Author Archives: Angeline Martin

About Angeline Martin

As Marketing Manager, Angeline has more than 20 years of marketing management experience. She holds a BA (hons) Business Studies degree, specialising in marketing, from the University of Ulster. A Chartered Marketer, Angeline is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

  1. Customer research agency collaboration with Queen’s University KTP

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    Customer research agency, CARD Group Research & Insight, recently completed a knowledge transfer partnership with Queen’s University Belfast.

    The knowledge transfer partnership was set up to develop a new customer research system incorporating advanced methodologies. 

    Chief Executive Albert Hamilton had been developing an innovative customer research idea and wanted to build a system to access deeper customer insights.

    “I needed to be able to give clients these new customer insights.  I knew that traditional market research systems used by market research companies would not be capable of achieving what I wanted to accomplish,” Albert explained.

    Albert knew he needed to recruit someone highly skilled to lead this project.

    Queens University Knowledge Transfer Partnership

    A timely email in 2017 from the Queen’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership office, led Albert to believe this could be the route to finding someone with the right skill set. Albert met with the Head of KTP, Lorraine Marks to explore how a KTP might work for his business.

    “Lorraine put me in touch with Dr Lisa McFetridge from the School of Maths and Physics whose work involved statistics. That meeting was just fantastic! Lisa just seemed to already know how she could help me develop what I wanted.  She completely got it. So much of a KTP project success is down to the academic partner you are put in touch with – and that is where the skill of the KTP Office comes in by making the right introduction for you.”

    “Our Associate, Aedan Beatty, was exactly the person we needed for this project. Our customer research project focused on customers’ online buying trends using tools and models such as Discrete Choice Modelling and Latent Class Modelling. Aedan’s high level of expertise was ideal and we successfully developed a brand new and innovative customer research product”, said Albert.

    “Our new system is scientifically backed and our clients have experienced how it delivers highly accurate consumer insights. The questions asked now are not only rational questions, as is usual in market research, but our new model allows us to access deeper perceptions than rational responses and behaviours to give additional sub-conscious responses that can be understood and prioritised.”

    Predicting Consumer Preferences

    We incorporated advanced statistical modelling techniques that are effective at predicting both stated and unstated consumer preferences. This is important for both new product development and for developing the strategy for existing products and services as it provides information regarding customer needs. Our data driven system makes it possible to understand how consumers genuinely feel and shows you how to improve your marketing strategy.

    A change to product or service attributes to meet the needs of the target market allows a company to improve their marketing strategy to appeal to its target audience more accurately. These attributes can be aligned with the factors analysed and understood to be important to customers and will therefore influence their purchasing decisions. For example, price, quality, and brand strategy will affect whether a person will make a purchase, while formulation and reassurance will influence repurchase. This will provide a better understanding of the customer experience, predict consumer preferences and importantly, sales.

    Customer research agency project completion

    As an SME Albert says that employing an Associate through KTP for three years is a worthwhile investment.  This collaboration is part-funded, with assistance available throughout the recruitment process from the academic partner and the KTP Office.

    The customer research agency project ended in March 2022. CARD Group Research & Insight remains in regular contact with Dr Lisa McFetridge: the company is hosting two Masters’ student placements and is about to host a Doctoral student, all of whom are under Lisa’s supervision.

    Commenting on the KTP experience and what advice he might offer to other businesses considering the programme, Albert says: “Our new market research system exists as the result of our partnership with Queen’s. Lisa supported the Associate in his work, sharing her expertise, and Aedan embedded the specialist modelling knowledge in our systems.   Our new product allows us to make ourselves distinct from other market research companies in our industry. We can now bring something new and individual to clients. It is definitely helping us to grow our customer base.”

    “The test of the value of something is whether you would do it again. And absolutely I would work on another KTP project, without a shadow of a doubt.”

    “Would I recommend KTP to other businesses?   Yes.  I’m very pleased with our new customer research product.”

    Chief Executive Albert Hamilton established CARD Group Research & Insight, a Belfast-based market research agency, that next year is celebrating 20 years in business. Specialised in both qualitative research and quantitative research, CARD Group Research & Insight works with companies across the UK, Ireland and beyond.

  2. Psychographic segmentation; vital for optimising tight marketing budgets

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    Psychographic segmentation is increasingly gaining attention globally as marketers strive to discover more effective ways of connecting with consumers.   

    Marketers are often asked to find growth in a contracting marketplace or with static or reduced budgets or resources.  When just maintaining the current customer base can be considered a win, finding growth can look like a distant prospect.

    Market segmentation has often been based on geographic segmentation, demographic segmentation, or behavioural segmentation. Psychographic segmentation is about how people live, think, and feel. It focuses more on why customers make certain choices and aims to understand a person’s motivation.

    Psychographic segmentation divides customers, and prospective customers, into segments according to their intrinsic characteristics. These characteristics or segmentation variables include activities, attitudes, beliefs, values, perceptions, personality, social status, lifestyle, habits, interests and opinions.

    “Psychographics are a customer’s inner feelings and predisposition

    to behave in certain ways.”

    Malcolm McDonald and Ian Dunbar, 2004

    As more products and services enter markets, and competition increases, each brand must find new ways to remain competitive. To more fully understand customers in the target market, psychographic segmentation is a competitive advantage that more and more businesses are turning to.

    At CARD Group Research & Insight, we use behavioural economics to delve even deeper, tapping into the consumer’s subconscious to more fully understand the motivations that drive their purchasing behaviour.

    Behavioural Economics

    Behavioural economics can be used to explain the non-rational reasons for making a purchase. It can also be used to anticipate how groups of consumers are going to act.

    Behavioural economics bypasses ‘rational’ thinking to access subconscious thoughts. Combining behavioural economics with psychographic segmentation provides brands with highly accurate customer insight.

    Psychographic segmentation and the consumer’s subconscious mind

    Psychographic segmentation enables marketers to pinpoint more specific customer segments. 

    These more specific customer segments mean that marketing budgets will be more effectively spent, and businesses will have the consumer insight to develop appropriate products and services.

    This type of segmentation facilitates the selection of appropriate channels and the development of a meaningful message to resonate with each customer segment.

    Psychographic research and analysis can, however, be challenging for marketers to implement.  We have therefore developed a system based on advanced analytics that accesses the consumer’s subconscious to discover their true thoughts and feelings whilst bypassing external biases and influences. 

    Our system enables us to quantify the subconscious preferences of consumers throughout the decision-making process. Providing vital information for marketing and product development departments, advanced analytics are very effective for anticipating consumer preferences; both stated and unstated.

    Using Psychographic Segmentation in Marketing

    Following a psychographic segmentation research project, our reporting includes vital consumer insights that inform a marketing strategy. Clients use this information for effective product development, messaging, imagery, calls to action, positioning, channel selection, and more.

    ​If you are looking for a consumer insights and market research company to assist you with developing your psychographic segmentation or would like to find out more about our advanced analytics system, please please get in touch.

  3. Market research companies and 4 reasons why you need a good one

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    Market research companies provide public and private sector organisations with consumer insight to enable them to meet consumer needs.

    Evidence-based marketing provides an organisation with information on which to base strategic decisions when developing products and services that appeal to consumers. 

    Optimise your budget with market research companies

    Discover which strategies will be most effective with regard to pricing, product development and marketing communications. Businesses will be able to avoid wasting resources; both time and budget, on ineffective strategies that miss the mark.

    Conducting market research will improve your understanding of how to target the correct segments effectively in your industry.

    Increase engagement amongst your target markets

    Reaching customers is becoming increasingly challenging as more channels become available. A market research company will help you discover which channels will most effectively reach your customers and prospective customers.

    Often, companies make assumptions as to which channels their target markets use. This method wastes budget and renders their strategies much less effective.

    The best market research companies will also provide customer insights for developing the right messaging strategy and optimising your marketing content. For example, which features you should advertise to particular target markets, for each product and service. As different customer groups prioritise different features, customer research specialists can assist with selecting the correct ‘hook’ when advertising.

    Garner support from senior executives

    Data-driven decision-making garners support from the marketing department from more senior executives.  Evidence showing marketing strategies are grounded in data will give senior executives more confidence when approving new marketing budgets and strategies for the business.

    Track and evaluate marketing strategy performance

    Regular market research and brand tracking can ensure your marketing strategies are achieving the desired results. This type of market research, when conducted on a regular basis, can provide early indications of when a marketing strategy needs to be adjusted in order to continue to be effective.

    Ongoing evaluation by market research companies also provides evidence of the success of marketing campaigns.

    If you would like to find out more about our key market research services, our solutions, the tools we use and the work that we do, please do get in touch.  We service local, national and global clients across a broad range of industries, from retail to hospitality to town centre management, and more. Click the ‘project enquiry’ button now.  

  4. Customer research company insights into tools for effective market research

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    Customer research company, CARD Group Research & Insight focuses on understanding consumers.  As consumer research is key to successfully marketing a product or service, it’s vital to employ an experienced customer research company with expertise in your industry.

    Understanding both conscious and subconscious customer needs, preferences, attitudes, motivations and buying behaviour, means that companies are better placed to develop more successful marketing strategies for their brands, products and services.

    How do behavioural economics improve the consumer experience?

    As customer understanding grows, marketing management teams can target key consumer segments more effectively.  The marketing team will be able to develop new products and new services as solutions to meet the needs of those customers, refresh existing products and services, and develop the brand to satisfy those needs.

    Using behavioural economics within a market research project, the business or organisation will gain competitive intelligence, will more easily identify changes in purchasing intent and behaviour, and generally, increase chances of success as more information becomes available to inform decisions regarding strategy.

    In recent years, the COM-B model of behaviour has become more popular. The COM-B model identifies three factors that need to be present for an effective behaviour change: capability, opportunity and motivation. 

    Quantitative research

    Mathematical analysis and data are used to draw conclusions about companies and their markets.

    Quantitative research data helps to analyse interest in your brand, product or service.

    Quantitative research tools

    Quantitative tools often used include:

    • Surveys
    • Polls
    • Questionnaires
    • Analytics

    Quantitative research characteristics

    Some characteristics of quantitative research are:

    • Previous customer research: Factors relating to the market research topic are studied before initiating a quantitative research survey.
    • Large sample size: The sample needs to be large enough so that it represents the target market.
    • Close-ended questions:  This type of question is normally used.
    • Data presentation: Quantitative data is usually presented in table, chart or graph format.

    Quantitative research is useful for the following types of questions:

    • Who are your best customers? What are their ages, gender, locations etc?
    • What level of brand awareness is in the market?
    • How many people are interested in purchasing your product or service?
    • What are prospective customer buying habits?
    • Are the needs of your target market changing?
    • Is there a market for your products and services?

    Qualitative research

    Qualitative tools include:

    • Focus groups
    • One-to-one Interviews – door-to-door, telephone and online
    • Diary studies
    • Ethnographic research
    • Observation

    Qualitative research characteristics

    Qualitative research analyses consumer attitudes and perceptions towards a brand, product or service.  It also looks at what motivates consumers.

    Customer research objectives

    Customer research objectives may include:

    • Brand awareness levels
    • Customer perception of your brand
    • Buyer behaviour
    • Customer satisfaction
    • Customer experiences

    From experience, and for optimum results, our solutions are often designed using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research services.

    If you would like to learn more, please do get in touch.

  5. Improving the food product development process with food market research

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    Food market research is critical to the food product development process.  In an increasingly challenging marketplace, extensive planning and research is required to produce successful food and beverage products.

    New food product development objectives include acquiring new customers, expanding into new geographic markets, boosting profits, and growing market share. Food market research is often used when developing new food concepts, adding to existing product lines and when making modifications to existing products.

    Most food product market research tends to focus on additions and modifications as entirely new concepts are rare and involve a higher level of risk.

     

    Food product development

    Prior to launching a product, food market research can help with multiple aspects of developing a new food product; from uncovering the needs of the market to giving an indication as to whether a new product will meet those needs.

    Aspects that should be explored in food research include the following:

    • Is the purpose of the product clear?
    • Who are the potential customers?
    • What customer segments exist in the market?
    • Do potential customers see the benefit of the product?
    • What needs do the potential users have?
    • What needs does the product meet?
    • What products are currently bought by potential users to fill those existing needs?
    • Why do those products not fully meet the prospective customer’s need?
    • How likely is it that a prospective customer would buy the new product?

    The answer to all of these questions need to be found, but in a way that does not create bias.  Bias in a market research survey will lead to false information which can have a catastrophic effect when developing a new product.

     

    Promotion

    In addition to new food product development, aspects such as package design, advertising, in-store promotions, coupons and discount options all need to be evaluated, then designed and then re-evaluated.  Focus groups, friendship groups, cluster groups and diary studies are just a few of the methods used for evaluation.

     

    Pricing

    Food market research is also beneficial to inform the pricing strategy.  It can be used to uncover the price that a prospective customer be prepared to pay for the new product.

     

    Place (Distribution)

    Food research can be used to find out how and where prospective customers would expect to be able to buy a product.

     

    Growth and Maturity Phases

    Food market research may be used throughout the lifespan of a product.  Areas such as pricing, customer satisfaction, views on the product, comparisons with the strengths and weaknesses of competitors’ products should all be analysed. This kind of market research can discover potential opportunities for further product development.

    Contact info@card-group.com to find out more.

  6. Market research companies and eliminating bias in market research

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    Market research companies are often engaged to help both public sector organisations and private sector companies to improve their understanding of customers and potential customers. Often, the objective is to better meet customer needs.

    Psychology helps to develop a better understanding of the beliefs, thoughts and perceptions held by consumers. Psychology also helps to identify and analyse trends in what people are buying. It’s also beneficial when examining customer responses to new products.

    For many of the top market research companies, both national and global, psychology is integral to multiple stages throughout a research project. Some of the psychology-based approaches commonly used by market research companies, regardless of the industry, are vital for the following:

    Market research companies use psychology to eliminate bias in market research

    Using psychological methods can help avoid bias and undue influence when developing a questionnaire. Normally, whether a person is aware of it or not, their own internal biases may affect how they write questions for a survey. This bias may influence the survey and cause incorrect information to be derived from the survey. This can be a major problem for a company that acts on this incorrect information as a strategy may not work as planned.

    There are numerous biases at play in market research, three of which are very common:

     

    Confirmation bias in market research

    Unconsciously focusing on evidence that supports their own beliefs is a very common type of bias for inexperienced writers of questionnaires. This is one very good reason to engage an independent market research company.  An independent market research business will be free of ingrained employee beliefs and cultures.

     

    Question order bias in market research

    When writing a questionnaire, market researchers need to write questions in a particular order.  This is to prevent the first question from influencing the respondent’s answer to the second question. Market researchers should employ psychological methods to avoid question-order bias.

     

    Culture bias in market research

    This is where the person developing the questionnaire subconsciously assumes that other people have the same beliefs as they do. Culture bias causes questions to be written in a way that subconsciously influences the respondent’s answer.

    As an experienced market research company, at CARD Group we are experienced in developing high-quality surveys and in writing interview questions to extract the correct information from respondents and to provide accurate consumer insights. The impact of accurate consumer insights for a marketing management team, when developing a strategy, can make the difference between a successful strategy and an unsuccessful one. When providing the best quality market research service, it’s vital that the correct tools, resources and technology are used and that the client is always at the centre of the project.

    Consulting with one of the best market research agencies prior to the development of a brand, product or service strategy is vital.

    Find out more about us.

  7. Are your target market views represented on social media?

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    Marketing strategies can benefit from high quality social media intelligence and the use of website analytics.  These digital metrics can prove to be invaluable to marketers, provided they are utilised in a way that supports insightful market research.  Following on from a previous blog, noted below are four more reasons detailing how digital metrics can complement effective market research.

     

    1) Social media monitoring may not provide a true reflection of customer’s buying experiences

    Once a customer exits a store or leaves a website, their perception of their shopping experience normally starts to change.

    If a company wants to find out what a customer thinks of a specific shopping experience on a particular day, they need to survey that customer immediately as they exit the store or website.

    At that point, the customer will be able to answer questions with their experience fresh in their mind, unimpeded by previous memories, general impressions of the brand or other people’s opinions

    Social media monitoring faces some of the same issues as when forwarding a survey by email to customers following a visit to a store or a session online.  Customers who discuss their shopping experiences online may not provide true reflection of their experience but more of their overall opinion of the brand.

    In addition, as social media users are often communicating with friends online, they may embellish a story for the purpose of entertainment or to garner attention from followers.

     

    2) Your customers may not have social media or Google accounts.

    As there are segments of society that have never had a social media account, or have decided to close their accounts, some customer voices will not be available via social media monitoring.

    Regarding consumers who have not registered for a Google account; their demographic details are not available to Google Analytics.  Therefore, their online browsing and shopping habits will not be available for detailed analysis through digital metrics.

     

    3) Social media monitoring is still in it’s infancy.  Current systems are still evolving and may not convey the true opinion of consumers. 

    Many companies turn to social media monitoring as the results are fast and fairly inexpensive.  However, accuracy is an issue.  Sarcasm is often misunderstood by social media monitoring tools, as is the implication of words that have more than one meaning.  For example, ‘wicked’ can denote ‘evil’ or alternatively ‘excellent’, depending on the context.

    At this current point in technological developments, automated sentiment reading is generally poor.  Therefore, marketers must check if sentiments are correct.  This verification process slows down results and increases the costs to a point where the difference in speed and cost between traditional market research and online research becomes much less of an issue.

     

    4) Social media conversations are not consistent so it’s impossible to compare year on year. 

    A product or service that was launched last year will not have the same level of interest this year.  Consumers that have taken to social media to talk about their new purchase are unlikely to discuss online how they have found the performance of a product year after year – certainly not enough customers to render the information a reliable source to compare against the comments from the initial launch.

     

    Insightful market research can be utilised to establish if social media analysis and website analytics are accurate and reliable.

    If market research shows that the information conveyed by consumers on social media reflects the information conveyed by your primary target, it’ is a good position to be in.

    However, it is crucial to invest in effective market research to ensure that the views expressed by consumers on social media continue to reflect the views of your primary target market.  This verification process needs to be carried out regularly to ensure that information obtained online continues to add value.

  8. Four ways to improve your care home marketing with market research

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    Care home marketing has become increasing important in many geographical areas. As a more effective marketing strategy will help to improve performance as well as enabling more efficient use of the budget, it’s crucial to fully understand residents and prospective residents.

    So how do you ensure that your target customers select your care home above one of your competitors?

    1) Understand where your care home catchment area extends to

    Not all care homes have the same catchment area in terms of the acceptable distance to the nursing home.  If you know where the boundary of your specific catchment area is, you can focus your resources on this area.  Marketing communications activity outside of this area will yield less of a return on investment.

    2) Select the right target audience

    Investigate your catchment area to find out what type of residents are available to you or may become available in the future.  What is the demographic breakdown of this area? Are prospective residents likely to be funded by the local authority or would they self-fund?  Are you targeting residents themselves, their children or both? Selecting the right target audience will allow you to focus your greatest resources on the segments that will yield the greatest profit, therefore maximising return on investment.

    3) Understand your customer’s needs

    How do you know the services you are offering meet the needs of your prospective residents?  Are there any aspects of care that are not meeting the expectations of future residents?

    4) Monitor customer satisfaction

    Are your residents and/or their families happy with the care your home is providing? Do your customers share positive word of mouth testimonials? As word of mouth referrals are one of the most common referral methods for care homes, it is important to find out if word of mouth communications are positive – and if they are negative, why.  Are there any services you could feasibly provide to improve your care home?  Do your levels of customer satisfaction increase or decrease over the years?  Are there any aspects of your care that are receiving increasingly negative feedback from residents over time and need to be rectified?

    To develop effective care home marketing, it’s crucial that the marketing strategy decision-making process is based on facts rather than opinion or a perspective from within an organisation.  This is where a market research company can help. Contact CARD Group to find out more or visit Care Home Market Research for further information.

  9. Why Marketing Managers cannot live on digital metrics alone

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    Market research has evolved over the past few years to encompass data gathered via social media monitoring and website analytics.  Whilst these relatively new technologies provide a useful service to companies, they cannot replace traditional market research.  Accurate market research remains vital to developing an effective marketing strategy. These are some of the reasons why…

    1) Certain customers and prospective customers may not be the type of people to share their opinions online.  Therefore, only opinions from more vocal people, who may have no intention of buying, will be visible.

    Consumers that review products and services online are often part of a different demographic group, with significantly differing opinions and shopping habits, to consumers that do not post their opinions on social media.

    Many people do not regularly post their opinions of products whilst engaging in a social media conversation with friends – occasionally someone may vent about particularly poor performance, and even less often, may extol the virtues of a superb experience.

    Brands need to find out if those consumers, who are vocal about their products and services, are part of their target market.  If not, their opinions are not representative of the customer base.  Opinions of buyers and prospective buyers must be sought using a different method.

     

    2) A company may inadvertently develop a poor marketing strategy based on incorrect information.  Incorrect information may input by consumers to their social media accounts for security reasons.

    With the rise in hacking, consumers may input incorrect personal information such as date of birth, location and employment details to their social media accounts. There are also many social media users who embellish, or completely fabricate information about themselves via their social media accounts.  It’s unclear as to how many people supply accurate information.

    Additionally, the volume and type of information held by a social media account is limited and may not lend itself to the type of consumer research required to inform a business decision. For example, not everybody provides their educational history.

     

    3) If your online shoppers are browsing and buying whilst logged into a family member’s Google account, Google Analytics will show you incorrect shopper demographics.

    Google Analytics data is fed by the data people supply to their Google accounts.  Some people may not have Google accounts, some people may use the family computer and not bother to log into their own Google account, others may have input incorrect information to their profile.  If a primary target market consists of any of these demographic groups, a company may only be able to gather limited information from Google Analytics.

    Companies need to base their marketing strategies on accurate data to develop the most effective marketing plan.  GIGO also applies to marketing planning…. garbage in, garbage out.

    There are many more reasons why companies need both market research as well as online data to generate optimum sales.  We’ll be taking another look at traditional market research and online data in our next blog.

  10. NI Marketers GDPR Readiness Poll

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    As Secretary of the Market Research Society NI, I’ve been submersed in GDPR for some time now. I’ve been busy organising our most recent Market Research Society NI session; a GDPR information session with Compliance Barrister Orlagh Kelly of www.Briefed.pro.

    We thought it would be interesting, as marketers are one of the main user groups of market research, to find out how prepared marketers in Northern Ireland are for the forthcoming GDPR deadline.

    We ran a quick poll via Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook over one week.  Our poll accumulated 31 valid responses.

    Almost half of the marketers who responded to the poll have not yet started to prepare for the GDPR.  Just under one third of respondents are somewhat prepared.  Just under one third of respondents are fairly well prepared or almost prepared whilst none of the respondents are fully prepared.

    The main concern amongst the marketers who responded to our survey is email marketing, in particular the implications of B2B email marketing, Mailchimp databases and consent.

    This readiness response falls fairly well into line with the general feeling of readiness across Northern Ireland.  From speaking to other businesses, we’ve found that it’s only once a business starts to prepare for GDPR, do they realise the enormity of the task.  It’s not just about asking the IT or HR department to tighten up processes – in essence, GDPR will permeate the culture of an organisation and change how personal data is perceived and managed throughout.

    The Market Research Society provides GDPR guidance and has developed a quality process standard called Fair Data.  The Fair Data mark is awarded to companies that meet the Fair Data principles.  Visit the Fair Data website for further information: http://www.fairdata.org.uk/GDPR_questions/

    Thanks to everyone who took part in our survey.