Never Do Anything Without A Permission Slip From the Consumer! - Steve Blacker - MediaBizBloggers

1. Given how inexpensive and quickly the turn around time is to conduct online research today; it is mind boggling that many media and consumer product companies give "lip service" if any consideration to consumer research. Most online surveys that are of a reasonable length - five to seven minutes- should cost under $10,000.

2. Without a permission slip from the consumer it is no surprise that nine out of ten new products fail, how many new TV shows never make it and how most magazines have seen a steady decline in newsstand sales. With more choices than ever a time pressured consumer is more selective than ever! It is virtually impossible to increase market share without understanding the consumer behavior of your customer and prospect.

3. Granted consumer research needs to be well thought out, the right questions asked and as much of the actual finished product shown as possible. If rough concepts are shown and the consumer has to speculate about the final execution the research results will tend to be highly flawed.

4. Many companies will conduct one or two focus groups and consider that consumer research. This type of an approach while inexpensive will be extremely costly in the misleading results it can produce. While focus group can be interesting unless you have the budget to conduct twenty five or more then your margin of error will be quite high. Focus groups are great for gaining insight, seeing your actual customer face to face but they are rarely projectable.

5. Consumer research should never replace the creative process; when done properly it helps to support and enhance it. Many creative people dislike consumer research because it often is in conflict with what they have based their entire careers believing in. Because today's consumer is changing almost on a daily basis as they discover new options, products, services and platforms to use; the need to constantly monitor consumer behavior has never been more needed.

6. Too many companies look at consumer research as a luxury or unnecessary expenditure. Many companies, even those that conduct consumer research do it only occasionally. Too often the executive in charge of consumer research is not highly regarded or empowered enough. Just as a major company needs a top sales and marketing executive it also needs a high level, highly experienced consumer research executive. The ideal consumer research executive must understand marketing, sales and above all be a great communicator so that key data is easily understood by the executive team. Too often too much data is shown so that non-research executives become bored or the 3-4 major marketing implications, problems or opportunities are not made clear.

7. An ideal online survey must be well thought out in terms of the marketing objectives and tracked over time i.e. weekly, monthly, etc. All members of the executive team need to be empowered to take ownership. For example they need to contribute questions and state what they want to find out.

8. The online survey needs to be respectful of a person's time and ideally should not run more than five minutes. A clock type measurement needs to let participants know they are 25% done, 50% done, etc. otherwise people tend too often not complete a survey. Incentives are a good idea and prizes can be purchased from sweepstake companies so that your costs are quite nominal. It is important to link a prize to the type of survey you are conducting i.e. travel, a travel prize. Without question the best incentive tends to be money.

9. You need to test your online survey before officially launching it to make sure the results you get back are action oriented. Open ended questions are a must as they enable you to understand why someone likes or dislikes what you have shown them.

10. The more often you conduct online consumer research the better you can track consumer behavior over time and not become blind sided. Trends happen over time and are hard to spot when you conduct infrequent surveys. While many companies may still feel they cannot afford the supposed luxury of consumer research; without it one can see their market share quickly evaporate.

Steve's new book You Can't Fall Off The Floor - The Insiders' Guide to Re-Inventing Yourself and Your Career chronicles his 50 year career working for over 25 different companies with 189 lessons learned and insider tips from Gayle King, Cathie Black, Chuck Townsend and 28 others; Blacker is still going strong today as a partner in Frankfurt & Blacker Solutions, LLC. His web site is blacker-reinventions.com and e-mail address is blackersolutions@aol.com

Read all Steve’s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Media Reinventions.

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