05 February 2010
Knowledge is power
With recession-challenged customers buying less,
looking for deals, or switching to different suppliers and
products, many businesses are being forced to make financial cuts
to compensate. Marketing budgets are often the first to be reduced.
However, connecting effectively with your customers is even more
crucial in a downturn, and that can only really be achieved by
developing a deep understanding of who they are; what motivates
them to buy from you; and, most importantly, stay with you and
recommend you on. The secret to building this deeper understanding
lies in market research.
Successful companies resist the temptation to cut their
marketing budgets and instead opt to invest further in market
research. It throws more light on the various segments of the
economy and can make a huge difference to an organisation’s
prospects at a time when every pound spent is scrutinised. And,
since the digital revolution, market research doesn’t need to be
hugely expensive or time consuming either.
For example, we recently worked together with Marie Stopes
International to gain a clearer understanding of one of its core
audiences – GPs. By adding our tailored questions to a monthly
online omnibus study, distributed to 1,000 UK GPs, we were able to
discover awareness levels of the full range of Marie Stopes’
services. This enabled the client to understand what was motivating
GPs to refer to its services and the barriers to referring, as well
as determining how GPs prefer to be communicated with by service
providers.
Julie Douglas, Head of Marketing at Marie Stopes International
states:
“The research has been crucial in shaping our marketing and
communications activity and has helped us to understand the
geographical areas we need to focus on to improve GPs’ awareness
levels of our services. We are also able to refine the way in which
we contact GPs and the messages we use to reflect what GPs actually
want.”
Spire Healthcare challenged us with devising a regional PR
campaign to promote 40 of its busiest cosmetic and weight loss
surgeons. We commissioned an online survey to be distributed to a
panel of 2,200 consumers to understand their attitudes to cosmetic
and weight loss surgery, the influence of celebrity on them, and
their propensity to travel abroad to undergo surgery.
The primary finding was that many patients are failing to
recognise the implications associated with these major surgical
procedures, which are not quick fixes. We were able to develop a PR
campaign, using Spire Healthcare’s stable of leading consultants,
to raise awareness of the importance of ensuring patients ask the
right questions and undertake the right research before choosing to
undergo cosmetic or weight loss surgery.
Debbie Colebourn, Head of Sales and Marketing at Spire
Healthcare comments:
“We have not only gained invaluable insight into the standpoint
of consumers on cosmetic and weight loss surgery, but the campaign
also strengthened our relationship with our consultants through
promoting them locally.”
You have to work harder and smarter in a recession to survive
and position yourself for the upside that is coming. Carefully
thought out research projects can make you smarter about where to
invest your marketing budget.
So before making the decision to cut your market research
budget, remind yourself that it will allow you to make important
marketing decisions based on the best, most up-to-date information
available.