Just about every marketing training course advises participants to “listen to customers” and “gather competitive intelligence.” However, most don’t help managers understand whether the information they obtain—either internally or externally—is valid. Just as managers must be able to make decisions from financial documents even if they aren’t experts in finance, managers must be able to make decisions from marketing research even if they aren’t experts in survey methodology or statistics. That’s the purpose of this course. It provides some practical and streamlined tools for gathering competitive intelligence and voice-of-the-customer, but also tips on evaluating purchased studies based on more complex research.
This course will provide the tools and resources you need to:
Create a robust market intelligence process
Build the appropriate internal and external connections and resources to ensure a balance between too much and too little input for decisions. Learn how to gather meaningful information about your competitors, customers, and prospects, as well as your micro- and macro-business environments.
Determine what kind of research to conduct (or purchase) based on specific business needs
Effective research is designed to provide the most useful data for decisions. Should you use qualitative or quantitative techniques? What types of survey questions can be evaluated with which types of statistics? Crafting the right approach helps increase payback from your research dollars.
Translate research insights into product, segmentation, pricing, and communication strategies
Obviously research is done for a reason. Think about the challenges you face in gathering voice-of-the-customer for product and marketing decisions...and discover ways to do it better.
Integrate traditional and emerging tools of research
The internet is not only a communication tool—it’s also a listening tool. Gain new ideas on how to use social media to better understand customer motives, product ideas, and potential satisfiers and dissatisfiers in your marketing strategy.
Who should attend?
This course is specially designed to help executives gain better insights for improved decision-making:
- Decision-makers who need competitive information for strategic and tactical decisions
- Executives, directors, and corporate analysts who want to find new market opportunities
- Directors of marketing, business development, or planning, and market research leaders
Note: One-on-one counseling on commercial competitive intelligence databases and online sources with Michael Enyart is offered the evenings of Days 1, 2, and 3. Sign up for times during the first day of class.
Day 1: Expand the Boundaries of Market Intelligence
Market intelligence combines marketing research and industry intelligence to enable decision makers to move from data to analysis to insights. The first day focuses on identifying strategic risk and recognizing competitive blind-spots that can derail business unit or product success.
Building your foresight capability
- Expand your toolkit of techniques for gaining strategic foresight
- Learn how to conduct anticipatory strategic planning
- Know when to use continuous, periodic, and project-based intelligence-gathering
Eternalize your focus through competitive intelligence
- Understand competitive dynamics to improve your ability to predict competitor moves
- Deliver more precision in your pursuit of competitive advantage
- Determine where value can be created within an industry’s “white space”
Day 2: Structure Research to Gain Customer Insights
Marketing research is usually a more project-focused component of intelligence-gathering. The goal of this day is to help attendees understand what kind of research should be conducted (or purchased) to help make better business decisions.
Establish the "right" data collection framework
- Articulate decision outcomes so as to shape a better project definition
- Become familiar with the use of a wide range of qualitative, quantitative, and experimental techniques
- Learn steps, interrelationships, and priorities in creating the project framework
- Identify common errors in survey research: a checklist
Tailor questionnaire wording and statistics to the needs of the project
- Create a preliminary plan for coding, editing, cleaning, and tabulating data
- Determine the most relevant statistical procedures for specific types of questions and problems
- Gain insights into improved interpretation of results
Day 3: Translating Insights into Marketing Strategy
The output of marketing research is only as valuable as its ability to generate actionable insights. Today’s emphasis is on applications of research for specific decisions.
Voice of Customer for innovative products
- Tap into “empathic” methods such as ethnography and observation
- Use personas and mental models to guide design
- Explore ways to communicate and share customer insights
Customer intelligence: satisfaction, segmentation, and positioning
- Bolster customer loyalty through better interpretation of customer satisfaction surveys
- Strengthen your understanding of different customer segments and their needs
- Generate new and compelling positioning options
Day 4: Next-Generation Research Approaches
The final day explores a variety of emerging methods to integrate into research as conditions suggest.
An introduction to qualitative research through social media
- Virtual research platforms across the social media landscape
- Online communities and proprietary panels
Concluding remarks