Research
People often ask us what our starting point would be if they chose to work with us for marketing or design projects. Our answer is always the same - "we need to understand your company and your marketplace as well as you do ". In some cases we are able to obtain that knowledge from the person asking the question, in other cases where the knowledge does not exist in sufficient detail, it may be necessary to carry out an element of research.
Research deals with the following questions:
- How is your product or service perceived in the marketplace in terms of quality and price?
- How does your product or service actually compare in terms of quality and price to those of your competitors?
- Is there a difference between perception and reality and if so why has this happened? And what can be done to rectify it?
- How much of your clients' total spend on your service does your product/service represent?
- Is this as good as it should/could be?
- What is the value of your market?
- How much do you represent?
- In what other markets could you sell your product/service?
- Who are the main players in those markets and how will you break in?
- What USPs do you hold and how can these be marketed?
- How do people buy your product/service?
- How do your competititors sell?
- What is their route to market?
- How does it compare with yours?
- Who are your main competitors?
- How are they positioned in terms of quality, price, turnover, units sold, client list?
- What is their history in your market?
- How have they built their position?
- Where are you positioned in it?
- What is the future potential?
- Where do you sit in a matrix of price versus quality?
- Is your product/service right for the market?
- Is the proposition correct?
- Is the marketing mix correct? price, place, promotion, product?
- Do you need to reposition your product?
- Do you need to rebrand?
- Do you need to revise your marketing strategy, if you have one?
- Do you need to revise your marketing plan?
- How effective is the implementation of the plan?
- Are you using all the relevant routes to market?
Getting answers to some or all of these questions will help all parties involved with a project. How we get those answers is another matter and we discuss desk and field research in the marketing section.