By Cindy Blackstock

We’ve all hired someone to complete a task or a job for us.  For example, if your lawn needs to be mowed – you can hire someone to mow it. Seems simple, doesn’t it? But have you ever asked that question about the products or services you work with?  Do you know what “job” your customers need done, that is causing them to “hire” your product or service?

Customer needs are often less clear than ‘your lawn needs to be mowed.’ Identifying customer needs or “jobs to be done” is an intentional exercise where we must listen, observe and expertly question customers to uncover.

Jobs Theory

Jobs Theory reframes our relationship with customers, making them the center of our focus. While conventional marketing tends to focus on brand and product benefits, Jobs Theory doesn't look internally at products and services but instead, looks externally, to expose the functional, social, and emotional jobs that explain why customers make the choices they do.

People don’t simply buy products or services; they bring them into their lives to fulfill a need. We call this need the ‘job’ they are trying to get done. When we discover why customers want to ‘hire’ products or services, we develop a customer-centric view, allowing brand teams to become empathetic to their customers' needs and wants. 

Trending for SIVO: What Does a Remote Workforce Really Want? You Need to Dig Deeper to Find Out

Identifying Customer Needs with a “Jobs to be Done Map”

A good Jobs to be Done Map becomes a framework that helps marketers figure out how to improve their products or innovate by developing new products and services in their industry or category, i.e., ‘where to play.’ It can be leveraged beyond a single initiative. It maps all the jobs that customers have for a particular occasion.  For example, a Snacking JTBD Map includes all the jobs that customers have for the snacking occasion.  A Financial Investment JTBD Map, includes all the jobs that customers have for investing their money.  It lives on in your organization as a place to continually go back to for inspiration and focus. It provides:

Inspiration and guardrails for brand positioning, marketing messages, product innovation and renovation 

A framework for capturing, defining, categorizing, and prioritizing customer needs

A common language and focus for the cross-functional team

Factors That Influence Customer Behavior

There are several factors that influence customer behavior, including:

1. Customer Needs and Goals - Customers use products that help them achieve their goals and meet their needs. If your product does not effectively address these needs and goals, customers are unlikely to hire it.

2. Product Features and Benefits - The features and benefits of your product can also influence customer buying behavior. Customers are more likely to buy products that offer the features and benefits that they are looking for.

3. Brand Reputation - The reputation of your brand can also influence customer behavior. Customers are more likely to buy products from brands that they trust and that have a positive reputation.

4. Customer Experience - Customer experience can also impact purchasing behavior. Customers are more likely to purchase products that offer a positive and seamless experience, from purchase to use.

5. Competitor Offerings - Competitor offerings can also influence customer buying behavior. If your competitors offer products that better meet customer needs and preferences, customers may choose to “hire” those products instead of yours.

Partner with SIVO to Identify Customer Needs for Your Business

At SIVO, we help our clients uncover their customers’ jobs for a wide range of application opportunities. We design customized research that leads to a fully developed Jobs to be Done Map. Our approach focuses on uncovering the subconscious drivers of customer decision-making by understanding the underlying needs and true motivations.

In Part 2 of our Jobs series, we will share the keys to success for Jobs to be Done mapping along with some examples of how it comes to life. Until then, please reach out to discuss how we can help you to get your brand, product, or service hired. 

Reach out to the SIVO team at Contact@SIVOInsights.com to discuss how we can develop a Jobs to be Done Map for your organization.

SIVO Interview with Mary McIlrath, Children and Family Market Research Expert

By Kerry Juhl

Recently, SIVO, Inc. was lucky enough to have Mary McIlrath join our expanding team.  Mary has amassed a wealth of experience in Children and Family market research.  She is a recognized expert in the generations space, having established a successful Generation Z and Generation Alpha research practice in her past role. She has taught MBA courses in Qualitative Research at the University of Wisconsin and Quantitative Research at the University of Illinois and lectured at Northwestern University. 

I recently sat down with Mary to discuss her experience with studying families and generational differences.   

Question: Mary, you have been studying families and generational differences for most of your career.  How did you become a subject matter expert on this topic?

Mary: I have always been fascinated by understanding generational differences and family dynamics.  I come from both industry and academic perspectives—it’s common for former academics to work in industry, but it’s rare birds like me who keep a foot in both disciplines over a career.  I’ve been able to harvest the best of both worlds.  For example, my academic experience instilled a mindset that respondents should benefit as much or more than the researcher.  This is particularly important when working with children and adolescents. Their needs come first; when they are met, the client also benefits. Industry experience has helped me be effective and efficient in conducting research. My dual expertise gives me a deep toolbox of constructs and methods to help my clients achieve their business objectives, with the well-being of the family at center stage. 

Question:  Mary, what does a typical U.S. family look like today?

Mary: It’s something in continuous flux. Sometimes it’s single-parent households. Sometimes it’s families with two dads. Sometimes it’s blended homes containing multiple generations.  What has gradually become less common is the Norman Rockwellian image of two opposite-gender people raising a gaggle of kids with traditional gender roles. For instance, in 1968, 85% of children under 18 yrs. old lived with two parents (regardless of marital status) but that number has dropped to 70% in 2020. About 25% of children live with a single parent in the household.* 

Question: How are manufacturers and marketers responding to the needs of today’s children and families? 

Mary: It’s a sea change from how brands thought about families in the early days of youth research in the 1980s and 1990s. Those who used to make simple toys, TV shows, or food and beverages for kids are now thinking of how to stay relevant with their offerings and communication in the Metaverse. They are thinking about what is to come in Augmented Reality (AR) since Pokemon Go flipped the script. They are brainstorming what Virtual Reality (VR) will look like. That’s no small task, especially since children’s sense of balance and depth are still developing and putting them outside 3D spaces risks hampering their natural brain development.  

Question: What is the latest regulatory environment for marketing and advertising to youth and families?

Mary: If you work on kid brands, it is critical to understand global ethics around marketing and advertising to children and families. Countries around the world have differing laws about when it is acceptable to advertise to young people. Those in the U.S. are the least restrictive because of industry self-established watchdogs like CARU (Children’s Advertising Review Unit). This organization does regular and thorough audits of marketing campaigns to children and calls out/suggests changes to anything that seems unfair.  

Question: How does this impact conducting market research with kids and families?

Mary:  In the U.S. it’s allowable to do research directly with children with a parent’s consent. It’s “cleaner” data coming straight from children rather than filtered through parents who mistakenly think they know what their kids truly want.  

Question: What are a few of your best practices for conducting market research with kids and families?

Mary: Here are a few tips from my experience:  

• Design: Online qualitative research is flourishing now with kids. Sending a “top secret” envelope of concepts or a box of items to unwrap in sequence during an interview, a.k.a., “unboxing”, keeps kids and parents engaged and sharpens their thinking about the items in front of them. Post-pandemic families are used to having Zoom calls, giving virtual room tours, and even running out of the room to gather “show and tell” of their own. Plus, we often get “bonus sibling” insights.
  
• Screening/Recruiting:   Use a battery of questions to set the child up for success for the given method—every child is a consumer and their opinions matter, but every tool doesn’t make them feel good or accomplished about the process when it’s over.
  
• The Guide/Questionnaire: Be visual in qualitative and quantitative research.  And, with in-person qualitative, use kinesthetics exercises to gather their opinions and perceptions (e.g., full-body voting, stretch breaks).
  
• Seating: Make sure you get assent from the child, even if it’s a simple verbal “yes” that they want to proceed. If they say no, gently excuse them. Everyone has a bad day sometimes or finds the environment scary!
  
• Analysis: Kids have a positivity bias. They want to please and say what they think the researcher wants to hear. Filter what they say through a lens of reality.  Sometimes friend-pairs can help get to the truth.

SIVO is excited for Mary to join our team and strengthen our Children and Family market research capabilities. To learn about how kids and families interact with and think about your brand, please reach out to us at Contact@SIVOInsights.com. 

*source: 2020 Census Bureau's Current Population Survey 

by Kerry Juhl

Consumer Personas are a great tool for bringing your consumer target to life for your organization, to inspire growth ideas, new brand experiences and product innovation.  It is a representation of your target segment based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative data.  It summarizes your consumers’ lifestyle, values, needs, challenges, and preferences, so that it can be easily shared and digested across the organization.

At a high level, here is SIVO’s guide on how to build consumer personas: 

• Collect quantitative data via consumer segmentation: Start by identifying the market your product plays in and divide this universe into consumer groups that have similar characteristics, such as demographics, psychographics, and behavioral patterns.
  
• Identify patterns within the segment: Analyze the segments to identify common patterns, trends, and preferences among the different groups. Look for insights that can help you understand their interests, pain points, and buying behaviors. At this point, teams can narrow their focus by choosing one or a few consumer segments that are most likely to need and have the potential means to purchase the product or service that you offer.
  
• Dig deeper with qualitative research: Once the consumer segments have been identified, conduct qualitative research, to delve deeper into the consumer mindset and better understand what makes them unique and relevant to the business. Using techniques such as focus groups, in-depth interviews, in-store shop-alongs, or in-home ethnographic research, you can uncover the underlying motivations, emotions and values that drive consumer behaviors and purchase decisions. This deepens the teams’ empathy and intuition about the consumer segments.
  
• Create consumer personas: Develop distinct personas that represent key segments that are important and relevant to your business. The personas should not portray one specific consumer but should be a semi-fictional representation of an ideal customer within a segment.  Overall, the persona should include a name, age, job, hobbies, mindset, goals, challenges, and a brief back story.  Note: Psychographics, goals and purchase motivations are most important in understanding what problems the persona has that your company can solve.  
  

Building your Consumer Personas 

Key information that should be considered when building consumer personas includes:   

• Demographics: Age, gender, location, marital status, education, income 
• Psychographics: Interests, values, attitudes, lifestyle, personality traits
• Goals and Motivations: What they aim to achieve, what drives their decision-making 
• Pain Points and Challenges: Obstacles they face, problems they want to solve that are related to your market
• Buying Behavior: Where and how they shop, preferred channels, factors influencing purchase decisions, in relation to your industry or category
• Media preferences: Preferred media channels, social media usage, favorite websites, online communities

Check out these other SIVO blogs on consumer targets and  consumer segmentation, to better understand the inputs and context for consumer personas. 

Making Consumer Personas Interesting

The goal is to bring the consumer to life in an interesting and inspirational way. This information needs to be interesting and easy to read so that it gets internalized by the organization. Here are a few tips: 

Keep it Brief:  A good persona should be 1 to 3 pages in length.  Ideally, there would be a 1-page summary and if needed, 1 to 2 follow-up pages with actionable details and insights. 

Use Visuals: A persona should be visually interesting.  Use photos, graphics, or infographics to bring the consumer persona to life and make them feel more tangible and relatable to your team. 

Use Narratives and Quotes: Storytelling is an important part of building your persona. Use the data to create a short 1-paragraph narrative that describes the consumer persona – who they are, what they need, and their underlying motivations.

Include a Key Consumer Insight: It is important to include a one-sentence insight that describes the underlying motivation that would make them potentially interested in buying your product or service.

With the data summarized and visualized into clear and succinct personas, it is easy to understand and empathize with your consumer target, i.e., the segment of consumers that will inspire your growth ideas, marketing communications, promotions, distribution plans and new product innovation. Your team can now tailor brand messaging, content, and product offerings to align with the needs and preferences of key consumer targets. It is also easy to socialize the learning across the organization and agency partners in an efficient and effective way. 

Maintaining Relevance of Consumer Personas

Consumer personas are foundational marketing and insights deliverables that will inspire your teams’ growth ideas and guide your agency partners for years. For this reason, you need to invest in ongoing maintenance to ensure continued relevance to your organization. Depending on the volatility and competitive dynamics within your market, you will want to: 

The success of your consumer persona profiles depends on the quality of your research, the depth of your understanding and getting it to land within your organization and with agency partners. Regularly leveraging the personas while also iterating and improving upon them will help you stay in tune with your consumers and maintain a competitive advantage in the market.  

Your Source for Expert Customer Insights 

At SIVO Inc., we are dedicated to helping our clients understand their consumer targets by designing and executing consumer segmentations, following up with qualitative research and building consumer personas. We can then facilitate activation sessions with your team to develop action plans and strategies that leverage these insights.  

Reach out to us at Contact@SIVOInsights.com or go to SIVOInsights.com today to schedule a discovery call and connect! 

by Cindy Blackstock

Have you had a conversation with your consumer?

It is an enlightening and humbling experience to really get to know who they are, what they think, how they experience your product or service, and what they need from that experience. It can be very beneficial to be face to face, having conversations with consumers to build your intuition and empathy. However, often it is more valuable to leave the interviewing to expert moderators, allowing you to focus on the answers, rather than how to pose the questions.

Why Use Experts Qualitative Research Moderators 

Expert qualitative research Moderators are skilled at conducting qualitative research to uncover the “why” behind the “what” of consumer behavior and preferences.  Experienced Moderators apply a range of specific research techniques, with nuance and finesse, to get beyond consumers’ top-of-mind thoughts. This allows them to identify the underlying needs and motivations that drive behaviors and choices.   

Specifically, Moderators can help teams across four key learning dimensions: 

1. Discover Feelings & Emotions: Delving deeply into consumer thoughts, feelings, and emotions, going far beyond surface level observations.
2. Understand Motivations: Uncovering the underlying motivations, desires, and needs that drive consumer behavior. 
3. Explore Perceptions: Understanding how consumers perceive brands, products, or services to shape marketing strategies and improve brand positioning. 
4. Gain Context: Gaining conceptual understanding of consumer behavior through exploration of the social, cultural, and environmental factors that influence consumer decision-making. 

Moderation Techniques Enable Insights to Surface

With certifications from organizations such as, RIVA, QRCA, and  the Insights Association, great Moderators have a broad toolkit, employing specific qualitative research techniques to achieve their research objectives.  These research techniques include: 

Open-Ended Questions: Starting with open-ended questions that encourage participants to provide detailed responses. These questions typically begin with phrases like “Can you describe…” or “Tell me about…”  

Comparative Questions: Asking participants to compare or contrast different aspects of their experiences or opinions. For example, “How does this compare to your previous experience in a similar situation?”  

Timeline and Sequencing: Exploring the chronological aspects of experiences by asking participants to recount events in a specific order. This can help create a detailed narrative. 

Sensory Exploration: Encouraging participants to describe sensory aspects of their experiences, such as what they saw, heard, felt, or smelled during a particular event.

Metaphorical or Analogical Questions: Asking participants to describe their experiences using metaphors or analogies. This can help participants express complex concepts more vividly.  For example, “If this brand was a shoe, what kind of shoe would it be and why?”

Projective Techniques: Using projective techniques like storytelling, drawings, or role-playing to access participants’ subconscious thoughts and feelings. 

Whether it is through in-depth interviews, in-context missions, ethnographic research or through online community bulletin boards, great Moderators will employ these techniques to discover underlying insights about the consumer that they could not otherwise articulate through simple conversations.

Trust SIVO with your Qualitative Research 

Contact SIVO, Inc. at Contact@SIVOInsights.com to discuss how SIVO can provide you with the insights you need, via our team of expert Moderators to lead your qualitative research projects.  Also, check out SIVO’s On Demand Talent Profiles to learn more about how a fractional Qualitative Research Strategist/Expert Moderator can be an asset to you and your team.