Hack Night Fireside Chat #1

Transcription

1 Hack Night Fireside Chat #1 Research techniques to capture rapid feedback from target customers November 26, 2013 Annual Partner

2 About TeamThink Annual partner Startup Calgary goal in partnership is to build market validation capacity within Calgary s startup community Incepted 2002 Assist SMB s in technology and B2B services sectors Offer broad service line of marketing & sales services: Market research & market validation Customer needs analysis Opportunity assessments Revenue generation and marketing execution Coaching Owners find value in a single point of contact who can manage a broad set of marketing/sales related activities 2

3 Presenter: Sandor Kiss (founder TeamThink) 15+ years of experience executing traditional and digital marketing initiatives; and providing marketing, strategy and general consulting in many industry sectors Former employee with Critical Mass & WestJet Management consultant with boutique consulting firm Framework Partners Bachelor of Commerce from U of C ( ) Born and raised in Calgary 3

4 Overview Paid Access Online survey panels Guerilla LinkedIn Partners/Related Companies/Associations Cold Call Earned Access In-House Lists Forums/Blogs 4

5 PAID ACCESS 5

6 Online Survey Panels There are services providers that provide access to an audience of customers they ve built up who are willing to respond to surveys via incentives You pay for access with a variety of payment structures and factors that impact pricing You define the audience you want to speak to and qualifying criteria and your survey will only go to the target audience you are interested in DIY models or turnkey support to setup and launch surveys (you provide the content) 6

7 How it Works You define the target audience you want to speak to, qualifying criteria, # of responses you are seeking You will receive a quote You develop a survey and program the survey with survey software (options on how to do this) Launch the survey and watch the responses come in (can be very quick) Analyze data survey tools help you with this 7

8 I m Concerned About Junk Data No research method is perfect they all have limitations E.g., Voice of an interviewer can influence responses Consumers sign up to participate incentives can vary (Peanut labs incentive is donations to charities) Vetting methods (where panellists are invited from some sources become black listed) Companies have algorithms setup to weed out people trying to game the system just to make money Watch response patterns, speed of completion, history of respondent, consistency of repsonses, etc. People showing a history of poor responses are kicked out of system PC Fingerprinting/IP Monitoring Mouse movements suggested too few/too many clicks Put in some open ended questions you can review responses and pull out responses if they look like there is poor data Good surveys lead to better data (people are less likely to give you their time if you put out a bad survey, have grammar/spelling errors and demonstrate sloppiness 8

9 Which are the best panels to use? Start with determining who you want to speak to Assess the availability of panellists that match your criteria E.g., many/most of the services are geared toward B2B, some have limited pools of panellists in certain countries Define your requirements of what you need from the provider (speeds of responses, turnkey, philosophy, support) 9

10 Providers Provider Peanut Labs Survey Monkey Research Now Features Incentives for panellists are donations to charity Good geographic reach: US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, Australia Core business is providing online panels Survey software is not great so recommend using other software to build the surveys and link to them Fees: general US population for 1000 responses ($ $1500) but in general they see $2 - $20/completed response Self service no minimum fee (best for more simple audiences) Broad profiling parameters Delivery options: ad hoc, self-serve, API access to bake into your systems Turnkey survey software/panels Core business is survey software; purchased Zoomerang and have woven panels into their overall service offering Dynamic pricing: can choose to make incentives higher if you want longer survey, faster responses, etc. My experience was they were weak in Canada B2B research service More expensive but may be worth it if you are having troubling finding interview sample 10

11 What influences pricing? # of questions Length of survey Incidence rate: if qualifying criteria make it more difficult to recruit your audience costs go up The higher the rate the lower the cost Self serve vs. full service (there can be minimums over $1500 to receive full service) 11

12 GUERILLA ACCESS 12

13 LinkedIn (Your Database) Easy First degree connections easy to invite especially if you ve nurtured (DMG 20 interviews in 3 weeks) Some work 2 nd Degree Connections - receive intros; ask colleague to send personal vs. name dropping approach Ask your colleagues while you are doing research if they can provide you with any other contacts (e.g., Ecopia) Harder 3 rd + degree connections Run filters inside LinkedIn to identify people who fit your target audience Start building a quality network now! 13

14 Partners, Related Companies & Associations Most companies have a database/ house list that can be tapped into with right approach/offer If you have a partner or know of a company that that could benefit from research you want to carry out then you may be able to sell them on running a survey with their customers (e.g., Kashoo) Associations are always looking at add value to their members; insightful research that they don t need to pay for is appealing and adds value (e.g., ESI & OHMA) 14

15 Cold Calling Yes the dreaded cold call - don t be afraid to pick up the phone or send an Like your sales pitch you need to target the right audience and have a succinct, polite offer to solicit that person s time for and what s in it for them if they participate Try to offer some value (e.g., access to research outcomes in exchange but often you can just get people s time people love to talk and share their knowledge Follow up thank you letters and even a small gift ($10 gift card) can go a long way you never know when you might want to lean on them again for research support or maybe they are a future customer or partner My success rates are reasonable warm introduction do work better however 15

16 EARNED 16

17 Earned: In-House List, Forum, Blog, Social Media Don t discount power of building and nurturing your own list Response rates can be extremely high with invites through any means ( , social media sites, blogs) 30% - 40% has been achieved Identify online communities that include conversations with your target audience Pose questions to support your research Identify thought leaders and request interviews Note: do not sell will damage your credibility Most cost effective when you re looking for ongoing feedback 17

18 SUMMARY THOUGHTS 18

19 Summary Thoughts Don t be afraid to pay opportunity cost Cold calling is a critical skills and it dovetails into being able to solicit feedback from prospective customers Earned & Guerilla can ask respondents if they are willing to help you with future research E.g., Kashoo 18 months after the fact (30%+ response) 19

20 WHERE DOES A CONSULTANT FIT IN 20

21 How services providers add value. Expertise Strategy Implementation support Help you solicit early customers Third party, fresh perspective on your business Potentially access to an established network to support research efforts Speed of completing validation activities 21