

 The sources and techniques selected in step 2 depend strongly upon the nature of the problem you define in step 1, so there’s no single answer to your question about “…what types of questions they ask and what type of an expert do they seek when performing primary research.”  Most projects tap into the experience and opinions of multiple important groups, including:

- Direct customers and non-buying potential customers, always including a spectrum of job functions – R&D, brand management, operations, logistics, purchasing – and management levels.

- The customers of our direct customer, and other companies that operate in the chain of turning raw materials into end products – other guys who play a big part in determining our customer’s success or failure.

- Suppliers of other materials or equipment to our customer

- Competitors (This can be tricky.  Hiring a consultant to get information or use techniques that would be illegal for you directly is no protection for you (or the consultant) under US anti-trust, trade and espionage laws.)

- Government employees and academia.  For example, people in the Department of Commerce and regulatory agencies are nearly always knowledgeable and helpful, and US government libraries, publications and databases are generally excellent.

The optimum techniques to use and the most productive questions to ask are dictated by the business problem you’re trying to solve and the nature of the groups whose opinions and experience you focus on.  Large groups (owners of single family homes, consumers of laundry products, independent auto repair shop owners, for example) might be sampled with statistical survey techniques, while individual in-depth interviews might be more appropriate for smaller groups (for example, makers of kidney dialysis machines, designers of office furniture, or paint chemists).  Group techniques (like focus groups) may be great for gathering initial impressions, but are less useful sources for detail and reliability.  

In almost all cases, the real value-adding capacity of marketing research comes from its ability to answer questions that impact the future – questions like “What if …?” and “Why?” – NOT  from its ability to execute a methodology and answer the more simplistic “How many?” and “Who?”.

- Some say that engaging a consultant is simply too expensive, an exercise in paying someone else to do what we can and should be doing ourselves.

- Others argue that consultants more than pay for themselves by bring to bear a world of experience, a breadth of expertise, and an analytical objectivity that stretches beyond the capabilities of any company.

Having sat on both sides of the desk – as a buyer and as a provider of marketing research consulting services – my perspective may add some real-world wisdom to your “DIY or outsource” discussions.

Managers sometimes shy away from engaging a consultant because of the expense (or the worry that calling in an outsider may hint at some hidden inadequacy).  In many cases, however, hiring an expert is the smart business decision. 

Here are six situations in which the value that a consultant creates can justify the expense, many times over:

1. When your capacity is limited.

2. When a consultant brings specialized industry knowledge or contacts that you can’t easily duplicate

3. When anonymity is important – when your identity as the study sponsor would reveal too much about your plans, or where your name could influence the answers you hear

4. When you really need a dispassionate objective assessment, free from internal biases, preconceptions and office politics.

5. When a consultant can provide specialized techniques or methodologies that you don’t have – conjoint analysis or focus groups, for example

6. When a consultant can perform tasks more cheaply and efficiently, as is often the case with telephone surveys and data crunching, in-store interviews and mall intercepts, etc

In addition – unfortunate but too often true – an external consultant often brings an aura of credibility, authority and influence with upper management that an internal employee may not carry.

On the other hand, the out-of-pocket costs for consultant fees and expenses is a legitimate reason to consider doing market research projects with in-house resources.  More important, by outsourcing information gathering and analysis, you could pass up a chance to know your marketplace more intimately:

- The party that conducts the marketing research interviews naturally ‘owns’ the resulting relationship with the key players in the value chain.  These relationships may soon become the foundation for expanding your customer base, entering new markets, or introducing product innovations. 

- It is much easier to understand the context of your interviewees’ comments, and to internalize and ‘own’ the insights, conclusions and recommendations when you actually execute the study.

In an ideal world, then, the ideal answer is often “DIY.”  Few of us, however, live in an ideal world, and hiring a competent marketing research consultant is often the most practical, economical and timely alternative.

Coming soon:  “Successful Consulting Engagements:  How to Select a Consultant, Plan a Consulting Engagement, and Manage the Consulting Relationship”

- of what customers want, what’s frustrating them, and what makes them happy

- of what customers like and don’t like about you and about your competitors

- of the forces creating changes in the marketplace, and what will be their impact

Gaining objective, fact-based answers to questions like these – and using the resulting insights to drive better decisions – is Marketing Research, the key to making any business stronger and more successful.   

Whether your Marketing Research budget is large, small or hardly there at all, here’s what you need to know to get smarter about the market environment you’re operating in, and how to use that knowledge to guide your business to greater success.

Plan Your Project:  A little forethought will assure that your efforts are focused on the issues that really matter – that you get ‘the most bang for your marketing research buck’.

1. What big problem or opportunity are you facing?  What sort of information would help you face it better?

Not getting enough customers through your doors?  Want to attract more?

- What do potential customers know about me – and just how many potential customers are really out there?

- How do they learn about products and services like mine? 

- What do they really care about, and what really upsets them?  How do I measure up?

Wondering about introducing a new product or service?

- Why will customers care?  What’s bad and good about what they’re using today?

- How dissatisfied are they today?  Upset enough to spend real $$$ to change to your new offering?  How many would likely buy your new product, and for how much?

- How will your competitors react?

Worried about competitors eating your lunch?  

- What do customers like about you, about your competitors?  What have you done to make them mad?

- What do customers really think about your competitor’s latest ad campaign / new product / expansion?

2. Methodologies – What types of information will be most helpful in solving your problem?  What sorts of people are most likely to have the information, and what’s the most efficient way to get the answers you need?

Who has the info you need – not just your direct customers, but anyone else who influence their decisions and anyone who has a bearing on your success for failure.  Ex-customers or people who decided not to buy from you are often your very best source of ideas for improvement.

Different questions require different data, and different data implies different methodologies …

“Should I stock red, blue or green?”  A simple survey and simple statistics will tell you how many customers prefer which color – and what else they might like or dislike.

“How do all the players in a complex value chain interact to make or break a new product?”  Better have deep, searching conversations with a number of people who make decisions up and down the value chain.

“What’s the right price for my new product?”  Ask directly and you’re likely to hear numbers you don’t like, but some special techniques and analyses can get your very close to the truth.

3. How much is solid, comprehensive understanding worth?  How painful are the potential consequences of not knowing?  How much should you invest in getting it right?

What would it be worth – Dollars and Cents – to have 25% more customers?  What’s it worth to know the best way to attract them … and what ways would be ineffective?

How expensive and damaging – Dollars and Cents – would it be if your new product fizzles out after you introduce it? 

Execute Your Project:   The big question “Pay someone else or do it myself?” doesn’t have an easy answer.  A ‘hired gun’ consultant can bring special methodologies, they can usually get things done more quickly and efficiently, and they they’re less likely than you to look at the marketplace through those ‘rose colored glasses’.  But then, there’s that out-of-pocket price tag.

Engage a consultant when you don’t know the specialized techniques or just don’t have the time; when anonymity will help get unbiased answers and results; when your issues are complex and the stakes are high

- Carefully agree upon the scope of work before you begin.  Most problems with consultant projects result from a mismatched expectations that could have been avoided.

- To make sure the project stays on course, be actively engaged during the project – but think long and hard before you substantially change direction.

- Challenge your consultant to give you not just the facts, but interpretation and recommendations.

DIY works just fine when the questions and analyses are simple and straightforward; when the consequences of uncertainty are not so high; or when the value of enriching your relations with customers outweighs the potential value of the answers you gain.

- In person or on surveys, phrase your questions in neutral language – don’t subconsciously lead them to the answer you want to hear

- In your conversations, ask open-ended questions that invite discussion.  Practice ‘active listening’ and follow up questions.

- Keep surveys short and simple.  Test ahead of time to make sure customers won’t be confused.

Most consultants will be happy to talk through your options with you, without any fee or obligation.

Apply the results:  Any research is too expensive if you don’t put the results – even results you don’t like or didn’t expect – to good use.

Forty percent of your customers like ‘blue’ but only 20% like ‘green’?  Make sure that store shelves and your production run aren’t overloaded with ’green’.

Customers like to rely on sales reps for product info and recommendations?  Consider less consumer focused advertising and more support to retailers and distributors.

Customers mad because your deliveries are too slow, even though you met your 3-day promise?  If 3 days isn’t good enough, then you’d better figure out how to do it in 2 or 1, of kiss those customers good bye.

Debra D (from the healthcare insurance field, commenting at a Linked-In group) perhaps summarizes it best:

“Competitive intelligence is about understanding the broader market dynamics which includes understanding customers’ and suppliers’ motivations and drivers, not just competitors…. The point of CI is well beyond just understanding what the competitors are up to. Woe to the company whose CI efforts and resources just focus on the competition.”

Interestingly, the usage of the term ‘competitive intelligence’ to lead her definition highlights the semantic confusion around terms such as business vs market vs customer vs competitive intelligence that seems to obscure a general sense of agreement among all of us commentators.

The underlying message seems to be that too narrow a focus – a fixation, if you will – on a single dimension of business intelligence (even if you excel in that dimension!) will blind you to important and eventually dominant events in other dimensions.

I suspect there’s an even deeper message here, too –that creating and maintaining business success is a lot like building a healthy life. It comes not from doing one thing (be it cardio workouts or vegan diets, customer service or applications research, for example) exceedingly well but by doing an excellent job of orchestrating the smooth and symbiotic functioning of all the supporting parts and functions. It’s a message I’d like to think about some more and to write about soon.

Go here to read verbatims from many of the best comments …

Too often, people look across the left brain – right brain divide and see the enemy – or at least a suspicious and unfathomable alien. A listing of some of the key left brain – right brain characteristics suggest why each side has such a difficult time understanding the other:
LEFT BRAIN: Logical, Sequential, Rational, Analytical, Synthesizing, Objective, Looks at Parts
RIGHT BRAIN: Intuitive, Randon, Holistic, Synthesizing, Subjective, Looks at Whole
Source: www.funderstanding.com

All but the most entrenched left-brainer or right-brainer would concede, however, that there are certainly useful traits on the other side of the divide.

It’s not so surprising – human nature being what it is – that the left brains and the right brains of society or of an organization often disagree. What is surprising is that so few organizations recognize or take advantage of the complementary strengths of left and right hemispheres.

How about sharing some uplifting examples of organizations taking advantage of left brain – right brain synergies? Some particularly egregious examples of squashing one side or the other?

AN ADVANCED DEGREE IS VALUABLE (Not surprising, since it seems most responders have at least one!), BUT….
“[E]xperience is worth the most in this market…. [U]nless you can get into a top B school … it really isn’t worth it. B school is all about the networking and Alumni network.”

FOR A BUSINESS / MARKETING CAREER, BREADTH of KNOWLEDGE TRUMPS DEPTH
“My MBA has broadened my career opportunities and earning potential. The rigor learned in my engineering training has definitely translated well to the business world.”
“With 2 technical degrees the technical advancement path may be enhanced, while the business community may not be convinced the person has business chops; with a BS and MBA, the business community will probably be more accepting.”
“The issue is really the difficulty in crossing the technical / business barrier [especially] in the large multinationals.”
“To understand the business best, start in a technical role, then shift to the business. It is very difficult to do the reverse.”
“Those who are technically trained can learn business management issues … Someone who has a business background cannot easily learn the chemstry/engineering/technology in a similar manner.”

WHATEVER THE DEGREE, ATTITUDE, APTITUDE and EXPERIENCE COUNT
“In all cases, creativity, attitude, team building, ethic and results amount for far more than advanced degree specifics.”
“I have both – MBA from Rutgers BS and MS in Physics. I would say that nothing can jumpstart your career, these are just tools.”
“With a technical undergrad degree, the advanced degree [MS, MBA] is ultimately less important than the would-be marketer’s curiosity, openness to new ideas and new approaches to business, and sensitivity to the motivations and intentions of key players in the marketplace.”

Some Linked-In Groups I’ve found especially useful: MARKETING INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS, MARKET RESEARCH BULLETIN, and MANAGEMENT CONSULTING JOBS.

Here’s text of all the comments.

from MARKETING INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS
In my limited experience I’d go for an MBA, but more than anything it seems experience is worth the most in this market. Because marketing is often not a direct revenue generator, it has the most to prove with often the least amount of resources. Hopefully your reader has weighed 2 years of experience and income vs. 2 years of school and expense.

My experience and intuition suggest that, with a technical undergrad degree, the advanced degree is ultimately less important than the would-be marketer’s curiosity, openness to new ideas and new approaches to business, and sensitivity to the motivations and intentions of key players in the marketplace.

The question is “MS or MBA?” to complement an undergrad engineering degree – and the answer is not an easy one. It boils down, I think, to making some subjective judgments about which degree will confer upon you the most credibility and stature among the industry audience you’re trying to influence. In US industry, I sense that (predominantly MBA educated) managers have a substantial bias against the technical degree. Perhaps in other geographies – India, for instance – the MS might carry more prestige.

In a large sense, my experience and intuition suggest that the degree is ultimately less important than the would-be marketer’s curiosity, openness to new ideas and new approaches to business, and sensitivity to the motivations and intentions of key players in the marketplace.

What do you think about the MS vs MBA issue? I’m prepared to be proven wrong on this, but I think those of us in the MR trade should pass on some of our hard-earned wisdom to those entering the profession.

“Well, duh,” you might say, “I don’t need some outsider to tell me that, or to tell me what my customers want. After all, I talk to them every day.”

Unfortunately for most business leaders, from the smallest one person shop to the mega corporation, those customer conversations are usually dominated by immediate, urgent priorities – fixing a problem, collecting an overdue invoice, negotiating a price, scheduling a meeting or a delivery. In these discussions, too little energy is directed toward creatively discussing the future – to contemplating product development, offering enrichment, and growth strategies.

Companies grow and prosper by identifying and satisfying customers unmet needs. Seems simple enough: if you don’t already know what your customers need, then just ask them. Problem is, it just isn’t that simple. Ask the question “What are your unmet needs,” and you’ll likely hear “Lower price!” and “Hmmm … That’s a good question.” The truth is that unmet needs are unmet NOT because we ignored them, but because they are so hidden and ingrained in the way the market does things that we never recognize the possibility of a better way.

Uncovering and explaining those hidden issues is the role of marketing research. Whether you do it yourself, rely upon your company’s market research department, or bring in an outside consultant, digging into your customers’ business environment and developing honest, dispassionate insights about the world they live and compete in is the key to serving your customers better – and to making your business more a desirable and successful supplier.

Services such as these are expensive, however, and the provider must carefully assess the cost / benefit implications by addressing three fundamental issues:
1. Which services are most interesting and valuable to particular customer segments and which are less relevant?
2. What is the actual Dollar value of the additional service to each customer segment?
3. How can you capture that added value from your customer – as a premium price, as an additional invoicable event, or as some other contract obligation?

There are good, workable answers to these questions, but finding and confirming them will typically require careful, intense evaluation of each particular case. This sort of investigation would include in-depth conversations with many people in the customer / end user space, a healthy dose of competitor analysis, some detailed economic assessments, all leavened with business judement and a touch of practical psychology.

Engaging an independent consultant is often the best way to address a large, one-of-a-kind task like this.

Regardless of what you’re selling – movies, games and clothing to kids, the house on the corner, a railroad car full of industrial plastic, or an evening at a fancy restaurant – understanding what makes your customers tick is a large part of your success. A few gifted sales people seem to have a unique instinct, but for most businesses, marketing research provides vital insights into why customers behave as they do – insights about where they choose to spend their money, and why.

Marketing research comes in many forms, from the simple and informal to large, highly structured large formal studies. Today’s New York Times reports on Disney’s use of the marketing research technique “ethnography” to gain a candid, day-in-the-life experience of what 6-14 year old boys are really like.

The Times reports that boys “hop more quickly than their female counterparts from sporting activities to television to video games during leisure time. They can also be harder to understand: the cliché that girls are more willing to chitchat about their feelings is often true.” Big ‘duh’ to any of us who have lived with 12 year olds, but Disney’s insights likely run a lot deeper than that.

It will be interesting to see how the Disney brand and programming evolve to add more boy-focused appeal to a line-up heavily tilted toward Hannah Montana and The Little Mermaid. Perhaps …

– Some outdoor adventure themes
– Outwitting the older crowd to right a wrong
– Helping smaller, younger girls and boys figure how to handle a tough situation
– Learning a new skill – from klutz to competent

How would you like to see Disney appeal more to boys?