2 posts tagged “market research”

Goals, Needs and Behavior Analysis - this is a new technique that I have added to my repertoire of market research tools. People buy products because they have an underlying need. The need is usually associated with an end goal. While trying to satisfy their needs or when looking for solutions that would satisfy the need, people exhibit behaviors. The danger in designing products is reacting to behaviors without understanding the real need or goals.

To understand this better, here is an example.

Goal: Maintain good health and live long

Needs:
1) I need to exercise at least three times a day
2) I need to get a physical checkup done once a year with a doctor
3) I need to avoid unhealthy food.

Behaviors:
1) I research local gyms and try to get information on their membership. I use the Internet.
2) I visit two or three that I have selected to check out the equipment. I want to make sure they have the equipment I use since I typically tend to use only about 5 equipments.
3) I want to make sure that they are open during early morning and late nights since I typically leave work late. Best time for me to work out might be before I get to the office
4) Want to understand their membership policies because I do not want to get tied into long term contracts and penalties for early cancellations.
5) I call up my doctor and see if I can get physicals scheduled. I typically try to do a month in advance. It would be good if the doctor's office can also draw blood when I am there for the physical since that will save me a lot of time and prevent me from procrastinating in terms of getting the blood test done.
6) I tend to read the nutrition chart whenever I am buying any packaged goods to make sure I understand the fat, sodium and carbohydrate content. I tend to avoid anything with high saturated fat, trans fat, sodium and carbs. I also tend to eat 100% whole grain foods as opposed to enriched foods.

As you can see the needs list can go on. The above example is a pretty generic example, but it illustrates how a single need can usually be derived from many behaviors and how different needs have an underlying goal. It is extremely important that the needs and goals are identified during market research when talking to customers, so that you are very clear on the problems or pain points you are trying to solve.

Once you have identified the behaviors-needs-goals, you derive the requirements for the solution. Each requirement can be evaluated to make sure it satisfies an underlying need which in turn satisfies an underlying behavior. Such an analysis ensures that you are indeed coming with a solution that satisfies an existing problem which is well understood, as opposed to a solution looking for a problem (which technology companies especially are well known for).

Once you solve the problem, the behaviors-needs-goals statements can help you communicate the solution to your customers or prospects in the customer-speak. In fact, this communication becomes a whole lot easier because you can talk directly to the emotions of the customer. They would respect you because of the knowledge you have on what they do and their pain points, as opposed to someone who is merely trying to speak to them in marketing-speak.

Most successful marketing strategies for creating product demand require the use of customer feedback to assess just how well a product actually impacts market needs. Successful product marketing is as much about developing products that provide solutions to real customer problems, address necessary tasks, or fulfill documented needs, as it is about communicating product benefits. Market adoption of many types of products often depends on how well a particular product satisfies its customer’s requirements.

While companies employ a variety of tools for soliciting customer feedback and assessing market needs—including enhancement requests, customer surveys, customer-service reports, sales feedback, and focus groups—there really is no substitute for actually standing in the shoes of a customer. Understanding market needs requires the ability to see the world from your customers’ points of view, and acquiring those perspectives demands an ongoing program of visits to customer sites.

As with any research endeavor, the effectiveness of customer visits and the value of the information gathered for improving and marketing your products are directly related to how well you plan, conduct, document, and utilize customer visits. When conducted effectively, the information gleaned from real-world customer environments can be an important part of your product definition and marketing efforts. Over the past 10 years, I have conducted more than 200 visits to companies in more than 13 countries that use a mechanical design software product. I finally got around in documenting my experiences in the form of an article that recently got published on productmarketing.com. Hope you enjoy the article, I would love to hear your comments on this article. I could very well learn on other's experiences as well.

 http://www.productmarketing.com/productmarketing/magazine/4/5/0610gs.asp