On an airplane bound for Silicon Valley, I read an interesting article in The Financial Times about a new book by Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen entitled Competing Against Luck. The book discusses how successful companies know how to grow.
Christensen believes consumers “hire” — or “buy” in non-management speak — products or services for very specific functions. One example discussed how a fast food restaurant chain wanting to sell more milkshakes embarked on a large market research initiative to figure out how to improve its shakes. However, the real insight was in understanding WHY and WHEN customers bought the shakes.
For example, customers who purchased in the morning did so to help them deal with long car rides or boring commutes. Customers buying shakes in the afternoon bought them to treat their children or themselves. Morning purchases meant a more enjoyable, potentially more interesting commute. Afternoon purchases meant peach-of-mind with happy kids and happy parents. Upshot: by segmenting times of the day when customers purchased and the reasons motivating the purchase, the chain was able to more meaningfully market the shake thereby increasing sales. Put in context, it’s easy to question, what are they buying, the milkshake or the experience?
I couldn’t help but think about how or why the team involved with the market research missed the purchase context.
“When you launch a product and it becomes successful, all of a sudden the data that swirls around you is about products and competitors and customers and brands and demands,” says Prof Christensen. “They frame their world in terms of stuff that data exists about.” Instead of “relentlessly asking why.”
For us at Axiom, context is THE key to any successful sales effort, digital marketing initiative, direct marketing approach or PR/social media campaign. How do we enlarge our understanding and the discussion around context?
First, we answer the following questions:
- Who buys the product and for what purpose?
- How, why and when are customers using the product?
- What are their unmet and underserved needs?
- How often do they recommend the product to others?
Second, use context to find the “aha” moments by using the following techniques:
- Conducting observational research, which may include videotaping customer interactions with the product. Pictures may be worth a thousand words… video tells the whole story.
- Asking questions when customers are actively thinking about and interacting with a product.
- Eliminating bias by using response meters which record their true responses in a quantitative format vs. qualitative focus groups or in-depth interviews.
- Focusing our clients on true customer benefits and their advantages – not features.
For more information, please contact Mike Reiber at mreiber@axiomcom.com or Rob Beachy at rbeachy@axiomcom.com.