Bureau West

I read an amusing article in Fortune Magazine a few weeks ago.  In his humorous column, Stanley Bing says he can’t handle the volume of emails he has been receiving from Toyota since he bought his car:

“I have on my desk as I write this a stack of e-mail printouts half an inch high, and that’s from less than six weeks! It’s too much! My in-box is clogged with your importunings, offerings, and requests for validation. Stop! I beg you!”

The column got me thinking about the topic of customer engagement.  Done right, keeping customers engaged can translate to significant profits for businesses.  But if we go too far, customer engagement efforts can be counter-productive.

We frequently ask consumers about companies’ customer engagement efforts in focus groups.  And that’s when something interesting happens.  Initially, consumers say things like “I throw away all junk mail” or “I don’t have time for that kind of email.”  But when we talk to them further, it turns out they remember various communications they received.  And after discussion, when we ask if they’d prefer to receive less communications, many say they would actually be annoyed if the company did not tell them about various promotions.

This is a great example of a situation where focus group discussions are preferable to one-on-one interviews.  In interviews, people tend to give the “politically correct” answers, the things they think they should be saying.  But in group discussions, people hear something someone else says, and it reminds them of things they might not have thought of otherwise.  And once one person “admits” to something, the others feel more comfortable opening up.

Back to customer engagement: how much is too much?  We need to consider not just the frequency of communications, but also their content.  Pay close attention to unsubscribe requests, perhaps including an option for customers to tell you why they unsubscribed.  And of course, ask your customers how they want to engage with you and why.

To learn about your customers’ engagement preferences, give us a call at (818) 752-7210.

Sources: “Toyota, I Love You, Goodbye,” Fortune, May 2, 2011; Bureau West research

It’s great when marketing development works.  An article in Fast Company magazine provides a great example of how research + insight = effective marketing.

Sales of baby carrots were down, and a major producer was looking for ways to reverse the decline.  They contacted ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky.  Market research found that people were buying regular carrots instead of baby carrots to save money in the recession, and then forgetting about them in the vegetable drawer.  They also learned that, after customers open a bag of baby carrots, they dry out.  And the agency knew that advertising that tells people to eat their vegetables for health reason tends to be ineffective.

The insight: instead of marketing baby carrots as an antidote to junk food, they decided to portray baby carrots as junk food. The baby carrots were repackaged in individual snack packs made of brightly-colored crinkly plastic that look like a bag of chips.  They launched an ad campaign called “Eat ‘Em Like Junk Food” in two test markets, and even installed baby carrot vending machines in a couple of high schools.  See the website http://www.babycarrots.com/ to get a feel for the campaign.  The result: sales in the test markets were up 10%-12% over the year before, compared to virtually no improvement in other markets.

To learn how your customers and prospects feel, talk to them!  Give us a call at (818) 752-7210.

Sources: “The New Junk Food,” Fast Company, April, 2011; babycarrots.com

Since I’ve been giving presentations about online research methods, some people assume I’m saying these new methods are better than the traditional, face-to-face methods, such as in-person focus groups.  That’s not the case.  Which is better?  Unsurprisingly, the answer is: “it depends.”

In some cases, logistics make online methods the clear choice.  For example, if we want to talk to people who are so rare that we can’t find enough in one location for in-person focus groups, then we might consider webcam focus groups or online bulletin boards.  Or sometimes online bulletin boards are the only research method that can fit into some busy professionals’ schedules.

But in many ways, in-person focus groups just can’t be beat. A good moderator can develop a group dynamic that gets us beyond the “politically correct” answers to how people really feel.  Once the people in the room have bonded, they can “let their hair down” and open up about their emotions regarding the topic being discussed.  Is that easy?  No.  And a lot depends on the moderator’s skill.  But it’s well worth finding the right moderator who can elicit those deeper insights.

When choosing among research methods, we really have to start with the research objective.  Are we trying to understand the emotional motivators in the purchase of a certain product, or are we just looking to make sure that people understand an ad campaign?  Do we want to find out if people can navigate a website, or do we want to know if people have any interest in coming to the site in the first place?  Choosing the best research method for a given project really depends on weighing all the factors: the type of information we hope to uncover, logistics, timing, costs – they all have to be considered together.

To discuss the best method to answer your research questions, give us a call at (818) 752-7210.

Sources: Bureau West research; “In Praise of Focus Groups and Moderators,” researcharts.com, January 20, 2011