How good market research can improve budgetary effectiveness

Good market research can improve your marketing strategy.  Effective marketing is rarely accomplished through a one-shot campaign.  It’s essential to engage the audience through a conversation, a sequence of messages, and here’s why.

Every individual who encounters the campaign will have a different level of connection with the location, product or the service.  They will however fall into one of four categories.

Uninformed.  This group have not yet heard of the location, product or service.  Therefore the marketing messages need to raise awareness of its existence.  Good market research can tell you how many people in your audience or consumer catchment are uninformed.

Apathetic.  This group are aware but not enough to care.  The marketing intervention here needs to demonstrate how relevant the offer is to the consumer’s needs.  Consumer insight is an essential skill in good market research.

Sympathetic.  This group will see benefits to engaging with the offer.  But they will also see the barriers, which for them are winning the argument.  Marketing here needs to give potential customers a path around the barriers they may feel are there.  This needs good market research to identify the barriers to engagement.

Empathetic.  The only thing preventing this group from engaging an invitation – some reason to get involved.  An initiative, promotion or event to tip the balance and encourage that initial trial.  This is often the area where most marketing spend is concentrated.

Using CARD Group’s Engagement Path © makes it easy to see how some marketing strategies may only be targeting a portion of the audience, limiting the impact of the available budget.

Contact us to find out how your marketing spend could be more effective.  We work with clients throughout Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, the UK and beyond.