A QUICK AND DIRTY RESEARCH SESSION

Proper marketing starts with diagnosis. Always.

Understanding the market, the competitive set, market dynamics and where your brand sits is essential to identify your best opportunities to grow.

How much research you do will depend on your budget, resources and time frame, but doing SOME is a must for me.

Ideally you'd start by speaking to the brand stakeholders to get their view on how the brand is perceived and how it performs.

Get the inside view of what it thinks the outside thinks.

Then you'd speak to some customers to sense check what the stakeholders have said and get their take on your brand, it's strengths and weaknesses.

Get the outside view of what they really think.

Next I'd want to get a top down external view from people who buy what you are selling, whether from you or not.

This is the only way to get a true view of what people who could buy you want and need, what drives their purchase, why they choose to buy from whoever they buy from and whether they even know your brand at all.

Add in some desk research, some market trend analysis, market sizing and competitive analysis and you have a rock solid foundation to build a strategy to grow your business.

But, and I like big buts and I cannot lie*, if you can't do all of that what can you do?

With next to no time and a minimal budget?

That's where a quick and dirty research session can help. It's far from perfect, but done properly it will give you plenty to build from.

Here's how it works.

Get as many people within your business, from all functions and all levels, into a room with a pen and a block of Post-It notes.

Everyone must be allowed a voice, what the CEO hears at the industry events is no more valid than what the customer service exec hears from customers on the phone every day.

Then we are going to ask everyone to note down what they believe customers would say or think in answer to a series of questions around the three Cs - Company, Customer and Competition.

For Company have everyone write down on Post-Its as many answers as they feel valid, from the perceived position of your customers, for the following:

Everyone sticks their Post-Its up on the wall grouped around each question.

Then for Customer do the same around the following questions:

Post It's up on the wall, grouped as before.

Next do the same for Competition:

Finally go through each group, collectively challenge any outliers (don't be the CEO who claimed his agency was Tesla when everyone else in the business said Volvo, and demanded Tesla be used), add in any clear misses, and sub group by no more than 3 themes each question.

You now have an informed view on your brand's strengths and weaknesses, what customers want and need to persuade them to buy you and who you are in competition with.

Not externally tested, but still solid ground to develop a strategy and then marketing plan in the absence of any other research.

It's simple, I've used it so many times - often as a lead into other supporting research, sometimes as a stand alone.

It's better to know something than it is to know nothing.

* I also like dropping lyrics into articles, sorry not sorry.

Anyway, I've got some bins to shout at. Till next time.

John and Hat.

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