Survey after survey suggests that shopper marketing is becoming a bigger priority for organizations, with more focus and more spend. Yet many of these companies ask shopper marketers to work with a blindfold on, not investing sufficiently in shopper research to build a really clear understanding of the target shopper, how they behave and how they are influenced. Why is this, and what can shopper marketers do to help kick start their shopper research?
There are a number of reasons why shopper marketers struggle to get shopper research budgets signed off. Shopper research can be costly. Apparently basic projects can easily stretch towards US$100k and beyond. It can also be time consuming with some projects taking many months to complete – especially if permission for fieldwork is required from retailers. Lastly, without past case studies, shopper marketers sometimes struggle to explain the benefits of really understanding the shopper to budget holders. And so (understandably to some extent) CEOs and CMOs are sometimes reluctant to pull the trigger on an expensive, time consuming, and risky new research approach. Worse still – too many shopper research projects are badly conceived, or badly interpreted, resulting in poor returns and leaving a bad taste in the mouth for all parties.
So how should a shopper marketer or trade marketer move forward when you know your boss, or your boss’ boss, is unlikely to sign off a significant shopper research spend? While there are no guarantees, here are a number steps you can take to get shopper research going in your organization (and to make sure your first project isn’t your last!)
Set your own expectations before starting a new shopper research project
In our excitement to get our shopper research project away, too many shopper marketers (and consumer marketers too!) end up asking for way too much information. Our desire is to know EVERYTHING (which is impossible of course!). Many organizations are still at the beginning of their shopper research journey – attempting to build anything beyond a basic and targeted view of the shopper world is likely to lead to disappointment for the marketer. It will also create unrealistic expectations for the budget holder. Remember that most organizations have been researching consumers for decades. It is unrealistic to believe that the depth of shopper knowledge can catch up with our understanding of consumers from just one or two studies.
Review what you already know before a new shopper research project
Before proceeding the shopper marketer or researcher should review all the data that exists in the business. And by this I don’t just mean the stuff that lurks in the shopper team. You may think there isn’t much, but you’d be surprised. Consumer panel data and retail audit data are, after all shopper data. And don’t ignore old consumer reports either. Often consumer research contains some useful information about shoppers too.
Build a set of hypotheses to guide your shopper research
Great research begins with great hypotheses. Don’t work at it on your own. Engage your peers, or an external party, to help build a broad set of potential hypotheses. At this stage go for quantity over quantity (we’re going to prioritize next!). Firstly brainstorm any ideas or questions you have about shoppers. Then restate these as a statement which could be proven positive or negative. Simple as that!
Go to some stores and watch what is going on
One of the best places for creating hypotheses for research is to go to a store and see what shoppers do. Just watch them. Maybe even ask them a question or two if you can. Remember we’re just watching to build hypotheses, nothing else.
Prioritize your shopper research hypotheses
We can’t research everything in the first project, so we prioritize our hypotheses with one simple question:
If this were true (or false) what would I do differently as a result of knowing this?
Then consider the following:
- How valuable to my business would that change be?
- How essential is having more data to support my business case?
- How easy would it be to persuade my business to support this?
- How easy would it be to persuade retailers to support this?
- How expensive would it be to research this?
- How expensive would it be to implement this?
Start by prioritizing hypotheses that would be really valuable to answer, and then those that will be easy/cheaper to implement.
Narrow the scope of your shopper research
Focusing on your prioritized hypotheses, see if there is a limited research scope that gives disproportionately high value. A specific channel, brand, category, shopper type, or behavior, perhaps? Maybe pre-store is more valuable than in-store, or home shelf more valuable than secondary displays. Be really ruthless and focus only on the scope that covers the most valuable hypotheses. This is the key to getting a really high return on your research investment (which is key to getting the second project!)
Get a realistic quote for your shopper research
Selecting a shopper research agency is probably a blog post on its own (if any of you would like me to write about that, just let me know!) At this stage the main thing to do is filter out those agencies who (too frequently) throw everything they can do with shoppers into the proposal. So check the proposal carefully and ask the agency to map their approaches to each of the hypotheses. That way you can check how essential each methodology is.
Build the business case for the boss
Now it is time for the big conversation, but we are prepared. We know how much the research will cost, and the likely benefits to the organization. Build the business case. Talk about how much additional sales or profit could be delivered by addressing these hypotheses. Talk about how much spend is made on activities which may not be delivering and therefore could be saved or re-allocated. Keep it simple, and well structured. Show that the research is likely to pay back much more than it costs.
And no, it’s no guarantee, but it’s a start. Of course, once the project is up and running, you now need to make sure it stays of track and delivers value. I’ll pick that up in a subsequent post, so if you’d like to know how to get the most value from your shopper research, why not download our free e-book on conduction shopper research.
Image: Flickr
