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.   

Wondering how to facilitate a strategic planning session? Strategic planning facilitation allows you to gain valuable insights from your organization, create a plan, and build strategies to achieve your goals. These exercises are a vital part of any organization's success, and with SIVO Organizational Intelligence, it has never been easier to create a strong foundation for your business. Explore the benefits of holding a strategic planning session within your team below.

What is Strategic Planning?

First thing’s first, what is strategic planning? Strategic planning is a process used by organizations to set their short or long-term goals, determine their strengths and weaknesses, and create a blueprint to achieve those goals. It is an opportunity for leadership teams to align their vision, mission, and values and build the company's future plans and strategies. Strategic planning facilitation is the engine to the car that drives plans and strategies.

Why is Strategic Planning Facilitation Important?

A strategic plan helps determine an organization's future, ensuring that all employees are working towards the same goals. It helps to prioritize resources and allocate them to areas that will bring the most value to the company. Additionally, it helps organizations identify areas for improvement, stay ahead of the competition, and make data-driven decisions.

The Value of an Third-Party Facilitator

So, we know what strategic planning is and we know why it matters -- but what is the best way to implement it? A best practice to gather and leverage insights is to have a third-party facilitator manage and facilitate your your strategic planning. This allows teams  to participate in the planning discussion, rather than preparing for and guiding the discussion. Facilitators can also document the discussion as it happens, to focus teams on the topic and guide the discussion toward valuable outcomes.

Benefits of Strategic Planning Facilitation

Diving into this process is no small task. Luckily, with the help of a facilitator it becomes much more manageable because you have someone to handle the preparation, session facilitation, documentation and recap of the plan and outcomes.  With an expert facilitator as your guide, you will leave your session with a Strategic Plan that will: 

• Align Leaders in the Organization
• Increase Effectiveness and Efficiency
• Prioritize Resources
• Improve Leader Decision-Making
• Create Competitiveness
• Enhance Employee Engagement
• Write a Roadmap for the Future

Align Leaders in the Organization

This is your opportunity to bring key leaders in the organization together to discuss the company's future. It helps to align everyone's goals and objectives, so everyone is working towards the same vision.  Often, individual team members bring a unique perspective to the planning session. That’s why it’s important to discuss their expectations, the current and potential challenges and opportunities that each leader faces, as well as external market forces that may impact the strategic plan.  Discussing these inputs during the session allows the team to address key issues and avoid pitfalls as the plan is being developed.

Increase Effectiveness and Efficiency

Strategic planning helps organizations identify areas for improvement and opportunities that will bring the most value to the company. These process-driven decisions can fall to the wayside without a dedicated space to identify internal and external opportunities and build plans to achieve them. . The planning process leads to increased effectiveness, efficiency and a better return on investment.

Prioritize Resources

Strategic planning allows organizations to prioritize their resources, ensuring they are used in the most effective way possible, to achieve the company goals. Expert-led planning exercises can uncover redundancies and slowdowns within current processes. The strategic plan can help to increase efficiency by reprioritizing resources to align with key opportunities.

Improve Leader Decision-Making

By having a clear roadmap for the future, leaders can make data-driven decisions that are in line with their goals and objectives. The strategic plan provides focus and clarity and it helps to reduce the risk of making poor decisions that could harm the organization in the long run.

Create Competitiveness

Remaining competitive in your industry requires consistent reevaluation and reimagination. From identifying issues in current workflows, to hearing ideas from team members, to researching emerging trends in your industry and related industries -- there are so many opportunities to enhance your organization and get ahead. This information is used as inputs into the planning session, to help you build a strategic plan that addresses key issues and capitalizes on the best opportunities to grow the business and gain market share.

Enhance Employee Engagement

When employees understand the company's plans and strategies, they are more likely to be engaged and motivated to contribute to the organization's success. Chances are, they also have valuable thoughts on areas for opportunity and improvement. That’s why it can be very valuable to include employee insights in the strategic planning process. It can unlock game-changing opportunities that company leaders may have overlooked. Plus, gathering employee feedback can improve company culture and create a positive work environment by improving employee morale.

Write a Roadmap for the Future

Strategic planning provides a roadmap for the future, ensuring that everyone in the organization is working towards the same goals. This helps to ensure that the organization remains on track and empowered to achieve its long-term objectives. SIVO’s Organizational Intelligence provides the tools to create a rock-solid plan for your business, so you can execute, and get ahead.

SIVO Organizational Intelligence: Your Partner for Strategic Planning

SIVO Organizational Intelligence is a trusted partner for organizations looking to leverage strategic planning. In our strategic planning sessions, SIVO's expert facilitators listen and probe to understand your organization’s needs and goals. Then, we help you develop a comprehensive plan with strategies to grow your business and win in the marketplace.

Leverage Our Expertise in Strategic Planning Facilitation

By working with SIVO, your team can leverage experts with 20 years of experience, across industries and company sizes, in organizational development and strategic planning facilitation. Our strategy and market research firm creates custom solutions that meet the unique needs of our clients.

Could your business benefit from our insights and expertise? Get in touch with our Organizational Intelligence team to schedule a discovery call. SIVO will develop a custom Organizational Intelligence solution that aligns with your needs so you can get ahead.

by Cindy Blackstock

Being part of a custom market research firm with global clients, we are often a go-to partner on international research—both qualitative and quantitative. And while all global market research has some challenges, global qualitative research has some unique ones.

From years of designing consumer research approaches, we’ve identified a list of questions we ask our clients to customize research for their needs. But whether you are researching with SIVO, another supplier, or leading research internally for your own organization; here are 5 watchouts when planning global, qualitative research. These apply for both in-person and virtual approaches. 

Everything takes longer than domestic-only market research.  Most global market research consists of multiple countries and languages.  This requires added time to translate all materials such as recruitment screeners, discussion guides, and transcripts. For example, domestically you may receive a recruiting update every 1-2 days. But with the additional time needed to translate the recruiting progress, your updates may occur every 3 days with non-English speaking countries.  And with transcripts needing translation time too, that delays the analysis and delivery of your final report.

SIVO Tip! When planning your research, build in extra time to account for translation needs on both the front and back ends of your research.  This could easily add an additional 2-weeks to a simple qualitative design such as webcam focus groups. 

Expect cultural differences in business norms.  Corporate cultures differ around the world. When working with partners and consumers in other countries you need to expect, respect, and allow for cultural differences. One basic example of this is with interview start-times. As an example, our Thailand local moderator and consumers were consistently in-place and talking well before the official interview start time (making our client feel like they were late to observe the conversation); whereas in Brazil we had many consumers (and even a local moderator for one interview) who joined late. 

SIVO tip! As a client who may be inviting other co-workers or organizational leaders to attend your research, prepare your team that some behaviors—from professionals and consumers—will be different.  You can even remind your team these differences are likely one of the key reasons why you are conducting global research. Embrace it!

Know in advance if you want to adapt stimulus in real time. Particularly when researching marketing messages or communication, a client may learn from a few consumers and want to adapt the stimulus. This could be as simple as learning a word or phrase translated in your stim might be academically correct but needs to be modified to a more culturally relevant word – or it could be re-writing paragraphs of copy.  In either example, you need a translator readily available to adjust the stimulus before the next interview. 

SIVO Tip! Decide in advance if you will want or need to adjust your stimulus in real time.  And if yes, identify the tactical steps and talent needed to achieve this. 

Transcribe every word of the interview. Sometimes for efficiency (budget and time), a translator may only transcribe parts of the interview directly relevant to the brand, product and / or research objectives. But there is a lot of rich learning in the commentary! For example, consumer references to local politics can provide valuable context to their reactions to your product solution or marketing messages.

SIVO Tip! Confirm in advance that your translator understands your expectation that all words will be translated. And if efficiency is a concern, you can always limit the translation to only the ‘best’ interviews.  This can condense your timeline and save costs.

Consider a collective discussion with all moderators and translators. If fielding research in multiple countries and/or markets to inform a global strategy (not a market specific plan); consider scheduling a collective debrief will all moderators and translators.  This allows for discussion on what learning is consistent vs. the differentiated needs by country. 

SIVO Tip! Such a discussion impacts your project timeline and costs and should be included as an expectation at the start of your project.  A good research partner should be able to flex and add this to the close of your project but be aware of the implications to time and budget.

These 5 watchouts when planning global, qualitative research (in conjunction with a qualified and experienced Consumer Insights agency partner) will help ensure that you have a successful project resulting in global consumer insights to inform your business decisions.  

To discuss these tips and any other questions about international or domestic consumer research, please feel free to contact the SIVO team at Contact@SIVOInsights.com for a consultation call.

by Jennifer Dilley

What is a consumer insight?  How do you know when you have found one?  What does it look like?

These are questions that every marketer or consumer insights professional gets asked at some point.  And while it might be useful to rattle off a definition in an elevator conversation, it is more important to internalize the definition so that when you are conducting consumer research you have a clear understanding of what you are looking for. 

Definition of a Consumer Insight

So, what are we looking for?  A consumer insight is an underlying motivation or need that explains why a consumer makes a certain decision or behaves in a certain way.  But that is not all.  When the underlying motivation is uncovered, it is only a consumer insight if it can be applied to a brand in an ownable way to unlock brand growth. 

A consumer insight identifies consumers’ beliefs and values that drive their behavior. It provides a deeper understanding of why consumers purchase certain products and dismiss others.   

Consumer Insights vs Facts

Be careful to distinguish an insight from a fact. There is a difference. A consumer fact is just a statement about a consumer behavior or the marketplace. Here are examples of facts: 

• Luxury cars account for 17.7% of all vehicle sales in the United States. 
• Luxury cars are often equipped with the latest safety features, technology integrations, and performance components. 
• The average transaction price for an entry-level luxury car is about $40,000. The average price for a flagship luxury sedan is closer to $100,000.

These facts are interesting and might be relevant to a brand, but they don’t explain why people behave the way they do. 

Consumer Insights Highlight Pain Points and Opportunities

Consumer Insights shed light on pain points for consumers and uncover potential opportunities for brands.  As an example, an insight from the findings above could be articulated as, “People want a luxury car to signal their lifestyle and financial success.” This is an insight because it taps into consumers’ underlying motivation (often more emotional that functional) and a pain point, resulting in an opportunity.   

• Motivation: People that have achieved financial success want to feel that sense of achievement and pride in their everyday lives.
• Pain Point: The initial cost and maintenance fees for a luxury car are expensive and often cost prohibitive, even for those who have achieved some level of affluence.
• Opportunity: Brand X should build car models that fall between luxury and mid-size car classes to accommodate varying levels of affluence.

Consumer Insights Must be Ownable

A consumer insight is only valuable if it is relevant and can be applied back to a brand in an ownable way.  If competitive brands are already addressing a specific consumer need and motivation, then the insight is true but not necessarily ownable for a brand. A good insight will inspire ideas and communications that allow the brand team to communicate brand benefits in a unique way.   

Note that an insight might link to a category benefit, but it can still be ownable by a brand, if it has not been adopted by the competition.

Consumer Insights Unlock Growth

The job of a consumer insight is to highlight the possibility for an emotional connection between a product/service and the consumer.  It provides brand teams with the context that explains how the product can be relevant in consumers lives.  Understanding the emotional connection between consumers motivations/needs and the brand benefits can fuel creative marketing ideas that will capture the attention and convert consumers along the marketing purchase funnel. 

Consumer Insights May Not be Overtly Articulated by Consumers

Note that consumer insights are deeper motivations that are quite often subconscious. In fact, a good consumer insight is often described as an “Aha moment.” Good insights tend to be simple human truths that we don’t discuss, but are still there, right under our noses. Because of this, specialized consumer learning techniques are needed. Ethnography, in-context observation, consumer diaries, and projective techniques like mood boards and semiotics, are required to dig beneath the surface of what consumers say to uncover their actual motivations. This may also require us to look beyond consumers values and lifestyle to macro trends – demographic, economic, pop culture, health, and technology trends that are also influencing consumer behavior. 

Tying back to the luxury car example, consumer perceptions are also influenced by economic and geo-political fluctuations such as, inflation, higher gas prices, climate change and the transition to electric vehicles. This can subconsciously change consumer beliefs and behaviors, leading to new consumer insights. 

Consumer Insights Summary

The best consumer insights: 

✔ Explain WHY? By identifying and articulating an underlying motivation, need or belief that is driving consumer behavior 

✔ Address a pain point or point of tension  

✔ Are ownable when applied to a brand/product/service 

✔ Unlock opportunities, inspiring creative marketing ideas that fuel business growth 

To discuss consumer insights with experts from SIVO, please reach out to our team at Contact@SIVOInsights.com