Specialist research techniques

New product development (NPD) and product positioning are core parts of product management and product marketing. We can carry out a wide-range of specialist research, from initial idea generation, concept screening, feature prioritisation, formal product testing, pricing and market sizing, market forecasting and message development to final launch materials and market monitoring.

Market segmentation is concerned with identifying different groups of purchasers in a market in order to target specific products and services for each group or segment. By tailoring the offering (communication, product, channel, price) to different groups, a business is better able to meet the needs of more customers, and consequently to gain a higher overall level of share or profit from a market.
 

Pricing is one of the more technical areas of market research, and is central to businesses practising value-based pricing. Price modelling and market models are a fundamental part of pricing research to estimate demand, price sensitivity or elasticity, in order to plan a pricing strategy to deliver maximum value. The aim is not to find what customers like, but what they are willing to pay and so identify the optimum price point that will maximise profit, revenue or market share. 

Pricing research is a combination of economics, finance, psychology, understanding customer needs and business negotiation. Concepts like anchoring and priming can change price perceptions, and customers will often mask the price they will pay in order to 'negotiate by questionnaire'. Here are some hints.

 

How well do your products or services meet customer expectations? Customer satisfaction measurement (CSM or CSat) is one of the ways to measure Customer Experience and how well your business is meeting customer needs at all points of the customer journey.

Customer Satisfaction can start with simplistic Net Promoter Score (NPS) or dive in to more complex customer satisfaction programs using menu-driven customer satisfaction measurement using our Cxoice Survey System.

The term Brand equity is used to describe both the value of the brand and the brand's component values. It's value may be calculated in financial terms in comparison to unbranded products, shown as an increase in a rate of return, or presented as a more complex mix of softer market metrics such as awareness, consideration, brand strength or brand image.

Advertising testing starts with creative development via concept testing and selection of candidates from mock-ups, runs to pre-testing to validate and estimate the potential impact of the advert before it goes live and then has a full set of quantitative pre- and post- tests to measure effectiveness, possibly with smart statistical design like test and control areas.

In business-to-business markets, key accounts can form a significant part of the revenue for the business. Our Quality of Service Review (QSR) process is a formalised method of gathering information from key account customers to support account planning and relationship development. For businesses working on a project-by-project basis, win-loss research helps the business understand and improve the bids and offers it makes to customers.

The benefit of any form of research into choices and trade-offs is that it forces people to make decisions and so reveal what they most want or most prefer. Although conjoint analysis is by far the best known of what can be characterised as 'trade-off analysis' it is not the only option.

Design is a fundamental part of technology and services, not just software or web design as usability affects even simple things like where products are placed in a shop, or how a queuing system works in a bank. Good design comes from insights gathered by observing and understanding how people use technology and the ways in which they expect to interact with it. 

Qualitative research covers a wide range of techniques, approaches and ideas. The use of online and mobile research with cameras and videos has greatly increased what qualitative research can deliver. Different types of research problem, or different types of market require different specialities. Here are four examples

• Brand and marketing development
• Customer relationship research
• New strategy and new product development
• Business-to-business qualitative research

Our sensory-emotional technique is a particularly powerful way of exploring and eliciting the hidden patterns that drive our responses to products and advertising.

The core challenge of qualitative research is in understanding the patterns in people's heads that lead them to different purchase decisions. These are often hidden from our conscious and cognitive processes and are based on our major and secondary senses and the way they trigger emotional reactions.