Recently we had an Envoy Fresh client approach us to help them with a new product decision. They understand that market research is well worth the effort because guesswork and gut instincts don’t launch successful products, informed decisions do.
Our client wanted to make a decision quickly, so we needed to gather data and present them within the week. In most cases, we would rule out primary research due to time constraints.
But this wasn’t most cases; over the past few years, we have built a reliable database of customers for this client. We regularly email updates about the company. Also, we asked a segment of these customers if they would like to participate in occasional surveys about their favorite brand and received an overwhelming response.
So with the help of our client’s customers database, we knew that we would be able to get answers for the client from their most important stakeholders, their consumers.
We crafted the questions that were most important to have an answer and added a few questions about consumption habits and competitor purchasing. In a few hours, we had built our survey of questions and were ready to deploy.
We set up the email to the database and included a link to our survey (in Survey Monkey). To encourage response, we offered a drawing for three prizes to thank them for their time and honesty.
Within two days, we had 365 completed responses – more than enough to give us reliable marketing information for our client to make a decision. We also had IRI market data to confirm trending flavor and size information for the category.
Here are some tips for conducting your primary research:
- Build a permission-based list from your current client base. You can do this through website sign-ups
- Use a survey tool, and I recommend Survey Monkey because it is easy to build a survey and also has excellent presentation options
- When designing your survey, keep your survey length to less than 5 minutes, or you will not get completion rates that you need. Generally, 10-12 questions with demographic and geography questions are plenty
- Do not over survey your consumers, we try to limit to four surveys a year to this particular group. For simple questions, utilize your social media fans for responses.
Want to launch a new product, know how your customers feel about your product? Find out what would be a good diversification for your product lineup? Ask your customers – we can help!