While qualitative research doesn't provide the statistical validity of larger quantitative studies, it is an excellent means of uncovering insightful "whys" by capturing feelings, attitudes, opinions, and behavior drivers surrounding a defined topic(s). For example, companies often utilize qualitative research to probe and prioritize the factors for motivating trial, purchase, and ongoing use of a product or service. Or, with that information already in hand, they'll use it for assessing and improving marketing messages and creative executions planned for a product or service promotion.

Researchers have several options for conducting this type of exploratory research, including in-person focus groups, online focus groups, and in-depth interviews (IDIs). Each offers its own set of pros and cons, and the most appropriate one for you depends on numerous factors.

The Group Methods

In-person focus groups are often optimal when the subject matter isn't so sensitive that it would hinder a candid group discussion and when many within the target audience are centrally located - like federal employees in the Washington, D.C. area. The face-to-face session, typically about two hours long, allows the moderator to pick up on tones of voice as well as non-verbal gestures and expressions that give clues to approval, rejection, doubt or basic comprehension of ideas. Additionally, the live interaction between participants often reveals additional insights.

On the other hand, online focus groups offer different pros and cons. Professional research firms typically offer two types: real-time virtual group rooms, where six to eight respondents participate simultaneously for usually 60 to 90 minutes, and asynchronous online bulletin boards, where ideally 12 to 20 respondents participate at their convenience via threaded discussions in a chat room over a period of two to four days. Both venues allow respondents to participate from their desired location.

Though you lose the benefits of immediate reactions and non-verbal communications that in-person focus groups provide, people will often reveal things online that they wouldn't in person or on the phone. So, the online focus group is a good platform for researching sensitive topics. And, the bulletin board format enables respondents to participate at times that are most convenient for them, which can make it easier to recruit people, like high-level executives, who are unwilling to commit to a specific time.

Both in-person and online group methodologies provide back rooms for the project stakeholders to observe the focus group discussions and provide instant feedback or additional questions to the moderator. Both can incorporate graphics, audio, video, or web site links to facilitate discussions.

Going One on One

In-depth interviews, also known as IDIs, are more appropriate than group discussions when the subject matter is particularly sensitive or private. For example, participants in medical studies may not want strangers to know their opinions. Certain business audiences may not want to tip off competitors to their way of thinking. Executives may be unwilling to participate in any kind of group, whether it's in person or online. Certain types of end users being asked to test a new product may feel embarrassed if they are not as quick as others to understand or notice certain details, or may too easily follow the leader.

If the audience is in close proximity, it can be advantageous to conduct IDIs in person, as participants often stay more focused on the discussion, and the interviewer can easily pick up on non-verbal cues like facial expressions. However, telephone IDIs also deliver valuable market intelligence and are appropriate when the audience is geographically dispersed.

Of course, a hybrid approach may be necessary when researchers need to incorporate graphics, audio, or video via web sites into either in-person or phone IDIs.

Typically the specific circumstances of your research project will dictate whether in-person or online focus groups, in-depth interviews, or perhaps even a combination, is most appropriate. Your research partner will weigh each option carefully and provide you with guidance.

Playing Digital Catch Up

Traditional organizations are beginning to realize what the early-adopting consumer firms have already embraced: digital information channels are exploding, and they're changing the way even government contractors and agencies do business.

The change is not only being driven by the explosion of new technologies that take advantage of the convergence of widely available advanced processing power and fast internet connections. They are the being driven by Gen Y, the ultra tech-savvy generation entering the workforce. They're most likely to use only a cell phone, watch their desired TV programming on their own time, get most of their information on the web instead of traditional print media, and be super connected to their entire social and professional networks. Not surprisingly, they're bringing these technologies and habits into the workforce and making an impact on the way that both private and public sector organizations search for, gather, and share information.

Consider that only five years ago few would have thought that government agency employees - including senior managers - would be blogging as a means of communicating with staff. Now, even the US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) is strongly encouraging blogging as a key tool in the global war on terror. Central to its operations, STRATCOM built the Strategic Knowledge Integration-web (SKI-web), a virtual intelligence meeting space, with blogging and instant messaging as essential parts of the operation. General James Cartwright, a top leader in one of the most hierarchical government organizations, called this a place where "what the person has to contribute, not the person's rank, age, or level of experience" defines the role of staff.

Certainly, more is in store than just blogs and chatting. For example, a year ago, the State Department began offering International Information Programs - a speaker series focused on technology and international affairs. This isn't particularly unusual, except that the sessions were held in Second Life - a virtual environment where as many as 13 million users world wide interact using avatars. The State Department is even considering using Second Life to open consulates in countries where it does not have enough resources for a brick-and-mortar consular division.

These examples provide only a glimmer of things to come. Traditional ways of reaching your audiences, including customers, employees, supply chain partners, or stockholders, will likely continue to have their place. But savvy organizations should explore ways in which blogs, wikis, community spaces, cloud computing, virtual environments, mobile tools, and other emerging technologies can enhance the reach and impact of their communications and collaboration.

And, if you're not convinced that these new digital options are appropriate for your organization, consider conducting research to learn your audiences' relevant preferences and habits. Whether it's posting a product demo on YouTube, building an interactive user interface for your clients or stockholders, or developing branded applications for the soon-to-be-ubiquitous iPhone 2.0, your organization may already be missing out on opportunities for leveraging these new digital realities.

A Weak Economy Calls for Strong Market Data

For many businesses, an economic downturn usually means spending cuts across the board. And, experienced marketers know first hand that their budgets are often hit early and hard. Yet, even with a lower budget, expectations for marketing results typically remain high. At the same time, economic concerns are forcing your customers to be much more discerning in every phase of the decision-making process, including if they buy, how much they buy, when they buy, and from whom they buy.

Success in these conditions requires knowing how to make your marketing dollars work harder and smarter for you. And that calls for deeper, richer, more current market data.

Research can help drive marketing performance by providing timely answers to numerous questions, including:

• What are purchasers' immediate and longer-term priorities and how do they align with our product/service portfolio? Have some of our offerings fallen to the back burner?
• Do we know our true value in the marketplace and are we communicating it effectively?
• How do we stand relative to our competitors? Are we effectively differentiated from other players in the market?
• Do some market segments offer more potential for us than others in this current economy?
• How do our key segments prefer to get information from us — are there distinct preference differences between them?
• Are there specific marketing incentives or offers that would motivate purchase more effectively than others?

With answers in hand, your marketing team can re-prioritize and refine the marketing campaign to get the best results possible under the new tighter budget. This may mean changing value propositions, marketing only those offerings with the greatest demand in the current economy, targeting only top-priority segments of the market, or executing more segmented tactics in terms of messages, offers, media, and trade shows.

As you rework your marketing campaign, it's also critical to share your new market data and campaign approach with business unit managers, the sales force, channel partners, and so forth. They too can apply the intelligence to refine their priorities and approaches so that the organization as a whole can keep the needle moving in the right direction under the challenging economic conditions.

Equally important, the fresh market intelligence will better enable your organization to prepare for faster growth and gain a competitive edge when the economy regains its health.

Deciding Between Phone and Online Surveys

Now that online research software and panels (pre-screened individuals who agree to participate in surveys in exchange for an incentive) are commonplace, our clients often ask whether surveys are best conducted on the internet or via phone. It's a good question, but unfortunately the answer isn't clear cut. Like most business decisions, it requires an assessment of the pros and cons of each option within the context of your specific circumstances.

Telephone surveys offer several key advantages. With the help of various automation tools, making random contact with a representative sample of the targeted population is fairly straightforward in many markets. The phone methodology also gives researchers more control over the number of responses achieved, which is critical for completing a quantitative survey with statistical validity. And, it offers them the opportunity to pose follow-up questions so respondents can clarify or expand upon their answers.

However, fielding phone surveys and analyzing the results typically takes more time than others methods, and that typically results in a higher project cost and a longer completion schedule.

Conversely, in many markets, online surveys offer a significantly faster turnaround, which usually translates to a significantly lower cost. However, even with access to respondent panels, it's much more difficult to achieve a truly random sample. For example, it is significantly more difficult to gather sufficient email addresses for a truly random sample of government employees than it is for consumers or commercial-sector employees. Furthermore, respondents may have a stronger tendency to rush through the survey in order to get the incentive, which means they may not carefully read and understand some questions or give careful thought to their answers. Both issues can raise concerns about the accuracy and quality of the data.

When helping clients decide between the two approaches, we assess numerous factors, including how long they can wait for the results, the research objectives, the complexity and nature of the desired data, the target audience, availability of appropriate panels or email address lists, budget considerations, and so forth. With further study, we can also help them assess the potential response and accuracy rates of both approaches. In fact, in some circumstances, we recommend a hybrid approach that incorporates both the phone and online methods in order to achieve the response rate that's high enough to represent the market as a whole.

Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to research. Therefore, the best way to determine how to collect the market intelligence you need is to engage an experienced market research provider who will work with you to build the most appropriate methodology based on your target audience, research objectives, budget, and timeline.

Address Privacy Concerns Upfront for Better Research Results

For market research to successfully deliver fact-based insights, respondents must feel comfortable providing complete and honest answers to survey questions without the fear of repercussions. Concerns that they could be identified or singled out in any way will affect their responses, resulting in invalid data.

In market research, promising anonymity guarantees that respondents' identities won't be tied to their specific survey answers. On the other hand, promising confidentiality guarantees that requested demographic information about respondents will only be reported in aggregate form and won't be used to pinpoint or identify specific individuals. (Researchers typically must collect specific information about respondents, such as age, gender, department, tenure, and forth, to ensure validity in the number and type of responses and facilitate various data views.)

To secure participation and to elicit candid answers, it's important for market researchers to assure respondents upfront that both their anonymity and confidentiality will be protected in the survey analysis and reporting. And, if respondents aren't clear on the difference between anonymity and confidentiality, researchers should clearly explain it. Furthermore, when professional researchers conduct online surveys, many use software packages with features that protect anonymity as responses are downloaded for the analysis phase. This too should be communicated upfront when recruiting participants.

Even when anonymity and confidentiality are conveyed upfront, some people may still decline participation altogether, or refuse to answer certain questions. For example, employees may fear that their identities can be determined by the way they answer certain demographic questions, such as the department in which they work. Unquestionably, using a third-party professional research firm to administer the survey provides stronger assurance that anonymity and confidentiality will be respected and protected.

In some cases, such as certain satisfaction surveys, it may be necessary for respondents' identities to be linked to their responses. For example, when a federal systems integrator conducts a contract satisfaction survey, senior management will likely want to know specific customer identities in order to more effectively implement needed corrective actions. In these cases, it's critical that researchers state this upfront and give respondents the opportunity to opt out of participation.

Following these practices helps to build the trust and respect of research respondents, resulting in higher completion rates, better data quality, and the increased likelihood that they'll participate in future surveys.

Is it a bird? A plane? No - it's IPv6!

We thought the many sales and marketing types that read this e-newsletter would appreciate a bit of background on one of the hot technology topics in government computing. Why? So you can impress the IT types around the water cooler, of course.

You may not know that internet-based communications may have come to a standstill. That's right — another Y2K was just around the corner. With so many new computers, cell phones, PDAs, smart phones and other internet devices being deployed, IPv4 — that's the ubiquitous IP protocol around the world — was at risk of running out of IP addresses. But, we can all relax. IPv6, the new protocol, is here, and it provides an infinite number of IP addresses. That means enough globally unique IP addresses for every internet device on Earth… forever and ever. Whew!

Now, because IP addresses aren't directly used by most people, we end users won't really notice the transition. But, we may notice some of the new benefits offered by IPv6, which will make plug-and-play devices easier to set up and use as well as streamline communications across multiple device types over the same network.

The federal government has mandated that its agencies begin transition to IPv6 this year, so those IT organizations have already started converting to IPv6 as a key element of their current and future IT strategies.

It likely won't be as scary as it sounds, so don't lose any sleep tonight worrying. Many devices and infrastructures deployed today are IPv6 capable. And, because IPv6 can be integrated to co-exist with IPv4 networks, when corporations are ready to make the jump, a smooth and very gradual transition is expected.

So, next time you're hanging with the IT types at the water cooler, casually say, “So, I sure hope you guys are on top of a smart transition strategy to IPv6.” When they stutter and walk away, think of us here at Market Connections.

Plotting your Course in Uncertain Times

It can be difficult to see the silver lining in times of great uncertainty. The situation appears so dire that many are tempted to pull the plug on both large and small initiatives. They're more comfortable taking a step back and waiting to see where the chips will fall. While there is merit in being very careful in a serious economic downturn, there is also high risk that taking a wait-and-see stance will leave you poorly positioned to capitalize on the opportunities that will arise when once the economy begins to turn. And, with history as their guide, many experts are anticipating that the downward economic spiral will be followed by a period of rapid growth as well as significant corporate and government investments.

So, what business issues should federal contractors assess now to be well prepared for the brighter days ahead? Here are just a few...

• What impact will the replacement of political appointees have on your current and prospective agency customers? According to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the number of political appointees rose from 1,229 in 2000 to 1,640 in 2005 - a new record. Regardless of which direction this trend takes under the new administration, it's vital for contractors to have a clear understanding of the likely impact new appointees on the focus and strategic direction of targeted agencies.
• How is the current crisis impacting the strategic direction of the agencies you serve? As the government continues to channel extraordinary sums of money to address the financial crisis, discretionary spending will obviously decline, leaving agencies with fewer dollars to meet their missions. Moreover, those dollars will be more difficult to earn as agencies try to do more with less. Does your company know which programs will be affected? And, more importantly, do you know what portfolio, business development, and marketing strategies would be most effective in ensuring your government solutions are more compelling than competitors?
• How will the tidal wave of retiring federal employees impact agencies, and what opportunities might this trigger for you? As the baby boomers become eligible for retirement, agencies will be facing tremendous challenges related to loss of man power and of institutional knowledge as well as the need to quickly fill those roles and increase operational efficiencies. With 36% of federal employees eligible to retire in 2010, contractors face an increasing number of opportunities to strategically position themselves as key partners that can ease the pain of these transitions. (GAO, 2001; OPM 2008)
• How will the needs of agencies change once capital begins to flow again? Waiting until after this crisis is over to clearly understand how the market's product and service needs are likely to change will put you way behind the 8-ball in terms of market readiness. Though customers may not know for sure how their requirements will change, they can likely make some smart and well informed assumptions on which you can take action.

These are just some of the issues we encourage our federal contracting clients to explore as they consider new paths for success in these uncertain times. Whether it's talking directly with key customer contacts for assessments of their situations, hiring an experienced market research firm to uncover the hidden market opportunities, or both, collecting the intelligence needed to make informed strategic investments is required for prosperity in any economy.

Holding on to Customers in a Bad Economy

Organizations are safe to assume that, as the economy declines, customer loyalty is also declining. The pressures of a severe economic downturn force some customers to place more importance on price than brand status or long-term relationships. Furthermore, worldwide economic concerns can trigger significant shifts in customers' needs, priorities, decision-making processes, and buying behaviors.

As a result, it's highly likely that many organizations' customer status assumptions from even just six months ago are wrong. Indeed, market leaders are now developing new strategies – both across the board and individually tailored to specific customers – to maximize satisfaction, retention and loyalty.

Unquestionably, current fact-based business intelligence is the key enabler of effective strategy development. That's why customer satisfaction surveys play such a critical role in maintaining loyalty in challenging times such as these. Some organizations even expand their standard satisfaction survey questionnaire to garner new strategy-inspiring data. For example, your next customer satisfaction survey could help you answer:

• Which of our customers are truly loyal, generally satisfied, on the fence, or unhappy? Equally important, why? How can we enhance the good and eliminate the not-so-good in our performance?
• How is the economy specifically affecting our customers' decision-making and buying patterns? How will these changes affect the demand levels and sales cycles of our portfolio offerings? How do we best respond to those changes? Will customers be downsizing and, if so, will we be interacting with different people?
• Do we provide enough flexibility in our portfolio? Are our offerings scalable enough in features and price so that customers can adopt and embrace them at their own pace? As customers' needs shift, can we affordably introduce new offerings or "lite" versions of current offerings to provide new value?
• What are the new risks that customers are facing and is it possible we can help absorb some of those? Are our contracts and terms not only competitive, but favorable? Would it make a meaningful difference to customers if we spread out their payments more and demand less upfront?
• Is our value proposition strong enough? Can we reduce the costs of meeting customers' needs through maintenance, upgrades, bundles, and so forth?
• Are our customer communications still effective? How clearly are we reinforcing the benefits of doing business with us? Have we correctly prioritized our messages and are we communicating frequently enough? Are customers aware of all the ways in which we could help them, or only those offerings they currently purchase?

In a recessionary economy, timely and flexible execution of smart customer-retention strategies can mean the difference between failing, barely surviving, turning a profit, and actually growing. Those that act quickly on thoughtful customer research will be better armed to succeed. In fact, not acting quickly could be dangerous to the health of your organization.

Ramping up Channel Partner Support

Unquestionably, channel-based organizations reap many benefits from the broader market reach their resellers enable. But, even under good economic conditions, they also face numerous challenges related to serving their markets via a decentralized sales structure. One key to success for such organizations is to maintain a two-way exchange of relevant and timely information with value-added resellers (VARs).

As markets continue to soften, VARs that survive and even prosper will find ways of helping customers re-plan to change with the times. They'll offer products and solutions that provide a much faster return on investment, especially those that can quickly improve efficiencies and processes as well as remove hard costs.

If yours is a channel-based organization, explore how you can better help your partners succeed with your products in the market. Here are a few suggestions:

• Get input directly from your VARs: Conduct a research program to get VARs' direct insights on how your organization can help them succeed in areas related to products, distribution, finance, deal closing, partner communications, and marketing support. And, since they're on the front line, also ask their perceptions of how the recession, the incoming administration, and other market changes are impacting buyers' needs, wants, priorities, and concerns.

If you have a fairly small group of VARs, your research firm may recommend in-depth interviews (IDIs) as the best method for getting at the heart of these issues. If it's a large group of partners, conducting IDIs with a few will help identify and prioritize the key issues on which to focus a larger telephone or email partner survey.

• Share your market insights with VARs: Like many organizations, you may have already conducted or are planning to conduct market research to ascertain how you should strategically re-align with the changing times to win more business and better serve customers. If that research is in the planning phase, consider what information would be specifically beneficial to VARs when developing the survey. Or, look at recent research results for insights that could be shared with VARs without posing competitive risks.

• Stand out in the VAR portfolio: It's likely many of your VARs represent a wide range of products, and it's your job to ensure your offerings stay front and center in terms of partner mindshare. Determine which of your offerings are most likely to succeed in today's business climate, and then give your VARs the tools they need to strengthen the appeal of those products. Perhaps it's an automated ROI calculator, compelling customer case studies, unique bundles, or extended finance terms. The partner and market surveys we mentioned above can be structured to reveal the tools that would resonate with buyers.

Of course, all channel-based organizations should have processes in place to nurture their top-performing partners. In addition to research-driven broad programs that enable more market success among all VARs, smart organizations are working directly with their tier-one VARs to execute mutually beneficial tailored approaches for sharpening the competitive edge amid today's rapid market changes.

Aligning Marketing and Sales Delivers Impressive Results

Most of us have either witnessed first hand or heard about some of the classic struggles between sales and marketing. Sales people say the leads that marketing turns over aren't qualified or warm enough. They wonder why the sales support materials don't meet their needs. They don't always understand what's behind some of marketing's branding efforts. Conversely, marketing professionals say that some sales people don't adhere to the strategic messaging, or don't take the time to learn new markets and applications the organization is targeting, or don't follow up on leads quickly enough.

These frustrations are common in organizations that neglect to strategically align sales and marketing. While each department typically develops a strategic plan, they are rarely connected to one another. However, with leadership's commitment and facilitation, cross-functional collaboration can produce impressive bottom-line results.

Effective alignment starts with a mutual understanding of buyers' wants, needs, preferences, and motivators. This requires that sales and marketing management and their key staff members work closely together to share data, assumptions, success stories, failures, and challenges. Then, sales and marketing should jointly champion a market research initiative, ensuring it's designed to fill the knowledge gaps critical to both departments' success in driving revenue growth. A research expert can provide guidance on the best means of gathering the market intelligence, whether it's identifying secondary data that already exists and/or conducting customized primary research, such as a quantitative study, focus groups, or in-depth interviews.

With current and complete market insights in hand, the cross-functional team will be properly armed to collaborate on closed-loop outreach programs, including defining the tactics, themes, messages and offers as well as the follow-up and closing strategies. The team should consider multi-layered programs that carefully integrate marketing and sales activities designed to indentify suspects, engage some of those into prospect relationships, and then convert some of those into customers. It's also worthwhile to consider how sales and marketing can utilize the new market data to collaborate on individually customized, strategic pursuits of targeted accounts.

In addition to valid market intelligence, the success of such carefully structured outreach programs will be dependent upon clearly defined roles, tasks, and timing for sales and marketing individuals as well as ongoing collaboration, coordination, tracking, and improvement. It's also important for the team to avoid biting off more than it can chew in terms of the number and complexity of programs, as that will lead to failure and drive people back to their silos. In fact, to enable transparent accountability and fully optimize the chances of success, organizations should utilize an automated tool for managing the execution, tracking, and measurement of these programs.

Though true strategic alignment of sales and marketing requires an investment of time and resources, it unquestionably pays off - right to the revenue line.

Winning More New and Repeat Business

When times are tough, some organizations smartly intensify their efforts to learn how they can win more contract awards and task orders as well as retain more members or customers. Market research conducted by a third party is often the best - in fact, sometimes the only - way to uncover the real reasons why things don't always go your way with customers and prospects. The best research method is based on your organization's specific circumstances.

Increasing Transactional Purchases: Some companies - for example, a hardware reseller - generate much of their income from sales that are only slightly complex, infrequent, and event-driven. Even if the company conducts satisfaction surveys immediately after transactions to assess the buying experience, it's hard to know why many of those customers haven't returned after six months or a year. In these situations, Market Connections typically conducts a quantitative telephone survey of 100 - 200 of such customers.

Certainly, some clients learn that their customers didn't have a need so didn't purchase from them or competitors. However, others learn that, for example, customers have gone elsewhere because of poor issue resolution on prior purchases, lack of bundling options or other value-adds that would make their offerings more appealing, or simply because a competitor's sales person was better.

Renewing More Members: Even when associations and other member-based organizations directly ask organizations why they aren't renewing, they don't always get a complete or totally candid answer. For these types of clients, we sometimes conduct focus groups with members that have chosen not to renew. This qualitative approach provides more opportunity for open-ended discussions about why - to get at the heart of their feelings, beliefs and attitudes related to the perceived value, offerings, processes, and so forth of the organization and its competitors.

Improving Government Contract Revenue: When a company doesn't win a contract pursuit, it can be challenging to learn any more from the agency's representatives than the somewhat generic information they share at the group de-brief meeting. In these situations, it's highly beneficial to conduct a perception study a few months after the contract award via in-depth phone interviews with decision makers inside the agency. In fact, we've also conducted such studies after clients have lost three or more bids to provide a broader perspective from numerous agencies. Structured as blind surveys, such studies often reveal how contractors could have presented stronger or clearer value propositions, developed more compelling proposals and/or presentations, or better assessed whether they should even invest time or money in certain types of contract opportunities.

Contractors can also conduct perception surveys to learn why they aren't winning enough task order business on their multiple-award contracts. Also conducted as a blind study, this type of contract research can reveal buyers' awareness and understanding levels of all the awarded contractors as well as what, if anything, agency decision-makers are buying from other awardees and why.

With the current and objective business intelligence that such studies deliver, your organization can then prioritize and tackle the performance corrections needed to improve competitiveness.

Unique Federal Syndicated Study Now Available - Includes Intuitive Online Analysis Tool

If you aren't one of the many people that attended our 12/16 webinar, you'll want to know about a powerful new marketing resource for federal organizations. In July 2008, Market Connections fielded a major syndicated survey that details the role that federal government decision makers play in the approval and acquisition of products and services as well as their media usage habits.

The 2008 Federal Marketing and Media Study enables federal marketers to more strategically and effectively target the right decision makers via audience, job function, purchasing authority, and other data. They can then maximize advertising, list rental, and PR effectiveness by mapping that data to respondents' media usage habits. A unique and easy-to-use online tool allows marketers to access and cross-tabulate study data in many different views.

Fifteen leading federal trade publications provided us with 5 - 10% of their circulation lists, enabling us to send the survey to over 50,000 unique names and email addresses. With more than 2,500 completed returns, the study is statistically representative of the market as a whole.

You can segment and cross-tabulate respondent data by:

• Demographics, including age, gender, education, and grade/rank as well as defense vs. civilian agency employment
• 20 different job functions
• 25 different areas of product or service purchase responsibility
• Annual dollar volume

You can then map your targeted segments' media habits and rankings to:

• 30 Web sites (including e-newsletters, blogs, Webinars, podcasts, and more)
• 30+ government trade publications
• Local dailies, newsweeklies, radio and outdoor for Washington, D.C.-area respondents

We encourage you to learn more about this one-of-a-kind study by calling us at 703-378-2025 or visiting www.marketconnectionsinc.com/mediastudy.

Enhancing Your Event Appeal

Current economic challenges are causing business and government professionals to be much more discerning about the money they invest in exhibiting at and attending events. As such, companies and associations that host large user and member conferences must do everything possible to fine-tune and enhance the value they promise and deliver to both exhibitors and attendees.

Research can provide the timely insights necessary to maximize the marketing appeal and actual success of events. Often such studies can be conducted with email surveys, since event organizers typically have email addresses of exhibitors and attendees from the most recent and prior events. Response rates for event research can vary greatly depending on a variety of factors, so it's important to send the survey to as many people as possible within the target population.

Of course, the survey instrument for exhibitors will be different from that for attendees. In addition to seeking open-ended responses on specific event offerings and improvements, exhibitor questionnaires should probe desires and satisfaction levels in areas such as:

• event location, venue, and time of year
• exhibitor fees
• availability of private meeting rooms
• sponsors' planned marketing activities to drive attendance
• exhibit hall days and hours within overall event agenda
• promised vs. actual attendance numbers as well as specific audience profile data
• co-sponsorship and other promotional opportunities prior to and at the event
• exhibit floor configuration and booth size options
• planned opportunities for socializing with attendees
• set-up, storage, and tear-down processes and support services
• expectations for and actual success in meeting specific business objectives, such as lead generation, identification of potential partners and vendors, face time with key customers, general industry networking, and so forth

Events sponsors should survey past and potential attendees on their desires and satisfaction levels in areas such as:

• the event location, venue, and time of year
• the registration cost and process
• the relevance of exhibitors to their product and service needs
• hotel accommodations and transportation services
• social/networking/entertainment opportunities, schedule, locations, and quality
• topics, depth of content, format/structure, and speakers for plenary sessions and workshops
• event sponsors should also survey attendees to measure how successfully the event met their business objectives in areas including, networking, identifying potential partners, gathering actionable market intelligence, and acquiring useful education and professional development

Sometimes the reasons behind event participation and satisfaction can be more complex, particularly where future enhancements are concerned. Based on your unique circumstances, Market Connections can help you determine if, in addition to email surveys, you'd benefit from conducting in-depth interviews, focus groups, and other roundtable discussions on-site at your events to gather attendees' and exhibitors' real-time insights for future improvements.

Recruiting Online Research Participants

Online surveys have become a critical part of the market research landscape. However, over the past few years, marketers and researchers have grown increasingly frustrated over declining response rates. Some of that decline can be attributed to survey invitation emails being intercepted by spam or virus filters, which block them from reaching the targets' in-boxes. And, for a variety of reasons, recipients don't open and read many of the emails that do make it through the filters.

Here are a few tips on how to boost the open and response rates for your next online study recruitment email:

• Start with a smart “subject” line: Keep your subject line to no more than 45 or so characters (including blank spaces), and avoid personalizing it with the recipient's name. You should consider testing subject lines by sending one option to half of a test sample and the second option to the other half and comparing open rates. If one significantly out-performs the other, send the winning subject line as a second email to those your entire sample.

• Keep it concise and simple: Clearly convey in the first few lines of the email the intent and topic of the online study, the type of survey it is (an email questionnaire, a chat room focus group, and so forth), and the approximate amount of time required to participate. If you're offering an incentive to participate, such as a charitable donation or a gift card, communicate that in your email text. Always include the desired call to action, putting live links to the sign-up form in a different color text. Always include a real name and their contact information in the body of the email in case a respondent wishes to learn more about the study or further assess the validity of the email. And, of course, always include a means of opting out of future requests.

• Reduce undeliverable risk - Due to the high volume of spam complaints and viruses associated with unsolicited emails, spam filters are tougher than ever - especially those at some government agencies. As with any email marketing activity, it is important to ensure your survey recruitment emails avoid the specific words and phrases that many filters block.

• Track your success - Ensure that your software will automatically track which emails are and are not delivered as well as open and click-through rates. Be aware, a high undeliverable rate points to an outdated list, while a low open rate indicates an ineffective subject line. Click-through rates can be impacted by a variety of factors, including the text and layout of the email as well as the incentive to respond.

Remember, your online survey success is dependent on an appropriate sample size of the targeted participants. Ensure that those charged with executing your study have mastered best practices for recruitment emails. We at Market Connections are experienced at gaining the participation of even the most challenging audiences for online research studies.

Sharpening your Competitive Edge in Government Markets

Given the tough economic times and the changes in the administration, government contractors are increasingly interested in gaining new business intelligence that will help improve their chances of winning and keeping contracts. If approached correctly, market research can indeed reveal important market insights that can help contractors improve competitiveness prior to bidding and also monitor the evolving environment after they've won the business.

Here are some tips for maximizing the effectiveness of market research:

Focus the research as narrowly as possible. Understandably, businesses want to know as much as possible about their market or prospect environment. However, because a single study typically can't glean all the desired information, it's very important to tightly focus the research scope on your most important needs. We recommend the stakeholders convene to prioritize the information needs and establish two to three strategic objectives from the top-tier priorities. This will ensure you get detailed answers to the most important questions rather than no detail at all on a much larger list of questions.

Tailor the research approach to the population segments. Most companies will have different “clients” within an agency - for example, agency clients may include the c-suite decision-maker who approves the purchase, the end-user at the program-manager level, and the procurement personnel who buys the product or service. In many cases, the decision is made by a cross-functional committee. In order to ensure the research reflects the roles of different stakeholders within the agency, and improve the quality and utility of the data collected, identify and prioritize the decision-makers and influencers as well as their likely data contributions. From there, structure the research to align with each of their roles and behavioral characteristics.

Identify the cleanest lists available. The quality of the lists used in the research can make or break a project. Poorly managed lists often contain more unqualified contacts than qualified ones and, because of their low yield, can significantly increase the cost of fielding a survey. Ensure your research provider has thoroughly sourced potential list options and has carefully reviewed the selected list to ensure they up to date and well managed as well as contain enough contacts of the target audience. This is especially true following a presidential election, when there is a higher turnover of government personnel than in non-election years.

Qualify the targeted respondents before starting the survey: In government, a job title doesn't necessarily reflect the person's responsibility area. In fact, sometimes the same title can have vastly different responsibilities even within the same departments. Including a screener in the survey will ensure that everyone who participates is qualified to complete the survey, regardless of what their title is.

Know when to use your company's name. And when not to. Revealing the sponsoring company's name often gives validity to the survey and can significantly increase respondent participation. It is imperative to reveal the sponsor in some studies, such as customer satisfaction surveys or in instances when targeting very senior personnel, who would be unlikely to participate without knowing it. However, there are some studies, such as competitor benchmarking, where revealing the survey sponsor can lead to respondent bias. In such instances, it's best to conduct the study anonymously. In many cases, offering participants an incentive can help offset the decline in response rates seen in blind studies.

Contact us to learn more about research considerations that are unique to the public sector as well as how your organization can effectively and affordably gain the business intelligence needed to excel in the increasingly competitive government markets.

Data Weighting Enables Balanced Sampling

More often than not, organizations must conduct quantitative studies that survey more than one population segment in order to meet their market intelligence needs. For example, when purchasing decisions are made by a committee of different titles or functions - perhaps the directors of security, HR, and IT - it's common to set the same survey quotas for each of them in order to achieve a balanced analysis.

However, for a variety of reasons, those segment quotas are sometimes difficult for researchers to achieve. Let's say the research method is an online survey, which sometimes have uncontrollable response rates. You may have an equal split of customer and prospect quotas but actually end up with survey responses that break down as 70% customers and 30% prospects.

In this situation, professional researchers would likely weight the survey data during the analysis phase of the study. Weighting data compensates for one or more segments of the population which are under or over represented in the sample, thereby balancing the various respondent samples so that they are representative of the real world.

Cost containment is another valid reason to weight data. Sometimes specific segments of a population are much harder to reach than others, which drives up the cost of surveying them. In order to maintain a desired precision level and still stay within budget, researchers intentionally establish lower quotas for those segments that are not in proportion to the population. After conducting random sampling within each of the strata, they weight the data during the analysis phase. Without the summarized data view that weighting enables, marketers would be forced to invest more money in additional interviews or to possibly miss the big picture by reviewing analyses of very detailed or small sub-groups.

For example, data weighting was necessary during the analysis of Market Connections' 2008 Federal Media and Marketing Study. Fifteen federal trade publications provided 5-10% of their subscriber base emails, to which we then sent the survey. Due to the varying response rates for each publication, we weighted the data based on the publications' federal circulation to ensure each was not over or under represented in the final sample.

Weighting is a very common and legitimate practice in the field of market research, but it does require caution and experience to protect the validity of results. Avoid research firms that rely on weighting too often in order to avoid difficult or arduous fielding. Market Connections does not take unnecessary fielding shortcuts. In addition, we're very careful not to over-weight quota groups with small numbers of completed interviews in order to protect the integrity of our findings.

Getting More from your Research Investment

In this climate of shrinking marketing budgets, many organizations are exploring ways to both reduce their research investments and get more return from them. Certainly, it's more important than ever to ensure a research project is designed to maximize the business intelligence required to enhance marketing or operational performance. But, with a little effort, you can get more bang from your research dollars.

Sharing the Cost of Research

Depending on the size of your organization, there may be other departments that need information similar to what you plan to gather. Similarly, you may have strategic partners or resellers who would be interested in sharing the research cost and results.

For example, we recently concluded a research study for a large IT company that was funded by four independent divisions. The study met each division's information objectives at a more affordable price for each. Equally important, the collaborative process of developing the survey and reviewing the findings facilitated a broader understanding of each division's market circumstances and sparked ideas for synergistic marketing programs between them.

Market Connections has also worked with a number of companies that have partnered with non-competing partners or VARs on co-branded research studies. This has enabled each participant to conduct a large quantitative study at a lower investment level.

Marketing the Research Results

Many companies leverage research studies to position themselves as thought leaders in the market. They utilize key findings to secure press coverage as well as build content for white papers, webinars, road shows, and web sites. You could do the same. But remember, the primary objective of your research should be business intelligence, not marketing fuel. Avoid filtering or twisting the results to support a particular position or selling point, as that will be transparent and you'll quickly lose credibility. Equally important, using a professional research firm to conduct the study helps assure the audience that the results are valid and unbiased.

Planning Ahead for Success

Careful upfront planning of the research project is required when conducting it with other entities or when you intend to use the results in marketing programs. Your research firm will help you structure the study to explore areas in which your audience would be particularly interested. They'll also help you determine in the analysis what information should be held close to the chest versus what can be repackaged for marketing and PR. With joint research projects, the experts will structure the study to ensure the primary focus is germane to all parties, while customizing some questions or section to address the needs of each. Again - leave this to the experts, or you'll be at high risk of creating a survey instrument that is too long and confusing for the respondents to answer.

Nailing the Right Target Audience

It can often be challenging for contractors to know precisely who their decision makers and influencers are in government agencies, making it difficult to strategically target their research as well as their sales and marketing activities and messages. Titles may not be a good indicator of decision-making involvement. In fact, even within the same agency or department, similar titles will have greatly varied responsibilities and influence.

Don't Necessarily Default to C-Suite

Because they lack specific audience knowledge, many contractors want to focus their research project on the agency's C-Suite executives, believing that their senior status makes them the logical decision-makers and that their opinions override those of the people reporting up to them. Though, the C-Suite may sign off on decisions related to some products and services, they are rarely involved in the processes of identifying, evaluating, and short-listing vendors. Often, this responsibility falls on the manager- and director-level employees, who are two levels below the C-Suite.

Many other agency staff members may play a role in influencing your success in pitching or retaining a contract. For example, end users may not be actively involved in the decision-making processes, but if the solution/product doesn't work, they will sound the alarm. To ensure their needs are met, it could be very appropriate to incorporate their input in both your initial product/service development decisions and in your ongoing market research.

In addition, many contractors overlook or disregard the importance of procurement personnel, who typically evaluate vendors on very different criteria from what is used by managers and directors. For example, we conducted a contract satisfaction survey for a telecommunication services provider whose contract was up for renewal. The communications manager customer we interviewed said that the procurement staff was frequently complaining about the number of incorrect invoices from our client - so much so that it was becoming a nightmare for the communications manager.

That, combined with minor but numerous performance concerns in other areas, resulted in the communications manager saying, “If procurement isn't happy, they'll make you crazy. Frankly, I'll consider other vendors who can get their invoices right because it will make my life easier.”

Developing a Clear Audience Profile

Market Connections offers a proven two-stage approach for targeting the correct decision makers and influencers in your research projects and marketing campaigns. We conduct a limited number of qualitative in-depth interviews with select personnel in the agency and ask them about the decision-making processes and participants. This step reveals the primary decision-makers, primary influencers, and secondary influencers.

From there, we administer a quantitative survey aimed at the broad group of titles identified, including a question which captures each respondent's involvement during each process phase. Those answers, combined with their input on priorities, challenges, and vendor preferences, and so forth, enable us to paint a clear picture of how opinions, priorities, and challenges vary among the correctly identified decision makers and influencers. From there, our clients can correct each of their operational concerns and execute more effective business development activities, marketing campaigns, and program management services.

Leveraging Industry Events to Conduct Focus Groups

Conducting in-depth, open-ended discussions with members of your target audience can deliver rich insights - including the “whys” behind their thinking and decisions - that just aren't possible with large quantitative surveys. Such qualitative research is used for testing branding and marketing campaigns before they're launched, assessing product features and benefits, uncovering the market's unmet needs, better understanding the impact of various factors on buying behaviors, and more.

The most common qualitative methods are in-depth interviews (IDIs) and focus groups. IDIs are certainly effective, especially if the targeted titles are senior-level executives who aren't willing to leave their offices to participate in a group discussion. However, they lack the interactive dynamic of focus groups, where participants often build upon each other's ideas.

Yet, focus groups can be a challenging and expensive undertaking for companies that serve geographically dispersed markets. In such cases, Market Connections often recommends conducting focus groups during industry conferences.

Here are some tips for success:

• Offer an Incentive: Your customers and prospects are gathered at the conference to learn, network, and exchange information. They won't care about your focus group nearly as much as you do. An incentive will help motivate them to give up two hours of their valuable time during the conference. Your research partner can provide guidance on appropriate incentives based on the audience, venue, and other considerations.

• Determine event organizer's offerings and terms, if any: Some conference organizers offer structured focus group opportunities to sponsors and exhibitors. They can vary greatly, so carefully investigate each show. For example, a trade show firm with which we recently worked offered free focus group facilities within the conference hotel for event sponsors above a certain level. It also offered support services, such as recruiting participants in advance of the conference and handling some of the arrangements. Our client felt that these offerings were well worth the cost of the sponsorship.

• Plan and recruit well in advance. Recruit participants early - before they fill their conference schedules. Also, if the event organizers aren't setting up a focus-group facility at the sponsoring hotel and/or convention center, identify and book yours at least four weeks in advance to ensure availability, as they fill up quickly when major conferences come to town. Obviously, find one as close as possible, as your no-show rate will be higher if participants have to spend more than a few minutes traveling. And, regardless of the location, make things as easy as possible for your participants, including organizing transportation to and from the facility.

• Don't forget your own events: If your company hosts an event for customers and/or channel partners, investigate whether sessions can be added that are specifically structured to gather valuable information. For example, we have one client that conducts focus groups and moderated panel discussions with their customers at each of the four user conferences they host around the world each year. These sessions are highly valued by both our client and its customers.

• Rely on the research experts: Though industry conferences make it more affordable for national and international firms to conduct focus groups, successful execution requires expertise. Turn to an experienced research firm like Market Connections for implementing the most important elements of the program, including determining the incentive, scripting the discussion guide, providing a professional moderator, and analyzing/summarizing the results. If the conference organizers don't offer participant recruitment, your research firm should also handle that aspect.

Certified Researchers Make a Difference

When evaluating market research firms, it makes sense to find out how many of their employees are professionally certified. The Marketing Research Association established the Professional Researcher Certification (PRC) program to validate industry knowledge, dedication, and professionalism among market researchers. A PRC designation assures the credentials of market researchers and underscores their commitment to continuing their professional education. Similar to certifications in other fields, it sets an industry standard for excellence in research.

The PRC program also challenges participants to stay on the research industry's leading edge through conference attendance, educational seminars, and peer-reviewed publishing. This focus on professional development is one of many reasons you'll benefit from choosing a research partner that employs certified professionals.

Over half of the researchers at Market Connections are PRC certified. Furthermore, it's our policy to share the knowledge gained through professional education and development with other staff members. As a result, you can be assured that we have the expertise required to deliver quality research and actionable recommendations that will help you attain your goals. Click here for more information on the PRC program.

Debunking Market Research Myths

Market research is sometimes misunderstood by business-to-business and business-to-government executives who haven't yet had the opportunity to utilize it as a business intelligence tool for driving performance improvements. Below are some of the more common misconceptions, along with our explanations of why they are false.

• Market research is nothing but smoke and mirrors. We've occasionally encountered marketing, sales, and operational professionals who actually distrust research. They have a mistaken belief that research results are twisted and manipulated to validate what the potential reader wants to hear and is therefore worthless. The fact is that reputable market research firms would never twist data - even to meet client expectations. That would be akin to a doctor prescribing the wrong medication simply because the patient believes it will work. It's downright unethical.

• Research is highly technical - we won't be able to relate to it. With the right research partner, the results will not be hard to understand. At Market Connections, we excel at delivering clear and concise data and analyses upon which our clients can make decisions and take action.

• Market research is not tied to any measures of value or tangible outcomes. It lacks an ROI. Market research drives informed, strategic decisions that can make a significant impact on customer retention, new sales, and brand equity as well as operational efficiencies and cost reductions. Market leaders utilize quantitative studies, focus groups, in-depth interviews, and the like to assess customer satisfaction, marketing campaign effectiveness, potential new products and services, strengths and weaknesses of themselves and competitors, and much more. Unquestionably, acting on the results of market research can make a dramatic difference to your short-term bottom line and your long-term opportunities for success.

• Our industry is very complex. A research firm wouldn't understand our business and couldn't possibly help us. Leading research firms dedicate time and resources to understanding client organizations and the industries in which they operate. In fact, research firms usually specialize in particular markets or areas. For example, Market Connection has in-depth experience with government contractors - many of which sell technology products or services. So, utilize a firm with relevant experience. Beyond that, a good research firm won't be shy about asking your subject-matter experts for input needed for program success. Equally important, such a firm will request that representatives from your company be involved in various stages of the program, including the review and refinement of the survey questionnaire.

• We used a research supplier once - that didn't work out well. As in any industry, the market research field has some true experts, some not-so-good providers, and everything in between. As a result, some companies have had negative experiences in terms of receiving faulty data, weak analyses, slow report delivery, or simply poor customer service. We encourage you address these concerns directly with research firm candidates. This will help enable you to select a partner that has adequately demonstrated the processes, account team, case studies, and relevant experience to effectively meet your needs. We also advise you ask questions related to your areas of concerns when checking their references.

As with anything, comfort comes with experience. If you believe your firm should base critical business decisions on what customers and prospects really think - rather than internal assumptions - then put your trust in a smart market research program conducted by an experienced, proven provider. As always, we at Market Connections would be happy to answer any questions you have and discuss the right research options for meeting your needs.

Do your customers really know what you sell?

Some companies make the assumption that the products or services that sell the best are those the market wants the most. They often base these assumptions on sales data or on the feedback of a few customers or business development (BD) staff members. However, sales data doesn't tell you if customers are buying more of one offering over another because they have a greater need for it, or because they are completely or partially unaware of your other offerings. Furthermore, it's the most vocal clients and BD folks that get heard. And, such anecdotal evidence rarely yields the level of insight or diversity of opinion required to guide an organization's strategic planning and investments.

We conduct annual attitude and awareness studies for a major government contractor that provides large-scale technology solutions to federal agencies in six discrete business areas. The first year we surveyed the target audiences, we found that most were aware of only one or two of the company's solutions within each business area. In fact, in some areas, fewer than 2% of the target market knew the company offered the products.

Our client combined this data with other study results, including a ranking of the agencies' highest priorities and perceptions of the company's strengths and weaknesses, to take some performance improvement actions.

• They developed a multi-year strategy that included an integrated marketing plan to raise awareness of targeted solutions within each business area. Product development, BD, and marketing staff members closely collaborated on this strategy development to ensure that it aligned with the organization's longer-term product and sales strategies. The cross-functional team also ensured that all customer-facing staff members were working in concert on a cohesive client development approach.

• The company also developed a selling approach that eliminated its rigid product-line silos to more effectively leverage cross-functional opportunities that meet broader customer needs. Previously, as with many large government contractors, BD and sales staff rarely coordinated across product lines unless they were reacting to a specific client request. The new emphasis on cross-promoting solutions required better and more frequent communications to sales and BD staff members on the breadth of product lines as well as how to better identify and holistically approach potential opportunities outside of their own businesses areas.

Over the four consecutive years we've conducted the survey, Market Connections and our customer have observed notable improvements in the market's awareness of solutions targeted in the awareness-building campaign. More importantly, by implementing a marketing and business development strategy that integrates across the organization, the company is identifying and responding to emerging opportunities much more effectively, resulting in an increase in their contract win rate.

As this case study demonstrates, you could be limiting success by assuming that your staff, customers, and prospects have solid awareness and understanding of your full portfolio of offerings. Utilizing market research to establish a baseline and measure year-over-year improvements is the only way to replace those assumptions with true knowledge.

Sharpening Your Re-Compete Edge

The administration's call for greater accountability is driving many government agencies to raise the bar even higher in terms of the quality and value of contractors' services. In turn, contractors should expect and prepare for more stringent contract performance reviews and re-competes.

For organizations approaching the end of one or more contract lifecycles, understanding how their agency customers perceive their performance can make the difference between winning and losing the re-compete. In fact, we are routinely contacted by companies who are taken aback by the unexpected loss of significant contracts on which they were consistently meeting contractual performance metrics.

The reasons for demise can range from issues related to “soft skills” like professionalism and communications, to hassles related to billing, and to everything in between. While these types of issues may not be “deal breakers”, they often drive agency customers to seek out vendors that can meet both the contractual obligations and the non-contractual expectations.

Market Connections recently helped two such clients prepare for more effective re-competes. One client for whom we've been conducting contract satisfaction surveys for many years was nearing the re-bid of an important civilian agency contract. We modified their satisfaction survey for this particular customer to get additional insights into ways they could improve the effectiveness of their re-compete. The targeted agency personnel gladly participated in the study and were largely positive about our client's performance. Their only complaint was that the contract's structure limited the number of personnel our client could provide, often leaving the agency understaffed. As a result, our client modified the staffing clauses in their re-compete proposal to ensure they could meet the agency's fluctuating requirements.

Another client was facing a re-compete on a long-standing ERP and process improvement contract with the DoD. Long before the RFP was announced, Market Connections interviewed senior personnel within each of the customer divisions our client served, who overall gave very high marks to the quality of their services. However, they also revealed for the first time that they wanted the services to be more customized to their individual departmental needs. We also learned that they wanted more frequent executive-level meetings and briefings. While the contract didn't require our client's executives to regularly touch base with agency leadership or conduct high-level milestone briefings, agency personnel perceived their failure to do these things as a sign of disinterest.

By combining their strong contract performance with new detailed processes to identify departmental needs as well as increased executive outreach, our client easily won the re-compete and is now perceived as a critical partner by the agency.

People and organizations are often slow to complain. You could be putting your client contracts at great risk by not proactively asking what you could be doing better. Acting on the results of contract renewal research - conducted well in advance of the re-compete - significantly improves customer retention rates. And, remember, customers will give more thorough and candid responses to a third-party research firm than to your in-house staff or executives.

Tips for Choosing a Research Partner

With downsizing being somewhat common in this economy, many organizations no longer have research departments or an experienced person dedicated to managing research projects and outside providers. Yet, those organizations still have critical needs for current market data. As a result, various departments and personnel are developing Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and assessing research companies for the first time. Here are a few tips for the first timers:.

• Ask co-workers and industry contacts for the names of research providers they know and trust.

• Find providers through the Marketing Research Association or similar organizations.

• Visit the websites of recommended firms to assess their expertise and areas of focus. Some providers are experts in certain industries, some in different methodologies.

• Determine if the firm's location is important to you.

• Once you have a handful of providers that could potentially be a good fit, call them and ask some questions. Gauge how you feel about them in the discussion. Determine if they ask smart questions about your needs. Assess the rapport.

When you've narrowed it down to two to three firms to which you'd like to send the RFP, keep the following in mind:

• Describe your need for the research. What are the information objectives, what decisions will be made with the research findings, and who will be using the data?

• If you have earlier study findings, internal statistics, and so forth that relate to the research project, share that information with the providers. It could result in more insightful and even more cost-effective proposals.

• Feel free to suggest preferred methodologies, but remain open to alternative techniques.

• Reveal your budget, or at least a range. This helps researchers determine the most effective program design within your parameters. In today's economy, it's often a delicate balance between affordability and the best methodology for meeting the objectives.

• When comparing cost estimates from different providers, keep in mind that varying methodologies will result in different price points. Those firms that specialize in a particular methodology - say focus groups - may recommend their specialty even if a different methodology, like a quantitative phone survey, may be better suited to meeting the objectives. So, ensure you're comfortable with the providers' recommended methodologies and relevant experience before doing price comparisons.

• Call the providers and talk through their recommended approaches. This will further enlighten you on the intricacies of market research. Undoubtedly, a conversation with one provider will spur questions for the others, so you may end up having a couple of calls with the finalists before making your decision.

Remember that, when it comes to comparing competitors, finding new markets, testing new ideas, or measuring customer satisfaction, nothing is a replacement for research that is carefully planned and executed by true professionals. Preparation by a first time research manager will result in a smooth provider selection process and a successful project implementation.

Going Green

Recently, several Market Connections clients have asked us to gather perceptions around the issue of going green as part of their broader market research programs. They and other companies need to better understand how important this issue is to their current and prospective customers, the best ways to deliver “greener” services and solutions, and how to effectively communicate the ripple effect of those green benefits to their customer organizations.

This issue is of particular relevance to government contractors, as the Obama administration has made it clear that green and alternative energy sources will be a focus over the next four years. Certainly global warming is a primary reason for this focus. But, cost cutting is another important driver, as government agencies and contactors can lower expenses and improve the bottom line through the adoption of responsible resource consumption programs. Equally important, green programs offer contractors a compelling discriminator in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

A report published by Forrester Research earlier this year noted that 55% of respondents cited saving money as the most important reason that their businesses are going green. A report from McKinsey & Company, also published earlier this year, stated that at least 40% of the eco-friendly changes business should make would also positively impact their bottom line.

Some of the green approaches being adopted include:

• Move to a green building: Most urban centers have seen dramatic increases in their office vacancy rates. In the Washington, D.C. metro area, it's as high as 13%. As demand drops, companies looking for new spaces can find modernized, energy-efficient buildings at considerable discounts from the highs of four years ago.

• Embrace a Work-From-Home Program: A recent study by the Texas Transportation Institute ranks Washington, D.C. second only to Los Angeles in traffic congestion, with commuters averaging 62 hours wasted in traffic per year. The report estimates that clogged roads cost the local economy $2.8 billion in 2008, as drivers consumed 90 million gallons of gas during the estimated 133 million hours they spent in traffic. Telecommuting is an effective way for companies to reduce the environmental impact (and traffic-induced stress) of some staff members, and there are numerous ways to structure such a program.

• Go paperless: Many organizations still generate tremendous amounts of printed paper, often because of internal policies regarding document retention. However, given the significant advancements made in document management and storage solutions, much of the printing can be eliminated simply by modernizing the organization's policies and systems. And, if you must still print, buy recycled paper.

• Change the light bulbs: Although energy-efficient bulbs are more expensive to purchase, they last up to 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs and cut energy usage up to 75%.

• Raise the temperature in your data center just one degree: Older servers can run effectively in temperatures ranging from 68-70 degrees, while newer models can operate in much warmer environments. Increasing the temperature in your data center by just 1 degree will save you 4% in cooling costs each year.

• Shut down orphaned servers: Many data centers, especially large ones, run only one or two applications per server. As new applications and servers are added, sometimes the old ones are way underutilized, or simply get left on even though they aren't in use. Consolidating and shutting down underutilized or orphaned servers, which can account for as much as 10% of the services in a large data center, can lower energy consumption costs considerably.

• Recycle e-waste: Donate your older computers, monitors, printers and other electronics to local public and private schools for tax incentives under the 21st Century Classrooms Act for Private Technology of 1998.

• Look for the Energy Star logo: When upgrading systems, installing Energy Star-compliant technologies can lower future energy costs. In fact, some of those purchases may be eligible for tax rebates.

• Push your vendors and partners to go green: If your organization works with multiple partners and vendors, push them to adopt these initiatives. Concerted, collective action, after all, is one of the surest ways to effective results.

Market Connections can help your organization determine if going green is a key priority for your target audiences. Ask us about it when it's time to undertake a broader attitude, awareness, and perception study.

The Right Champion Drives Research Success

Some larger organizations have quality departments with established processes and automated systems for driving effective research programs and monitoring the resulting performance improvements. But, just as often, Market Connections works with well-known, successful companies that don't yet have a structured approach to research.

If yours falls into the latter category, a critical key to maximizing the return on your research investment is a motivated and empowered internal champion that can rally and integrate the stakeholders as well as drive strategic success both before and after the survey is conducted. This person must be skilled at facilitating a continuous, cross-functional communications loop internally - all the way from developing an effective study, to prioritizing improvement activities that result from the findings, to monitoring those efforts via established metrics. In an ideal situation, the research champion would offer the following attributes:

• Decision-making authority: At times, he or she will need to make important decisions on components of the research, as sending every question up the organizational chain often leads to project delays. It also helps if the person has a “seat at the table” - and the respect of key management members - so that his or her recommendations are heard and considered.

• Experience with research projects and providers: It's beneficial if the project champion has worked previously on a research program and interfaced with a research firm. This will help ensure the right research partner is selected, the study design is tightly aligned with the objectives, and internal expectations are effectively managed. In addition, prior experience also helps the champion foster an internal understanding of the program scope and methodology as well as how research findings are translated into actionable performance improvements.

• An understanding of goal setting, alignment and measurement: It's critical the champion has a thorough grasp of the research goals and the overall strategic business goals they're designed to support. Certainly, this understanding can be solidified in meetings with leadership stakeholders. But, from there, the champion should be prepared to clearly articulate those goals to others in the organization and to the research firm.

Once the research findings are in, the champion should facilitate stakeholders' efforts to establish and communicate the resulting performance improvement goals. For example, with customer satisfaction research findings, it may be appropriate to set metrics and timeframes for specific performance attributes such as knowledge, responsiveness, troubleshooting, and so forth. If the organization doesn't already have scorecard or dashboard tools in place that can be tailored to the performance improvement goals, the champion can facilitate the development of such monitoring and reporting mechanisms.

• The ability to source information from internal and external sources: Assessing existing market data in the public domain may lead to the development of a more effective survey instrument for the research study. The research project champion should be adept at investigating and identifying such existing data as well as extrapolating the portions that are relevant to the organization's information gaps. In addition, the champion will need to assist the research firm in gaining access to the internal stakeholders as well as guide them in identifying and prioritizing their information needs.

• Consistent and persistent follow-through: Some companies commit significant resources to research but, because of a lack of processes and follow up, allow much of the valuable market intelligence to collect dust on a shelf. To avoid this waste, the internal research champion should be responsible for establishing processes and business rhythms that track the progress of those accountable for implementing performance improvements. Of course, this person will need the support of the top leadership for success.

These are just some of the attributes and capabilities of the ideal internal research champion. If your organization doesn't have a person that fully fits this profile, you should certainly still pursue the market research required to sharpen your competitive edge. The right research partner can guide an experienced operations person through the program, perhaps with the help of a rising star that can learn and absorb as he or she provides execution support. Just be sure to candidly convey the need for this guidance to the research firm upfront. As with anything, the more research and resulting performance improvements your organization undertakes, the better you'll get at it.

Using Research to Redesign Your Web Site

As your virtual storefront, your web site is one of the most important touch points you have with your customers and prospects. Market Connections has recently completed research studies for a number of clients who were in the process of redesigning their web sites. The findings helped them maximize the value of their sites for various constituents, including customers, prospects, partners, investors, press, and potential employees. Specifically, research conducted before and after prototype development can help answer:

Why constituents visit the site: They may want to compare your products and services to competitors, evaluate the experience of your team, look for insights on a particular topic, or perhaps just find out where you're located or if you're hiring. It's important to know how to optimize the structure and content in the sections they'll visit most frequently and if anything can be done to increase traffic to the less popular sections.

How they're getting to the site: If visitors are primarily coming from search engines, the fact that they aren't necessarily landing on your home page needs to be considered in the redesign. In addition, you'll need a smart search engine optimization strategy. If they're also coming from links in blogs or social communities, it may be worth enhancing your presence on those sites.

If video or interactive components would improve the visitors' experience: It's possible your site's perceived value could be enhanced with features such as virtual tours, product demo videos, case study videos, ROI calculators other assessment tools, online ordering or purchasing, and so forth.

If the site is user friendly: Can visitors find what they need quickly and easily - without having to endure too many clicks, too much scrolling, and too many annoying bells and whistles?

If important content is missing from the site: Your constituents may want specific types of content that you don't realize is important to them.

Market Connections usually starts with qualitative research - focus groups or in-depth interviews - to understand constituents' motivations for gathering the types of information provided on the company's site. Insights garnered in these discussions help guide development of the site's structure, design, and content. It's also very useful to get participants' feedback on initial concepts for the site redesign, other sites the company is thinking of emulating, or perhaps even its existing site.

If the company has a particularly high number of constituent groups that will likely visit the site, or if the qualitative research results are very mixed or evenly divided, we then follow up with a quantitative study to test those elements in the broader market.

For example, we've done some studies in which the focus groups provided unanimous feedback on their likes and dislikes. But we've also done focus groups - particularly those related to the restructuring of the site's content - where the findings revealed multiple preferred approaches in several key areas. Those results required quantitative research to validate and prioritize.

Your web site can have a significant impact on how your organization is understood and perceived by its constituents. Market insights will ensure that impact is positive rather than negative.

Ensuring your new name is the right name

Organizations are sometimes faced with an unavoidable need to change their name. Perhaps the need is driven by changes in the industry, an expansion of offerings and markets, a new strategic direction, or a merger or acquisition. For example, Blackwater Worldwide recently changed its name to Xe - pronounced “z” - which the president attributed to the company's shift away from providing private security to training and logistics. (The desire to make a clean break from the past after years of widespread negative publicity surrounding the company's work in Iraq was likely another major catalyst.)

An organization's name carries emotional connections and even equity with it - the amount of which depends on the brand power, reputation, and loyalty it has built in its markets over the years. As a result, selecting the new name that will represent the brand is an important strategic undertaking.

Though it's tempting to just pick a new name from a list of options developed in-house, we strongly advise against it. Rather, if your company is faced with a name change at some point in the future, Market Connections strongly recommends that you bring in outside research and creative firms to drive the name development and selection process. Since they aren't close to your situation or part of your target audience, an outside creative group doesn't carry any strong emotional connection to the existing name, so they'll be more likely to develop memorable alternatives than an in-house group. In addition, incorporating customer and prospect insights into the process via research will ensure your name properly reflects your desired brand identity and will be well received in the market.

The research firm should first conduct several segmented focus groups or in-depth interviews to gain insights into how your target audiences perceive your company and the brand attributes they most value. These qualitative findings will help focus the creative team in the right directions as they brainstorm. Of course, as they develop recommended options, an experienced creative shop will do its best via online searching to ensure those names aren't already taken and that intuitive web site URLs are available.

Once the creative shop has submitted a list of potential new names, your management team should evaluate them against the following criteria:

• How well does the name reflect either what you do or a discriminating company attribute?

• If the goal is for the new name to be a natural transition of the old name so there is still an element of brand familiarity, does it accomplish that?

• Does the name have any negative connotations (either in your industry or in common language) that may undermine its effectiveness?

• How unique or memorable is the new name?

• Are there any similar sounding names in the market that might lead to confusion?

• Does the name lend itself to being shortened into an undesirable or unmemorable acronym by employees or the market?

• If you operate globally, does the name mean something in another relevant language that can be interpreted incorrectly?

Once management has a list of names it's comfortable with, we recommend that a law firm perform a trademark search to eliminate those that are not legally available.

From there, your research firm should test the list of viable name options in the market via a structured telephone or online quantitative survey. The internal naming team can then make their final selection from those the market most prefers.

This approach will optimize the likelihood that your new name will effectively align with your brand identity and that it will be embraced by employees, customers, and prospects.