By Julie Rose
As your fiscal year is coming to a close, new questions and challenges can arise as you finalize spending on this year’s budget:
SIVO Insights On Demand Talent™ Can Help
SIVO’s On Demand Talent is a great solution for Insights Professionals and Teams facing the year-end crunch – with more initiatives than bandwidth to get it all done. We leverage our extensive pool of fractional Insights Talent, with years of experience and expertise, to help you achieve your business objectives.
We recommend three key steps for evaluating and making the case internally for hiring contract Insights talent.
As workforce talent continues to evolve, there is no shortage of options, including interns, short or long-term contractors, contract-to-hire, or direct hire. Below, we highlight the advantages of On Demand Contract Talent vs. a Full-Time Hire:
Prove the Need for Incremental Resources
Some of our clients have struggled to make the case to their leaders for permanent incremental headcount. Instead, they started with SIVO’s On Demand Talent to show value to the business. This step helped them demonstrate the benefit of having additional resources. Let SIVO help you get the additional headcount you need in 2024.
Get Expert Consumer Insights with SIVO
We have started ODT engagements in as fast as one week. To discuss your needs and how we can match the talent with the best expertise for quick solutions in your organization, visit SIVO On Demand Talent or email Contact@SIVOInsights.com.
In the always-evolving landscape of consumer behavior, understanding the perceptions around how people feel about your brand, the reasons why they choose it and the context for how they use it can unlock future growth opportunities. For instance:
A proven consumer research methodology that stands out for gaining this type of foundational learning is the Attitude and Usage (A&U) study.
What is an Attitude and Usage study?
You can think of an Attitude and Usage study as delving deeply into the “who, what, where, why, when” of your brand and category. More specifically, this is a comprehensive research approach that often combines qualitative and quantitative techniques to uncover perceptions, preferences, motivations, and usage patterns of your (and your competitors’) consumer base. Because of the breadth it covers, the data collected, and insights gained become a foundational reference for Insights, R&D, and Marketing teams for many months or years afterward.
Attitude and Usage studies answer Key Objectives about:
Category Users: This involves understanding the basic demographic details of the users in your category (age, gender, income, etc.) alongside psychographic factors like values, beliefs, and lifestyle choices.
Consumer attitudes: You can fully understand consumer perceptions about the category, your brand, competitors, and the overall market. This helps you explain your market share, by gauging your brand’s “share of mind.” It reveals how your brand stacks up in consumers’ minds on important factors such as product quality, customer service, and other unique benefits, relative to the competition.
Usage Patterns: You can examine how consumers interact with your product or service, including frequency of use, when and where it is used, purchase motivations and delights/pain points. This context reveals insights that inspire ideas to improve the usage experience.
Trend Analysis: Although an A&U research study analyzes products or services at a point in time, it can be re-fielded at regular intervals so you can track changes in consumer attitudes and behaviors over time, to identify market shifts or emerging trends in the category. This is particularly useful in dynamic categories where there are always new competitors entering the market.
Benefits of an A&U for the Marketing and R&D Teams
Focused efforts on the “purchase funnel”: You will discover the percentage of your consumer target that is aware, has tried, is a repeat purchaser or is already loyal to your brand. Understanding this, relative to your competition, will help marketers decide where and how to spend their marketing support budget to drive sales effectively and efficiently.
Innovation and renovation ideas: Insights from A&U studies can fuel product improvements, innovations, and new launches that resonate with consumer desires, address usage pain points, and deliver on unmet needs.
Create a Competitive Advantage: Knowing where your products and services stand in comparison to the competition allows you to capitalize on your strengths and unique benefits by emphasizing via packaging claims and marketing messages. Identifying and addressing any shortcomings allows the team to close critical gaps that may be keeping you from gaining market share.
Long-Term Growth: Ongoing A&U research, in waves at regular intervals (depending on the level of activity in your industry or category) provides a pulse on evolving consumer and competitive trends, ensuring that your team can stay agile and responsive to changing market dynamics. This helps to foster and maintain growth over time.
Onboarding new employees: A bonus to having a comprehensive picture of the market dynamics and how your brand performs within the market is that it provides a great basis for onboarding new employees into your organization. It also paints a picture to get all employees aligned on growth strategies that are rooted in foundational market and consumer insights.
Your Partner for Actionable Consumer Insights
At SIVO, Inc., we are dedicated to helping our clients develop and utilize Attitude and Usage research to gain actionable insights that drive strategic decision-making and foster meaningful connections with consumers. By investing in A&U research, you and your team can navigate the complexities of the market with confidence and clarity, ultimately paving the way for long-term growth.
For more DIY approaches, check out SIVO’s On Demand Talent Profiles to learn more about how an experienced, fractional Consumer Insights Generalist can be also an asset for your A&U research needs.
Contact us via our website form or email us at Contact@SIVOInsights.com today to schedule a discovery call!
To Make Your Workload Manageable
By Marilyn Weiss
In these inflationary times, companies are cutting operational costs, including their workforce budgets. In 2022, there were at least 154,000 layoffs from more than 1,000 tech companies and so far in 2023, the trend continues with 55,000 layoffs to date. (USAToday.com & Layoffs.fyi, Jan. 2023)
Not only is this devastating for employees that have been laid off, but it is also difficult for those who remain. Post layoffs, organizations become leaner and the scope of work for each employee gets stretched wider. Employees are asked to stabilize the organization and drive future growth with fewer resources.
On the bright side, this increase in individual scope of work can create opportunities to gain new experiences and demonstrate leadership. However, the broader scope can also leave employees feeling overworked, stressed, and unable to manage the expanded workload. When it feels like there is just too much work and not enough hours in the day to get it done, the best way to manage through it, is to adopt a “Fractional Mindset.”
What is a Fractional Mindset?
A fractional mindset is a new way of thinking. It’s breaking down a system into smaller fractional pieces. When you are faced with a problem, adopting a fractional mindset makes the problem smaller. A fractional mindset, when applied to your assigned workload, allows you to approach your role and responsibilities by dividing them up into smaller, fractional tasks. This gives you freedom to take a step back to strategize and prioritize the best way to complete them.
Prioritize the Workload
The first step requires some analysis. You will need to prioritize your list of tasks and/or objectives based on what will add the most value or make the most positive impact on the business. A best practice is to sort the completed list by those items that make the most positive impact on the business or drive business growth.
Delegate the Workload
The next step requires some self-reflection. You will need to consider which tasks/objectives YOU should personally complete and which ones are best to delegate to ANOTHER to complete for you. Ask yourself some questions to determine if YOU or a delegated resource under your direction is best:
If the answer to these questions is, “No”, consider the possibility of others doing these tasks on your behalf, under your supervision. This allows you to manageably “stretch your bandwidth” across your workload, without becoming overwhelmed and stressed by trying to do it all yourself.
Delegation Resources to Consider:
The pros and cons of each resource are captured below:
When to Utilize your Resources
Internal peers or direct reports are a great option when the team has capacity to take on your assigned workload. If your teammates do not have capacity, delegating to your external agency partners to manage finite projects is a great option.
Sometimes, however, you just need to essentially “clone yourself” or bring in an expert with a skillset that differs from your own. In these instances, you can bring in fractional professionals that, with a little onboarding, can hit the ground running. Delegating to your fractional resources can help you work through your increased workload and objectives in a manageable way.
How SIVO can Help
For insights teams, SIVO offers full-service custom research design, management, and execution to help you with custom market research projects. SIVO On Demand Talent solution also has 100+ fractional Consumer Insights Professionals with a range of skillsets to help you meet your business objectives on your timeline, reducing your stress while allowing you to make a positive impact on your business.
Adopting a fractional mindset will help you approach your role and your workload with confidence, efficiency, and effectiveness. And when the time comes, let SIVO be the agency that you delegate to! Contact@SIVOInsights.com
Innovation requires seamless collaboration, agility, and the ability to pivot wisely and effectively. Timelines are tight and the right talent is critical to successfully manage the Insights process. SIVO’s On Demand Talent™ team recently provided a Consumer Insights Innovation Lead for Betsy Frost, Chief Revenue Officer at DRY Soda Company.
DRY Soda needed a Consumer Insights expert to manage the First Moment of Truth (FMOT) consumer learning for a new product launch, DRY Botanical Bitters & Soda, a ready-to-drink non-alcoholic cocktail with zero sugar.
“…it felt like SIVO was a member of our team.”
From the get-go, the SIVO’s talent creatively leveraged DRY Soda’s internal assets and owned social media to recruit the right consumers for quick-turnaround learning. Timelines and budgets were priorities, with no room for missteps. When supply chain complexities forced an immediate change in launch plans, the team worked smartly and effectively to pivot from cans to bottles in a record 15 days. Navigating a plethora of moving parts, including new package design, messaging, team alignment, and consumer feedback demanded an experienced team to pull it off successfully!
During Consumer Research, Frost was thrilled to listen, participate and ultimately make the right real-time decisions from an outside vantage point rather than having to lead and facilitate herself.
Frost said, “You made it super easy and streamlined for me…it felt like SIVO was a member of our team.”
To learn more about the DRY Soda story and line of products available, visit drinkdry. Check out this new product: DRY Botanical Bitters & Soda!
You can Shop Now or click the ‘Find Dry’ link to leverage the unique geo-locator. It allows you to buy online or from the store front retailer of your choice. This shoppable platform is powered by Pear Commerce technology.
SIVO Insights On-Demand Talent provides the right talent for your business needs; it is NOT a one size fits all model. What talent do you need to immediately impact YOUR business? Email Brent Budke to successfully match the right talent.
Are you curious what working differently looks like? – just ask. SIVO Insights can help you figure out the best path forward for you or your company to get the resources – and talent – you need. Schedule a discovery call today to get started.
SIVO Insights brings together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence. Have a business challenge? Let's talk!
We bring together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence
