If your office is anything like ours, you’re already waist-deep in 2020 to-do lists. Quirk’s editorial team is preparing for our usual publications as well as the 2020 Quirk’s Events and Marketing Research and Insight Excellence awards. As everyone across the industry works to find their footing in this first month of the year, we wanted to present important takeaways from a few 2019 articles. We’re eager for you to find an actionable tip or two to take with you as you plan for the new year and take on new challenges.
This compilation covers NPS, journey-mapping, the transformation of insights, B2B customer journeys, data regulations, tips for presenting data insights and LATAM sample. We hope you find some encouragement and new ideas!
20 steps to make Net Promoter Score more actionable for B2B by Alan Hale
“In our opinion, NPS is similar to EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) for financial managers. NPS measures the marketing relationship with your customers as EBITDA measures the financial health of an organization. Senior management can use both sets of metrics across the entire company. The numbers are important benchmarks but they do not tell you what you need to do to improve your performance.
“One of the common complaints we hear is that NPS is not actionable and therefore not worth doing. A typical comment is something like, ‘Our client has a 23% NPS but we do not know how to improve that score.’ Word clouds showing the frequency of words is not the answer; it is not insight.”
Takeaway: To be effective, NPS can’t stand on its own as a measure of organizational success. By turning to a solid checklist – incorporating important steps such as “do not bias the research results” and “determine the importance of each of the criteria to the customer” – end-clients in business-to-business settings can find success when leveraging their NPS insights to increase business performance. Read the full article.
Unlocking the key emotions at play in the back-to school shopping experience by Jim Tincher
“Avery school supplies are sold through online channels – including, of course, Amazon – as well as big-box and specialty stores. But the company was feeling the three-pronged impact of technological advances that have changed or reduced the use of its traditional product lines, declining store sales and increasing pressure from low-quality, low-priced private-label brands – such as Target’s Up&Up products – which hog premium shelf space and woo price-conscious consumers. The number of U.S. households with school-age children has been decreasing in recent years, which only exacerbates the situation.3
“There’s still a robust market for Avery products; the firm just needed to discover new and better ways to engage with consumers. In recent years, it’s even made significant inroads with Amazon, through a partnership with influencer and designer Amy Tangerine on a fashion collection of products targeted at teenage girls. Avery focused on increasing its online presence to offset the decline in retail store sales and the products have proven to be wildly popular. But it needed to do more.”
Takeaway: This case study on Avery’s use of journey-mapping reminds researchers that even a seemingly practical purchase like school supplies can have an unexpected emotional aspect to it. Read the full article.
How insight teams can transform in 2019 by James Wycherley
“Despite the apparent opportunity, insight departments in Europe and North America regularly report that it is actually getting more difficult to do their jobs.
“The insight Management Academy (IMA), set up in 2004 to support client-side (end-user) research and analysis teams in large organizations, speaks to insight leaders from multiple sectors each week. And the message is consistent: The data situation may have changed, the software improved, the science developed and the appetite increased but how many organizations are really insight-led? How many companies can truly claim to have put a sophisticated, coordinated understanding of consumers right at the very center of their decision-making processes?
“How has this happened?”
Takeaway: More data and a greater appetite for using it are making life more difficult within insight departments. Now is the time for insight professionals to benchmark themselves relative to other insight teams, draw from best practices and work to truly transform insight from the inside out. Read the full article.
How to understand sporadic customer journeys in low-involvement B2B categories by Jeana McNeil
“Once a prospect makes their decision to switch vendors, or maintain the status quo, their inertia returns. They stop paying attention to the category and their awareness of vendors and alternative approaches rapidly dissipates.
“This buying cycle creates significant challenges for vendors that operate in these categories. If your product or service is a low-involvement one, convincing prospects that it’s worth their time to look around outside of their sporadic spikes in interest may require more sales and marketing resources than you have available. The most effective approach for many B2B vendors is to ensure they are positioned to take advantage of the opportunities that arise.”
Takeaways: B2B suppliers are always on the look-out to separate themselves from competitors. Learn four categories of insights that market insights teams can use to help their companies take advantage of sporadic opportunities in low involvement categories. Read the full article.
Data regulations: The art of consumer consent and preference management by Eric V. Holtzclaw
“To achieve the greatest return on investment for addressing mandatory compliance requirements, organizations should include a focus on the art of consent and preference management. In doing so, preference and consent management drives initial adoption and results in the greatest long-term benefit.
“Companies that approach consent with the goal of empowering customer conversations focus on deploying implementations that drive more granular preferences across business units, applications, products, communication channels and desired frequency. This long-term perspective leads to healthy and profitable customer relationships. Factors such as timing, placement and design drive adoption by both the company and by its customers.”
Takeaway: When working to address new privacy and data collection regulations, researchers should be aware of both the science (the technology, data and regulations) and the art (customer journey, communication and engagement) of consumer consent and preference management. Read the full article.
Researchers, are you telling stories that inspire action? by Kory Grushka
“Research and insights is clearly at a crossroads and is being disrupted. While disruption creates precariousness, it also creates opportunity. Research and insights is positioned to be a core gatekeeping business unit for data distribution to the broader organization – and it will be imperative to deliver data and insights in highly contextualized and actionable ways. The most critical aspect of our work will be not just to inform with data, or even to provoke, but to inspire. Our data must be delivered with hierarchy and priority, and our insights must tell stories that cannot be ignored.
“To tell better stories, we have to better understand and optimize the key media formats we use to share our findings.”
Takeaway: When working to communicate, position and ultimately sell their work, researchers should put time into choosing the media format to tell an insight story by: reconsidering the role of video, rethinking standard presentation formatting and taking the audience experience into consideration. Read the full article.
The importance of race and socioeconomic status to LATAM sample by Art Padilla
“But like marketing to Hispanics in the U.S., attracting Latin American consumers isn’t as easy as translating product messaging into Spanish. Several factors impact a company’s ability to enter the LATAM market successfully, and chief among them are race and socioeconomic status.
“It’s important to note that while race and socioeconomic status are considered in the U.S. when targeting consumers, these classifications differ in Latin America markets. The ability of brands to understand this and factor it into their sampling can be the difference between resonant marketing campaigns and those that fall flat.
“In short, LATAM race and socioeconomic targeting cannot be done the ‘American’ way, and here’s why.”
Takeaway: When launching a Latin American research study, it’s imperative that researchers create race algorithms that properly identify each LATAM country as well as apply the proper socioeconomics measure per country. Read the full article.