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Budget squeeze creates new research needs

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As the public sector spending squeeze cuts third sector budgets, many of our not-for-profit clients are turning to market research to help explore new markets and new opportunities.

Often, an organisations first reaction to cash constraints is to cut spend in areas such as training and marketing, including market research. The UK Government’s own cuts to marketing and research have been dramatic, including the closure of the Central Office of Information. In public health, the Government spend on advertising to encourage responsible drinking, was slashed from £3.25m in 2009/10 to zero the following year. Now, however, there are signs of a reversal as the government announces plans to spend £285m on marketing in 2012/13, funding campaigns to promote welfare and NHS reforms and other high-profile policies.

Governments of course can make efficiency savings without facing quite the same threats that other not-for-profits suffer. For most organisations, survival into the long term requires an effective marketing strategy and, during the economic downturn, Marketwise Strategies has been privileged to work with several organisations who have invested in research to help navigate a course through turbulent times. Two of those are charities that had suffered budget cuts of several millions of pounds. Both had cut costs and undergone restructuring. Now they were ready to develop new services and explore new customer groups. Marketwise Strategies worked with them to clarify the scale of the opportunities they had identified and to work out how they could best position themselves in their new target markets.

For another of our client groups, universities, the pressures are slightly different and the complexity often greater as not only budgets and student fees but also the competitive environment and even the ground-rules for student admissions are in flux. As a result, there is growing interest in going beyond quantitative surveys and syndicated reports, to get some really detailed insights into student, applicant and influencer perceptions as well as, importantly, reviewing course portfolios and strengthening their brand positioning. Currently Marketwise Strategies is working on major strategic projects with two UK universities.

For organisations that need to generate more revenue, or move into new areas of activity, well thought out market research always has a role to play. In the current economic climate, however, when opportunities need to be taken and risks need to be minimised, it is increasingly important.

New Researcher Appointed

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To support our growth in education markets, Marketwise Strategies has recently recruited Antony Mullen, who brings qualitative research experience gained in higher education and freelance roles.

Antony’s past projects have included research into: e-portfolio development, for a Russell Group university; interdisciplinary learning; and the use of mainstream cinema in secondary schools (published in a peer-reviewed journal).

Since joining Marketwise Strategies, Antony has been researching demand for a suite of new degree programmes and has just completed a project involving research among Pro-Vice-Chancellors, directors and managers in UK universities. He also played a part in winning the latter project, conducted for a statutory body.

Antony’s background includes secondary school teaching and a master’s degree in Modern and Contemporary Literature. He is also currently studying for a PhD, at Durham University.

Marketwise Strategies’ Managing Director, Jacquie Potts said, “I am delighted that Antony has joined us. His knowledge and experience will further strengthen our team in education markets.”

A year of success in HE markets

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Libary shotMarketwise Strategies has reported its most successful year yet in Higher Education. Working with 11 universities and the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education – and delivering multiple projects for many of those – the company has consolidated its position as a leading provider of bespoke, strategic, market research, across the HE sector.

Throughout the year, the company also completed a steady stream of programme portfolio projects, at undergrad and postgrad levels and across executive education and CPD. Other key projects during the year included a detailed review of the UK market for online learning.

Managing Director, Jacquie Potts said, “The year has brought a huge variety of projects. A key theme has been brand and reputation, with projects delivered in the UK and internationally, at corporate and faculty level. Another of our most interesting challenges was a major piece of research to assess the opportunity for an Asia campus, for a research-intensive university. A key challenge for our research team was the need to access some very difficult-to-reach audiences across multiple continents, while ensuring robust and reliable data to inform our client’s decisions.”

“We were also delighted to provide multi-stakeholder research to inform Durham University’s credit union scheme, offering low cost, ethical loans for postgraduate study.”

Marketwise Strategies has also continued its role in supporting technology commercialisation, working with two leading Russell Group universities to assess markets for their innovations.

Listening to people: still relevant in a digital age?

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When online survey tools are readily available and sometimes free,David Bain 09-0065LD-041 and when social media offers rapid qualitative and quantitative responses, it can be easy to dismiss traditional market research methods, such as depth interviews and focus groups, as out of date. In reality, both online and face-to-face (or telephone) methods have their place, but how do you choose the right methods for the right situation?

Our Research Manager, David Bain, has some thoughts to help you decide:

  • How much do you already know about the issue youre looking to research? If you want to conduct a customer satisfaction survey or find out what stakeholders think of your brand; have you ever researched these issues before? If not, then do you know what is important to your customers, partners, or employees? How will they evaluate your service, and how will they judge your brand?We usually suggest talking to a small number of stakeholders, in depth, right at the start, to get a feel for this, before developing questions for any survey research. This helps to ensure that a survey asks the right questions, in the right ways and therefore that it really does measure what it sets out tomeasure.
  • Who should we talk to? In research among organisations (rather than consumers), there is often a decision-making unit rather than a single decision-maker – therefore more than one person has an opinion that the researcher needs to know about and understand.When we consult secondary schools, for example, we are conscious that the job titles of staff who help students with their university applications vary from school to school. In some cases, talking to the Head of 6th Form has given us the insights we needed, in others we have held mini-groups with several teachers and careers advisors. Sending an emailed survey to heads of sixth form, however, simply would not have worked the response rate would have been low and there would have been no guarantee that the questionnaire would have reached the right respondents. The first rule in market research, therefore, is to ask the right people. Depending on your product or service, those people may or may not be easy to target through online panels, email lists or social media.
  • Reading between the lines: There is nothing like body language and the importance of what someone doesn’t say. Depth interviews and focus groups capture this and allow a skilled interviewer or moderator to qualify what is actually being said – or not said! For instance, in one recent Marketwise Strategies project, for an online information service, it was essential to be able to discuss in detail the potential content, functionality and pricing model for the service. Pricing, in particular, was complex and depended on the skill of the interviewer and their ability to probe and confirm participants answers (or lack of answers) as the discussion developed.
  • Serendipitous responses: Great ideas can come from discussion in an interview or focus group, that would not necessarily be encouraged by a multiple choice questionnaire. Sometimes we have presented product prototypes that were designed to be used in a certain way, then found that potential customers have responded with: “Okay, but have you thought about using it like this?” Research that proceeds too quickly to quantitative measures, rather than exploring the possibilities qualitatively, can miss opportunities.
  • Do they need to touch and feel the product? If you are researching a completely new product or service there is no substitute for being able to give someone a sample to turn over in their hands, or showing them a visual outline of the service model. We found this when talking to architects and engineers about a new type of recycled building material the range of comments that people were able to make about its weight and texture, from actually holding the material, would not have been possible if they were simply viewing images online.

If you have previously researched the same topic area, among the same group of stakeholders, and are clear that you now need, for example, to track customer satisfaction or brand awareness, then you might opt for a short, sharp online survey with a large number of respondents, that you can repeat annually. If, however, your needs are less clear cut, then we hope that the ideas above will help you to evaluate the options.

A general rule…

Think about the questions that you want to ask. If it is how often, how many, how much, how satisfied; then a survey might be just right. However, if you want to know why do our customers think this about us, or how do our customers behave, then you might get far more value by listening to what they have to say through qualitative, (often face to face or telephone) research.

Major Contract Wins in Higher Education

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University libraryUniversity of Westminster has appointed Marketwise Strategies, in a partnership with Covent Garden-based Quadrant Consultants, to design and deliver a three year programme of research, across its UK and international markets. The contract is on a sole-supplier basis.

Jacquie Potts, Managing Director at Marketwise Strategies, said We are excited to be working with University of Westminster, and are looking forward to engaging with a range of different stakeholder groups. This contract emphasises our strength in higher education market research and our growing profile nationally in the sector.

Within weeks of this important contract win, Marketwise Strategies was also appointed to a new market research supplier framework at a university in central Scotland.