Best Practice for Small Business. Marketing ideas for small business.

Continuing what’s become something of a small business-themed week, today we look at how conducting DIY market research can be fraught with difficulty for the unacquainted and why it’s something that’s sometimes best left to the professionals.

In her article, Do-It-Yourself Market Research which recently appeared in Business Week, Karen E. Klein runs through some of the ways a start-up business can get to grips with their industry. Her suggestions include:

• Exhibiting at relevant conferences and disseminating surveys to attendees;
• Stationing one’s self on the pavement outside the such conferences, handing out surveys; or
• Hiring street teams to target particular areas;

Klein points out, however, that such techniques may end up looking like selling exercises and could even be misconstrued as harassment. Added to this, any business carrying out their own ad-hoc research would also have to be wary of the legal implications of doing so, as well as the issues involved in appropriate questionnaire design and sampling.

Given all this, and the fact that hiring staff or attending conferences could themselves be expensive ventures, the conclusion appears to be that there’s often no substitute for expertise where market research is concerned. As the article explains:

Sound advice indeed - Especially because there are few worse things a business can do than not understand their market or their customers properly, as demonstrated by the picture below…

from b2bsee * The Market Research Blog

Without vast marketing budgets to call upon and with acute time-pressure upon employees, small businesses can sometimes struggle to generate interest in their company.

Finding the most efficacious promotional strategy possible is something of a Holy Grail for SMEs – But without enough care, this can soon become an exercise in not seeing the wood for the trees. In essence, focus is key.

That’s why the notion of guerrilla marketing has become a bit of a buzzword amongst marketers in recent years. A simplified distillation of this technique is as follows:

• Concentrate your efforts on small, focussed areas of promotion that are effective; and
• Repeat them over and over again.

Colin Campbell, a sales and marketing professional from a large corporate background started his own business recently. In the following article, he reflects upon his own experiences of going guerrilla, and argues that a pared-down, but channelled, marketing strategy is what most SMEs need:

I launched my business at the end of 2005, and six months later I found myself in a position of trying to carry out too many marketing activities - yet I had too little business coming in.

I was going from developing my websites, to writing marketing collateral, to developing newsletters, to making contacts and attending networking meetings. All this was taking time and money.

Step back

Taking time out to think about what I was doing and how I was trying to develop my business proved to be the best thing I did.

I immediately discovered some problems. My marketing consisted of a series of activities - they were not linked up. I was meeting people, picking up business cards and not following up sufficiently quickly - people didn’t have a clear enough perspective of how I could help them or how they could help me.

I turned to the internet for answers - Perhaps people with similar business challenges could provide me with some new ideas. I went on some online networking communities and it was here that I came across the concept of guerrilla marketing.

Don’t do too much

The first key with guerrilla marketing is to seize responsibility and analyse the best marketing activities to undertake. One of my problems was that I was trying to do too much at the same time.

On top of this, I was attending a lot of networking meetings as I knew other people had very successful businesses through having a wide and deep network. I’d failed to realise that all these other people had achieved initial success through using one of these strategies, not all of them all at once!

Narrow your focus

The second key with guerrilla marketing is to focus on a small number of marketing activities and carry them out to the best of your ability. CJ Hayden, author of Get Clients Now! says that businesses often know what to do - they just don’t do enough of it, or get distracted.

I therefore concentrated my efforts on networking and following up. By doing this I was able to focus on building relationships with people I already knew and go to events to meet new people. When they showed an interest in what I did, only then did I hand them some of my marketing material. By putting people first, my business increased rapidly.

Repeat it again and again

The third key is to execute and repeat whatever works over and over again. In his Guerrilla Marketing books, Jay Conrad Levinson says:

Mediocre marketing with commitment works better than brilliant marketing without commitment.

I started a programme and five weeks later my business doubled. The growth was far greater than I could have expected if I’d continued with my previous approach.

Factors for success

Here are some other factors that are critical to success.

• Establish how much business you have today.
• Establish how much business you would like in the long term.
• Establish how much business you could add in 28 days, if you put your mind to it.
• Work out where you are stuck or need most effort - Most people think they need to fill the sales pipeline, in fact, most need to focus on following up!
• Work every day on putting the ingredients for success in place.
• Monitor your progress every day.
• Stick to your plan and it will work.

So what are you waiting for? Grab your gun and start your own bit of guerrilla warfare!

The above article originally appeared in the October 2007 edition of Better Business magazine

from b2bsee * The Market Research Blog

Research from business-to-business market research specialists B2B International shows low awareness of noise levels at work as deadline looms for entertainment industry regulations

When the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 came into force in 2006 the music and entertainment sectors were granted a two-year transitional period until April 2008. As this deadline looms close, and with exposure levels necessitating voluntary or compulsory protection for employees, Aearo [1], a leading manufacturer of hearing protection, commissioned B2B International to research:

• The needs and practices within the entertainment industry;
• Their knowledge of the forthcoming regulations; and
• How they are intending to respond to these.

The market research project included 30 depth interviews with managers/owners of music venues, clubs, pubs and bars with live or recorded music; two focus groups in London and Manchester with staff who work in noisy environments; and 200 telephone interviews with managers/owners/H&S officers in venues with music.

B2B director Carol-Ann Morgan was in charge of the research. She says:

Two thirds of respondents had heard of the Noise at Work Regulations, yet one in five had no detailed knowledge and only half the respondents knew when the regulations come into effect. Nightclubs seem the furthest along the actual preparation line and pubs/bars the least prepared to meet the regulations. The regulations were considered to be good in that staff hearing needed to be protected at work and employers were keen to avoid lawsuits.

Impact and action

The perceived impact of the regulations is low and will be dealt with by noise limiters, provision of a range of hearing devices, and changing shift patterns and working locations. Music venue/club respondents gave more technically focused responses, such as applying limiters to sound systems and taking sound readings, whereas bars and pubs focused on staff issues such as getting staff to wear ear devices and giving staff breaks. In music venues and nightclubs, provision of hearing protection devices is the most popular approach to meeting the regulations whereas reducing the noise levels is favoured by pubs and bars.

Noise in the music industry is loudest in live music venues closely followed by nightclubs. The latter are most likely to measure levels and pubs least likely. Larger companies tend to have fewer staff exposed to noise. Where there is concern, it is for staff and not customers.

Likely actions (showing low reference to enforcement practices) to meet the regulations include:

• Provision of a range of acceptable hearing protection devises;
• Monitoring and reducing noise levels through limiters and education of the industry;
• A change in shift patterns;
• A change in work locations;
• Working with hearing protection suppliers (only clubs).

Advice

Gaining information about the regulations comes from trade press and H&S bulletins for music venues whereas internal communications are very important for clubs, pubs and bars. However when advice on the changes is pro-actively sought, employers approach local councils, local colleges and universities rather than expensive consultancies. Decisions about staff protection from noise are most definitely taken by management, with no employees driving the change.

Awareness, acceptability and availability

Staff awareness of noise levels is very low and noise complaints are negligible. Also, staff exposure to noise varies. The majority of staff in larger pubs and bars are casually employed rather than contracted – many of these are students, and so are more affected by noise in the evening. Nightclubs are more likely to have their own employees, with the exception of security, however here there are more strategies in place to protect staff, such as rotation. Music venues mainly employ a mix of staff, contract for security and crew staff for bands. Some employees in such venues are exposed to noise, but the bars are often located away from the main venue or speakers are faced away from where staff work.

Research indicates that acceptability of ear protection by the workforce and its subsequent adoption are real issues. Workers in the entertainment industry are often students and young people, conscious of current trends and fashions, who show little awareness of noise-levels and low concern for the damage noise may cause.

The preferences for the type and features of hearing protection vary according to user group. Buyers and management want performance, comfort, security, staff acceptability, and a good price, whilst wearers want discreet protection, comfort, design, versatility/ease of use (e.g. to take in and out). A price premium will be paid for performance features such as discreetness and especially the ability to hear conversations and protect simultaneously. Branding is not an issue for hearing protection among end users. However Aearo was found to be well-known and reputable, with products that are widely available and easy to use.

There are issues surrounding availability – pubs and bars especially are looking to buy ear protection devices through wholesalers and cash & carry outlets, whereas music venues and larger clubs are more likely to expect availability through specialist suppliers (music, bar and PPE suppliers).

Carol-Ann believes that “our survey indicates that companies really should be making plans to address the noise issue now. It has been refreshing that Aearo wanted to conduct market research to see what was happening (or otherwise!) in the marketplace. They have recognised the importance of trying to understand the needs and concerns of the entertainment industry and responding to these needs.”

[1] About Aearo - Aearo are world leaders in sound protection. They manufacture a complete line of hearing protection for anyone who spends time in noisy environments. Their goal is to provide the greatest possible comfort, security and safety whilst being at the forefront of innovation.

from b2bsee * The Market Research Blog

Following on from our initial post last week about the findings of the 2007 ESOMAR Prices Study, in this post we look in more detail at how online research methods, such as e-surveys and e-focus groups, have continued to exert a strong downward pressure upon research prices.

That online research tends to lower costs is amply demonstrated by the fact that while telephone interviewing was found, on average, to be roughly three-quarters of the cost of face-to-face research, online techniques were a further 33% cheaper than telephone-based methods.

The article then concludes by examining the key factors that determine market research price differentials between countries and regions:

How cheap will on line go?

In the current study, 19 countries were able to provide at least three bids for conducting a tracking study using online data collection, up from 10 countries in 2005. Prices fell, in US dollars, in five of the eight countries that were included in both the 2005 and 2007 studies. These falls were despite the fact that exchange rate movements alone should have made most of them more expensive. In Australia, Japan, and UK the absolute price reductions were particularly large. It appears that a major factor in these price cuts is the increased number of suppliers and fierce price competition.

However, there is an indication in the study that prices won’t continue to fall indefinitely. In the USA prices rose between 2005 and 2007, by about 13% per year.

The main drivers

The study suggests the key drivers of price are the cost of labour and the size of the research market where the work is done. The cost of labour, in turn, being driven by a combination of local wage rates and the shortage or abundance of talent (markets that feel the need to hire international talent certainly end up more expensive). Smaller research markets, in economically advanced countries, find it hard to create online access panels. Without a range of online access panels, these countries miss out on the cheapest options for research. This, in part, explains why Ireland was the most expensive country on the Global Index.

The cheapest countries tend to be those with the lowest cost bases, with the cheapest being Pakistan, followed by Bulgaria and Macedonia. Several of the recent EU accession countries, for example Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania, are amongst the cheapest on the Global Index. This position may change markedly over the next few years, as these economies harmonise with the rest of the EU.

The above article orginally appeared in the October 2007 edition of Research World

from b2bsee * The Market Research Blog

ESOMAR’s latest Prices Study, the seventh such study conducted by the organisation since 1982 and its most extensive to date, reveals some interesting trends in market research pricing globally.

The report obtained responses from 592 market research agencies in 95 countries, with enough data being obtained from 63 of these nations for reliable international comparisons to be drawn. Quotations were received from agencies for eight hypothetical research projects, each with a specific methodology. In addition, tariff data was also sought for the daily charge per junior and senior researcher, as well as the cost of an hour’s use of a call centre.

In the first of a two-part post detailing the main findings of the report, we look firstly at variations in market research prices from one nation to another, and at how local conditions can have a marked impact upon costs:

The highest and lowest

The Prices Study contains a wealth of information about eight projects, and specific activities, across 63 countries. Nevertheless, there will always be interest in which countries are the most and least expensive. Despite this being an easy question, the answer is not easy to provide. To compare countries one first has to pick a type of project, for example focus groups with consumers, or a telephone tracker with businessmen. The most expensive country for four focus groups was USA, with the UK second. However, the most expensive country to conduct a Usage and Attitude study online is Finland, followed by France.

In order to create an overall ‘Global Index’, a composite score was calculated using a representative quantitative and qualitative study, where an index value of 100 represents the mid-point. The index is based on averaged indices from the cheapest option in each country for the Usage and Attitude project and the focus group project which were the two projects with the most responses to reflect prices for relatively typical quantitative and qualitative projects. The tables below detail the 20 most expensive and 20 cheapest countries for research:

Not uniform

No global research project is truly uniform in the way it is undertaken in each market. The Prices Study highlighted a number of factors, which will be familiar to those who regularly conduct international research.

Many markets do not yet have online as an option, and some do not have telephone as an option yet. In some markets telephone is in decline because fixed phones are in decline, particularly in countries like Finland where about 50% of homes are mobile phone only. In Australia and USA most agencies were not able or willing to quote for door-to-door research, whilst in Singapore door-to-door is preferred to Central Location Testing. In some countries it is normal to specify that one moderator will conduct all the focus groups (if the number is small), but in other countries the moderator has to be of the same gender or group as the participants.

The message from the research is clear. The cheapest way to conduct a global research project is via multiple modes, varying by country. Any attempt to fix on a single methodology will result in much higher costs, and may not be possible.

The above article orginally appeared in the October 2007 edition of Research World

from b2bsee * The Market Research Blog