Hey guys!
For this week's topic of discussion, we have been focusing on market research and approaches of conducting it. Our team found a helpful website and article, that in addition to all of our readings and class lectures, may have some additional valuable information.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/217388
We would like to open up this forum with questions about strategy, since we haven't really discussed it as a class. What are your plans for conducting your research? Based on the "experience" your team has chosen to focus on, who is your target audience and how do you plan to approach collecting your data? Hopefully this weeks blog can help us to connect as a class and share our insights and plans, as well as touch on what we have been discussing in lectures over the last few class meetings.
We look forward to your posts!
Best,
Team C
One of the articles we read last week called “User Requirements” was particularly intriguing because it introduced unique methods for researching the consumer and their experience with potential products or ideas. (To jar your memory, the article talked about asking people about their dreams or playing games instead of surveys.) These alterative tools are very interesting because they can encourage people to express their subconscious.
ReplyDeleteA good example of how companies are finding out about their customer’s subconscious can be found at the bottom of this page (see brown-ish box titled Value-Cues Research): http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/3246.html
For our “on the street” research talking to people about metaphors and their values is a bit difficult when because they will be strangers, but I do think we can adapt questions to get people to share ideas instead of facts. Our topic is gardening; instead of asking “what is in your garden?” perhaps we can ask “tell me about your ideal garden” to get an idea of what they have in the back of their mind.
For our qualitative research, our plan is to conduct a lit review of magazines, trade journals, and government documents and glean whatever we can from that. We also plan depth interviews with people on the street and with our coworkers. Our target audience is infrequent or non-exercisers. We want to know whether these individuals exercise at all and how much they exercise. If they do not exercise, we want to know why and what it would take to get them to exercise.
ReplyDeleteWe will also complete an experience survey with health care professionals. We want to know if they believe there is a correlation between exercise and health. If so, do they encourage their patients to exercise or join health clubs? Why don’t they prescribe exercise more often?
I’m excited about the process of determining whether or not one’s idea actually addresses a market need. It is possible that some people are just so darned excited about their idea that they don’t want to do the kind of “man-in-the-street” research that either confirms or doesn’t that their idea has traction in the market. I describe this as a solution in search of a problem. There was an example of this in the software product to build your financial plan that bombed. It is a noble idea, but people didn’t want to do it. So the product fails. Just goes to show that a good idea, even a great idea, may not produce the desired response from the consumer.
ReplyDeleteIt is possible that entrepreneurs let their egos get in the way of finding out what the people who would actually use or purchase their idea think about it. It is painful to have a great idea shot down by consumer comments. But the hit to the ego seems much less expensive to me than bringing a product to market that people really don’t want to buy. We can’t universalize our feelings and experiences to extrapolate out that others will feel the same. Nuf said.
To add to Vonda's comment (we are on the same team), we hope to find some answers or tools the providers can use to promote healthier lifestyle with nutrition and exercise. It seems like people would rather "take a pill" than to put in the hardwork and dedication to eat healthy and exercise. Also, in conversation, it appears that some people wait until a catastrophic event to take their health seriously (i.e., heart condition, diabetes). Through proper research and interviewing, we may be able to provide feedback to the health care community to help with this important issue.
ReplyDeleteOne of the main points any of our research plans is trying to accomplish is that of understanding consumer behavior. The video we watched a couple of classes ago focused on ethnography and its importance. More and more companies are realizing that investing in early consumer behavior research is more effective than relying on past successes. This article I found has great real life examples. Whatever our value propositions end up being the key learning point is going to be how to perform insightful research.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/bulletin/dailynews/article/1070184/?DCMP=EMC-BreakingnewsfromMarketing
The research portion is definitely interesting. I can see the vast difference between our research and that of many entrepreneurs.
ReplyDeleteWe are choosing something of interest and designing research around a general concept. It seems new businesses start with the solution first and dive in before doing a lot of market research. I assume Bill Gates and Paul Allen did little market research before designing operating systems in their garage.
It would be interesting to find the stats of who is spending and buying market research. I’d assume most is from mature companies who need an edge or want to evolve. Those start-up companies don’t have as much capital which lends to why many dive right in head first using a gut instinct about market needs.
Our research plan included quantitative research looking for common trends among people who garden. We really wanted to get a clearer picture of who gardens, what their garden choices are and where this all happens. These numbers help us jump to the heart of the project, which is really the "why." This is the personal aspect which led us to personal interviews among known gardeners found mostly in local farmers markets. We stopped the person "on the street" and asked about 20 questions. Most were really willing to help, because they were speaking of something they cared about and our subject matter wasn't embarrassing or too personal for them to share details. In fact, many whom I interviewed had personal memories sparked and went on with great stories that offered more insight than the questions we'd framed. We can't find the motivation to gardening and feeling invoked with solely lit reviews and gathering of numerical data, so the personal interviews and questions involving more "whys" than "what's" really brought us to the depth of that.
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