RMS held its annual company retreat last Wednesday, February 12th. One of the presentation topics covered by our President Mark Dengler was the Winter 2014 GRIT report which can be viewed at GRITReport.org. He recapped a portion of the GRIT report which discussed what companies are looking for from market research, and market research supplier firms in particular.

Here is RMS’s recap of those 6 items:

• Companies want to understand consumer behavior and needs. Research shouldn’t stop with numbers. When your market research supplier tells you that 34% of your customers have an average in-store visit of 22 minutes, companies want to know why? What makes it shorter or longer? How can we get customers to stay longer? How will a longer visit impact average customer sale?

• Companies want a more collaborative process with respondents. Market research is becoming less of “ask and listen” one-way communication and is evolving more into two-way communication. Two-way communication leads to more fruitful insights, which supports venues such as collaborative panels, bulletin boards, MROCs, and other more-interactive methodologies.

• Optimal research focus is now on ethnography. This has been growing in importance over time. Ethnography means observing one’s behavior. This could involve watching store traffic patterns, observing aisle usage, and reviewing shelf selections in-store. Interpreting behavior is key and ethnography often teams well with traditional market research such as shop-alongs to gather anecdotal feedback in addition to observational data.

• Targeted research through MROCs and social media analytics. Supporting the second bullet point, market research has found ways apply data analysis through web forums and social media platforms. The number of shares, posts, tweets, and views through social media each day are astounding (as #SocialBiz14 would confirm), so market research is trying to make sense of it all by profiling habits.

• Companies have less of an emphasis on qualitative methods. Qualitative methods tend to extend decision-making timelines and require a lot of preparation for a company and its research team. Some companies are finding it more worthwhile to get quicker and more reliable data through quantitative methodologies.

• Companies want an adherence to deadlines. In conjunction with the prior point, quantitative projects completed online can be done quickly. Panel surveys can take as little as a few days to a couple of weeks. Focus groups can take up to 3 weeks to prepare and managing the recruit is a project in itself sometimes. You also need to budget another week after the groups to sift through the anecdotal feedback and transcripts to create a report with recommendations. Dashboards for surveys can be created in-real time.

Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) is a market research supplier located in Syracuse NY. If you are interested in receiving a quote or proposal on market research from our firm, contact our Business Development Director Sandy Baker at SandyB@RMSresults.com or by calling 1-866-567-5422.