Stuck in the research comfort zone?
You might not need to forget everything you knew before, but you certainly need to give serious thought to checking out your facts.
We live in changing times, for which the term ‘current economic climate’ has become something of a shortcut. Much has changed and there is more change on the horizon not least as we witness the fall out from the comprehensive spending review due in October.
For many companies, to steal a phrase from intergalactic travel, ‘It’s life Jim, but not as we know it.’
OK, so the world didn’t end, the banks are still here, the high street’s not shut down and we haven’t descended into the kind of futuristic anarchy much beloved of Hollywood films.
But while some things remain apparently familiar, often you don’t have to scratch far below the surface to find that some of our assumptions may no longer hold true.
Marketers and brand managers talk a lot about the need to ‘understand the demographic’, to ‘get an insight into people’s motivations’ and ‘to create compelling brand experiences.’ All well and good, but this depends on maintaining knowledge and insight, not just relying on what may well be outdated patterns of behaviour.
Do you really know what your customers are thinking right now? How they’re feeling? What their priorities are and how these may be changing? While the impact of the past 18 months on the answers to these questions may not be earth shattering, it’s often the details that make the difference. Sometimes a subtle shift in emphasis can create quite noticeable shifts in behaviour.
Consumers and businesses alike are feeling the effects of a world that has changed and will continue to change for the foreseeable future. This ranges from confidence about long-term decision-making and concern about job stability, through to availability of credit and cost of living. Many of the underpinning social-economic principles have changed. We’ve seen it most visibly in the high street, in the housing market and the job market, but it runs much deeper.
Which is why research is so critical at the moment and should be top of every business’s agenda. There are many ways to go about gathering information and intelligence, never more so than in a rapidly evolving social and digital media environment.
Assumption is always a dangerous game and while it might take at the very least a little time and effort, if no financial investment, ensuring that your intelligence is accurate and up to date is well worth it.