Understand
Listening to People
People, Not Funnels
It is often tempting to approach consumer research efforts from a marketing funnel perspective where the research objective is defined by identifying motivators and purchasing triggers that move consumers from a state of "consideration” to a state of “action”. While this approach may help increase revenue in the short term, it struggles to generate meaningful product-related insights that can inform development efforts because it approaches the research under the assumption that the product already exists. Thus, marketing-funnel research can only help answer the question “how can we get this person to buy our product” and not “how can we make the best product for this person.”
At Sophic Design we believe that when product-centered consumer research truly connects with people and their experiences you discover valuable insights that lead to meaningful products and experiences that emotionally connect with people and build brand loyalty. This is only possible when organizations understand their user’s unique circumstances and experiences which provide a window into the what’s and why’s of their behaviors and motivations.
Below are some examples of the research practices we deploy to better understand users and uncover valuable insights.
Research Practices
Qualitative Research
Qualitative research is the best way to learn what you don’t know when designing a new product. It is done in a variety of one-on-one settings where the objective is to get to know people in-depth to identify and understand the details of their experiences. Because of the time required to have these conversations the pool of participants is typically small but the amount of data received in each interview is large.
Quantitative Research
Quantitative research is a great way to test a hypothesis or validate a strategic point of view by gathering targeted information from a large quantity of people. The goal is to solicit feedback from many participants collecting a variety of data points that help measure consumer sentiment like popular opinions, correlation, and feature preference just to name a few.
Review Scraping
Online review scraping allows organizations to gain a comprehensive understanding of customer opinions, identify trends, detect issues, and uncover actionable feedback by automatically extracting and analyzing customer reviews and aggregating valuable insights about a product that can help identify consumer pain points and improve product line offerings based on real-time customer sentiment.
Secondary Research
Secondary research allows for the exploration of diverse perspectives and data sources by leveraging existing information from industry experts and other researchers. This contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of trends and changes over time and can provide valuable context for further research initiatives and insights into markets and competitive landscapes.
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