[Issue 23] Market Research Dread (Part 1)
Breaking down the problems with traditional approaches to market research
[Customer Avatar Canvas, DigitalMarketer]
The Odysseus Files, Issue 23
Playing Your Own Game, Part 1
Does This Apply to You?
[Note: this is Part 1 of a miniseries within the broader Odysseus Files called “Playing Your Own Game.” These miniseries will group broad topics thematically, helping you connect the dots between them more easily.]
This week we’re jumping into a new miniseries called “Playing Your Own Game.” The aim of this series is to challenge various common beliefs and approaches within the creator economy.
(Or, more specifically, to spark debate and conversation around these topics. So, feel free to leave a comment or hit “reply” with your thoughts!)
In this issue, we’re tackling the thorny topic of market research. I’ll start with a discussion of the problems with how most digital marketers and creators tackle research in this issue, then next week lay out a framework for doing research through the lens of the Acropolis Model.
First, a caveat: there are plenty of scenarios in which the approach I lay out below wouldn’t necessarily be appropriate. For example, if you’re researching a client’s current audience, this won’t cut it. (In fact, if you already have your own audience, you can skip to the last step.)
This idea is specific to an instance where:
You’re in the beginning stages of launching a new business
You don’t have a current audience to survey or talk directly to
You don’t have a clear cut set of potential leads, such as CEOs of tech startups, where you can compile a list of names and get in front of people directly
(If this last point is you, your research is pretty straightforward. For a simple research + outreach plan, I recommend this one from a good friend.)
My thinking here is targeting the twin ideas in the online marketing world of creating a customer avatar and doing “voice-of-customer” research.
Let’s jump into the problems with this approach.
How Most Marketers & Creators Approach Market Research
The Customer Avatar
To start with, I’ll break these down, if you’re not super familiar with the marketing lingo.
The concept of a “customer avatar” is rooted in good intention. It’s meant to counter the traditional approach in most small businesses of doing no research: just building a product and hoping someone will buy it.
If you do a search for “customer avatar template” you’ll see examples of a very robust form meant to capture everything possible about your ideal customer. From pain points and desires to demographic details to mindset and beliefs, it’s a complete breakdown of who this person is. In many cases, you would even name this person and attach a photo that’s supposed to represent them, to help you visualize this individual as a real person you could meet on the street.
This is all great. There’s plenty of data to reflect the value of developing personalized messaging and experiences based on segmenting your audience into smaller groups of people who are most like each other.
It also keeps you focused when creating marketing materials, helping you to speak to this specific person rather than a blank mass of people.
Or, at least, theoretically.
In reality, most companies and marketing departments fill out an avatar so they can showcase a strategic deliverable. That avatar may be created as much based on conjecture and assumption as on real data.
(And if you’re skeptical of this, Google around for some of the studies showing a significant discrepancy between what marketers think consumers want versus what they actually want. For all the data corporate marketers collect, they’re remarkably wrong about consumer behavior, attitudes, wants, etcetera.)
Once it’s created, chances are it never sees the light of day again. It certainly doesn’t genuinely inform the creation of marketing messages and assets. (Much less contribute to product development.)
But let’s say you’re working hard to only fill this out with actual data and intend to let it drive everything you do in your marketing. The next question is, where are you getting your data?
Sure, you can pay for market research surveys, if you want primary data. This is expensive, and you’d better make sure you’re working with a market research company that knows how to ask the right questions (and sort the data correctly). Most surveys ask questions that seem relevant on the surface, but in reality are a reflection of what a survey taker thinks or feels in the moment, not what their actual behavior is.
(This skepticism of traditional market research goes back decades, to marketing thought leaders of past generations such as Jack Trout, author, consultant, and the father of positioning theory. He believed that the only market research worth doing was that which could accurately represent the perceptions your prospective customers had of your competitors.)
In some cases (say, if you’re launching a tech startup around a SaaS product that is costly to produce), there’s value in throwing a few thousand dollars at the market to try and determine if it’s worth the effort to move forward with the project. Chances are, if you’re reading this, this isn’t relevant to you.
VOC Research
Ok, so if traditional market research approaches aren’t the most appropriate for your average new creator business, what are creators doing to complete their avatars?
This is where the “voice-of-customer” research comes in. The idea goes that by listening in on how people talk about products or services like yours online, you can work out how they describe their pain points, desires, etcetera in their own words.
Then, in a popular copywriting refrain, you can “enter the conversation they are already having.”
In this approach, your time is spent browsing comment sections on Amazon and other review sites as well as YouTube, posts in Facebook groups or subreddits related to your subject matter, questions and answers on Quora around your topic, etcetera.
In theory, this sounds good. It’s the closest, most “in-the-trenches” you can expect to get to having these people tell you directly, “This is how I feel about this.”
But is it actually the best use of your time?
Think about it: how would you verify that the commenters you’re citing are actually your ideal customers?
If you’re following the Acropolis Model to build your brand, you’re going to create a consistent brand message based on either your unique point of view or your unique mechanism (how you uniquely do what you do). This is rooted in your positioning (how you’re different from your competitors) and your competitive advantage (the material factors that allow you to position yourself the way you do).
The people who come into your world won’t just be anyone in your niche (no matter how “niched down” you go); it will be those who specifically resonate with your message. (And the vision, values, and brand identity behind it.)
So, if you collect these comments from random people, you will likely run into one of the following problems:
A category that’s too broad - for example, online marketing. Not everyone who bought an online marketing book is going to resonate with your specific approach, which means these comments may come from people who would never buy from you anyway. Using them would give you the completely wrong sense for how to structure your messaging.
A category that’s too narrow - say, a specific fad diet. By the time there are conversations happening online about a product for something this specific, you’ve already lost the initiative. Someone else is first, all you can do is try to be marginally better. But that’s not a winning strategy (read anything from Jack Trout - mentioned above - or his partner Al Ries to understand why).
By the time you’ve sorted through and defined which questions, topics, or comments are misleading versus legitimately helpful, you will have spent dramatically more time than anticipated. All in the hopes of tracking down a handful of words and phrases that help inform your understanding of who you think will be a good customer.
Wrapping Up
Tying all of the above together, it’s clear that, for many creators and new entrepreneurs, doing market research this way can become more of a form of procrastination than doing impactful work that moves your business forward.
What’s a more proactive approach? (And one geared towards collecting real, coveted zero-party and first-party data, for the digital marketing lingo lovers.)
We’ll head into that next week. See you then!
P.S. - Disagree with any of the above? Hit “reply” or leave a comment.