Welcome to the Listening Post!

Using Market Research to Address the CEO’s Priorities

Tweet

 

Clare Hart, president and CEO of Infogroup, presented at the 2010 AMA Marketing Research Conference, “Making Smart Business Decisions by Sifting through all of the Noise”. To move from “what happened” to “what’s next”, ask yourself these questions:

• Do you know your CEO’s top three priorities?
• Can you tie all of your initiatives to these?
• Do you use data as the primary way to differentiate yourself as a marketer?
• Do you know exactly what product, package, price and promotion combination is ideal to reach each of your prospects?

IBM surveyed 2500 CEOs across the world: getting close to the customer is the number-one priority, cited by 88% of CEOs; indeed, it was cited 95% of the CEOs of top performing companies. As a key way to achieve this, put more focus “on insight and intelligence to drive strategy”. An Infogroup survey saw CEOs intended to increase 2011 budgets in technology (53% are investing more there), CRM (46%), marketing (38%) and R&D (37%). This supports what CEOs know will help them drive their agenda; technology may seem like others’ responsibility but it is important to support marketing, as well.

If customer closeness is the key priority, then marketing is positioned for a leadership role. Marketing research – understanding the customers and the marketplace through primary and secondary research – is critical to every business decision. To understand the competitive market, product marketing requires research; to best position the products, promotion and placement requires research; PR requires research, as does social media marketing. Three case studies:

• Claire provided a retail merchandising case study from McKinsey Quarterly. Customer research on ice cream promotion and placement showed that 1) brand, 2) flavor and 3) price were the key drivers: as a result, group ice cream by brand then flavor. Thermostat sales, on the other hand, are driven by 1) price, 2) functionality) and then 3) brand: group thermostats by function then price.
• A vacation ownership case study: a company that sells vacation rental properties wanted to segment prospects in real time, so that when an individual uses a kiosk at a mall, providing their name and address is used to decide what promotion to offer. They use Infogroup data on home ownership, life stage, children in the home and household income, to then segment the individual and suggest a targeted offer of special financing, targeted vacation weeks, premium location and a higher discount. The right offer is presented instantaneously and provides highly qualified leads to their salesforce. This improves the top line and the bottom line: greater sales with less marketing expenditure. “Take the right data and connect the dots to drive financial results for the organization.”
• As the final case study, Highmark, a Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance provider, wanted to do quick and economical research to guide product development. Infogroup developed and maintained a proprietary custom panel, enabling them to quickly test 20 concepts, from new plans to pricing models to financial solutions. The panel helps them choose the right product for the market.

Market research, supported by technology and new data sources, can help CEOs achieve their key objectives.