Research is the roadmap to your customers’ hearts and minds.
All new marketing and brand initiatives should begin with the research. Research run properly uncovers what customers think, feel, need, want, and what will motivate a desired action, a change in behavior, a purchase, a relationship.
As learning begets more learning, research can spawn more research, as it reveals truths and desires that inquisitive marketers want to learn more about. This can also lead to research paralysis: too much data devoid of intuitive insight.
But focused utilization of both Qualitative and Quantitative research, and the insights into human behavior that it can achieve, should give marketers the right amount of actionable data to begin a marketing or communications initiative.
Qualitative Research is the yin to Quantitative’s yang. It provides texture and context to a problem, a solution, a product or a service. It corrals opinions, beliefs, behaviors, and fears. Qualitative methods include ethnography, grounded theory, discourse analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis.
Quantitative Research is the cooler, more objective sibling of Qualitative research. It discovers patterns of behavior by collecting and analyzing numerical data. It’s more math, less human; uses a larger number of respondents, making it more statistically accurate. And for many marketers, it is in the numbers they trust. But the MOST effective research initiative involves a deft blending of both “Quant” and “Qual.”
Fraser Communications will always advocate using both Quant and Qual research when a client’s budget and timeline will allow. The knowledge gained is foundational for all future communication efforts. As an agency that prides itself on continually creating effective and behavior-changing communications, we can’t stress enough how important it is to include research in your marketing budget and timeline.
Qualitative and quantitative research helped us to tackle the opioid problem for both the State of California and L.A. County. The research told us we had two vastly different mindsets to the same problem. Older opioid users didn’t like to call themselves “users.” These drugs provide them with much needed relief from issues of age, illness or injury. Research informed us that we had to guide them to better pain management, vs. warning them of the perils of use, while simultaneously informing them that these drugs were very addictive, but that the addiction was nothing to be ashamed of.
Younger opioid users considered themselves indestructible, even though they had experienced tragic outcomes either directly or via friends and family. Younger users were also a target for fentanyl, as “party” drugs were increasingly tainted with it, with devastating results. This audience needed more strident warnings combined with a message of hope.
Research told us that people need a fact-based verification to the messaging for it to be trusted. With the older audience the fact that, ‘One out of three opioid overdoses are people over 50,’ played a large role in our communications.
Research informed our efforts for First 5 California and lead us to create the highly successful Talk. Read. Sing. campaign, regarded as the most successful public service campaign in history.
Our demographic and psychographic research helped Lexus and its dealers understand the mindsets and purchasing behaviors of new, emerging customers.
Our insights-activating blend of qualitative and quantitative research helped us craft messaging to encourage people to save water, quit smoking, collect their earned income tax credit, switch to sustainable energy, and is helping a current client reinvent pet care for the 21st Century.
Using the right research practices for the specific project, we can help you create the roadmap to your customers’ hearts and minds and provide the launching pad for all your initiatives and branding efforts.