Marketing Researchers On a Budget: Be a Problem Solver to Convey the Value of Research to Your Clients

Frame up research recommendations within the context of your client's business and needs, and you’ll be providing significant value to the relationship. As part of my coursework at Northwestern's Medill IMC I spend a lot of time trying to better understand the role research and strategic planning play in the integrated marketing communications process, and I've outlined some of my thinking below.

If your clients aren’t investing in marketing research, then you have an opportunity to shine. Begin by identifying the actual pain points obstacles your client is experiencing. If you're struggling with this, here's some advice. Put yourself in your client's shoes, and imagine what keeps them up at night. There's your problem. Now spend some time developing a strategy using research designed to either overcome that obstacle or to provide the business intelligence and insights needed to do so. This recent article from USA Today is a good place to start for some ideas, as it provides several real-world examples of smart companies using established or emerging marketing research to drive valuable results. Learn more about the author, Scott Martin here.

You may be thinking that your clients don't have a dedicated research budget and you struggle with the idea of trying to show them the value in allocating resources. You're not alone. Every company in the world deals with finite resources, big and small. Yes, research can be very expensive, but there are some surprising affordable approaches you can take to offer smart marketing research strategies that won't break the bank. Offer up a cost effective, smart research strategy that is grounded in strong fundamentals and many clients will thank you for respecting their budgets and working intelligently on their behalf. Here's a great introduction from Entrepreneur Magazine on the budget-sensitive strategies some smart businesses are using to stay ahead of the competition. It's written by the always-smart Susan Gunelius.

Rather than provide an exhaustive list of research best practices and checklists, consider the following steps to get started and planning.

1. Start with an actionable question with financial or other measurable implications.
2. Find the most efficient way to honestly answer the question while making sure you fully understand any cost trade-offs you are making.
3. In plain English, deliver your research recommendations along with what actionable and measurable questions you plan to address.

A great place to begin is to sit down with one of your clients who is not investing in marketing research and ask them what business worries are keeping them awake at night. Then build a smart, budget-sensitive research program to provide them with actionable recommendations at solving their problem. Do it well and not only will you earn some new business, but you'll likely earn quite a bit of customer loyalty as well.

Matt Marcus is a strategic marketing professional with significant experience across consumer and business segments. He specializes in strategic consulting, consumer/market research and planning. Matt is a pursuing a master’s degree in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University’s Medill School. Connect with him on Twitter (@mattmarcus178) and LinkedIn.

Presence in Presentations: How to Successfully Communicate with Any Audience

Presentations are becoming ubiquitous. But by no means does this suggest that they are becoming ubiquitously effective. In fact, many presentations – and to be honest, presenters – fail. As a Northwestern student studying Psychology and Mathematics, I took an advanced cognitive psychology seminar called, “Show and Tell: The Psychology of Presentations.” In addition, this past week I heard two different lectures about presentations and data visualization, one given by business author Dan Roam and the other by infographic designer Randy Krum. The following is a rundown of what I have learned.

“There is nothing that is more important to our professional success – and in many ways our personal success – than the ability to communicate our idea in public.” And so began Dan Roam’s recent talk, “How regular people make extraordinary presentations.” Introducing us to various characters along the way, Roam transformed an educational presentation into entertainment. His performance highlighted various key recommendations, all of which were broken down into digestible 3-4 bullet chunks. For example, the 3 keys to an extraordinary presentation are:

1. Tell the truth 
2. Tell it with a story 
3. Tell the story with pictures 

Then, Roam provided his spectators with actionable advice. There is an appropriate “storyline” to employ based on the change the presenter wants to incite in an audience. If he or she wants the audience to experience:

• A change in information: use a report 
• A change in knowledge: use an explanation 
• A change in actions: use a pitch 
• A change in beliefs: use a drama 

During the presentation, Roam encouraged the audience to put pencil to paper and draw ideas out, so as to better understand and remember them. Days later, I can say that it worked!

Taking a different approach, Randy Krum started his talk with numbers: 80% of the brain is dedicated to visual processing. Citing the picture superiority effect, he explained that memory retention is significantly aided by visuals; after 3 days, only 10% of information introduced as solely text or audio was retained versus 65% of material presented as text and a picture. While much of Randy’s talk was focused on infographics, many of the principles also hold true for presentations. He suggests a 3-part story format for communicating effectively:

• Introduction/foundation
• Ah-ha moment/the main event
• Call-to-action/conclusion

He also reminded us to pull away from the details and focus on the key message: “what is the ONE thing you want your audience to remember?”

Well, here is my key message: Make presentations that help you and your audience stay PRESENT.

Here are 3 ways to do just that:

1. Know your audience and yourself – cater the presentation to the audience so that it is the right balance of new information based on familiar topics; also realize that slides are there to help you present, so use them wisely. Ultimately, a presentation is an opportunity to share your ideas, and doing so effectively will have the most beneficial results
2. Use your visual AND verbal brain – using the verbal and visual brain allows for deeper exploration both in planning a presentation and in presenting one; incorporating visuals in addition to traditional text helps both the presenter and the audience
3. Take into account the psychology of the mind – most people have a short attention span, people learn and remember more if they have to engage with the material, and people process information better when it is chunked into groups of 4-7 items

The key to powerful presentations is being able to understand your audience and communicate your ideas in a way that is engaging and meaningful to them. A successful presenting style can result in the acquisition of new clients or the satisfaction of current customers, personal promotions, and funding for start-up ventures. There is no doubt that applying these tips will help your professional career. Think back to all of the boring, confusing, and/or deceiving presentations you have sat through in the past; wouldn’t it be a better world if communication were faster, clearer, and more efficient?


Kelleigh Whelan is an incoming Consultant at Oliver Wyman, as well as a former summer intern at the same company. In June, she will graduate with a B.A. from Northwestern University in Mathematics and Psychology, along with the Integrated Marketing Certificate. Her interests include data visualization, traveling, and card games.

Questions or comments? Contact her through Twitter @kelleighwhelan or LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kelleighwhelan/

Luxury Marketers: Big Data from the boutique? New technologies help best serve your customers

  

Digital is radically changing the consumption pattern of luxury goods consumption in every way. As a graduate student studying the Integrated Marketing Communications in Northwestern University, I’ve always been interested in learning the marketing trends within luxury and how the industry would leverage technology as well as digitalization to make the best outcome. For those luxury managers who are poised to offer top-tier services as their merchandise, here I found two inspiring articles that would help you make it happen.

According to a recent report from McKinsey (see "Digital luxury experience: Keeping up with changing customers" by Linda Dauriz), the future of digital luxury hasn’t been bright ever — online luxury sales are growing twice as fast as the overall market. The report demonstrates that, in 2013, digital interactions directly generated more than 13% of offline luxury sales and influenced another 28% of sales. Also it shows that more than 45% of luxury purchases are influenced by what shoppers find in the digital universe. From all these mind-blowing numbers we can obviously feel the power of digitalization in terms of boosting luxury sales in today’s world. But, what’s more noteworthy is that although pure online transactions are growing twice as fast as the sector as a whole, they represent only about 4% of the total luxury goods market. Shoppers use the digital platform more for search and comparing purposes rather than making purchase — especially for luxury consumers who are going for more expensive or custom products. However, engaging, easy-to-navigate mobile platforms would play an important role to drive store traffic to the physical boutiques, since shoppers are more likely to use smartphones for commuting info (shopping or dining). More than half of their searches of products are on mobile devices, and by the time they actually enter the store, they’ve already gathered detailed information about the products they’re about to purchase.

Another way that digitalization could help in in-store sales is through in-store facial recognition. The article “Big Data is Watching” by Sophie Doran has introduced the state-of-the-art method of tracking in-store consumer data by following wi-fi signals and by using surveillance softwares to profile customers. As the article elaborates, Nordstrom’s experiment used video surveillance and signals from shoppers’ cellphones and apps to learn information as varied as their sex, how many minutes they spend in various parts of the store and how long they look at merchandise before buying it. Moreover such detailed info would be stored permanently and activate globally through the facial recognition tools. All the data gathered from this “in-store monitoring”, combined with data gathered from digital platform, can provide marketers valuable information about customer preferences so as to guide them to change store layouts and offering more customized services, creating ever satisfying in-store customer experience throughout the world. However, the legal issue has been brought up with it, suspending the experiments in Nordstrom after months. Generally in customers’ minds, personal data is the price they pay online for the ability to quickly compare pricing and arrange convenient delivery. Whereas they feel that this “give to get” mechanism won’t apply when it comes to in-store data collection — When retailers try and collect similar data from consumers in a physical retail environment, they become unnerved, with the key criticism of in-store data collection being lack of consent.

In reading the above 2 articles, I would suggest 3 actions for luxury marketers regarding how to best leverage big data to stay at the cutting edge and generate higher revenue benefited from what you have:

  

    1. Perfect in-store experience & use digital as catalyst. Digital is serving more as the helper for customers to purchase wisely, but boutiques are still where they make purchases. Deeper engagement with customers digitally, however, can increase store traffic to generate higher revenue.

     2. See the value of in-store data. The value of In-store experience for customers determines the value of monitor in-store behaviors for marketers. Combine in-store data with online transaction, marketers can profile best-valued customers more accurately and offer them more satisfying purchase experience.

     3. Never overlook the legitimacy of data collection. The dispute over the legitimacy of gathering user data is more serious than ever. Complaints and criticism around “big data or big brother” have been and will still be the topic. Therefore, marketers have to notify customers before getting any access to data in order to keep away from troubles.

The luxury market is seen as the most passion-driven and customized market. The nature of the industry has already revealed its close relationship with advanced data analysis. As the new technology popularizes in application, the deeper than ever understanding of each customer would open a brand new page in terms of building customer-brand relationship, and thus create a much more efficient business model to generate a win-win situation for both brands and customers. Let’s look forward to it.

Cerise Miao is an MS candidate in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University, majoring in marketing analytics and brand strategy. Majored in economics in college, she is interested in music, movies, languages and fine arts. She has passion for luxury and for data analysis. 
Follow Cerise @CeriseMiao