Conversations are one of the most powerful forms of market research in the creative industries.
They are a great way to understand customers’ perspectives.
The term ‘Market Research’ makes most people think of big, expensive research exercises conducted by large corporations or government agencies.
That’s why I prefer not to use that term at all. It puts people off.
That’s why I wrote in my marketing book: “Don’t do Market Research”.
I go on to say in that section of the book that instead, we should simply ‘Listen to Customers’.
Saying it like that makes it suddenly much simpler, more achievable and more comfortable.
Authentic conversations with customers and potential customers can provide us with valuable information, ideas and perspectives.
I remember a meeting I had with a designer in England. I asked him if he did market research. He laughed and said his small company couldn’t afford market research and gave me a dirty look as though it was a really stupid question. Later in the meeting he told me how they took their designs to the pub one Friday night to ask their friends and colleagues for feedback and suggestions for improvements.
That’s market research!
That’s also when I learned to be careful with the term ‘market research’. If I had asked about how they got feedback and new ideas, he would have told me about all the ways they did that in common sense, inexpensive and friendly ways.
In my article about Senegalese fashion designer Sophie Nzinga Sy, entitled ‘Customers Have the Answers’, Sophie says:
“I love my customers and enjoy talking with them. And from these conversations, I get new ideas. Customers tell me what they really want and even suggest new products. If only we take time to talk and listen, we find that customers have the answers, including answers to questions we didn’t know we had.”
In this way, Sophie’s genuine conversations are a very effective kind of market research.
But somehow the term ‘market research’ sounds too technical, deliberate and ‘scientific’ to describe Sophie’s very human touch.
As a mentor to creative entrepreneurs, including many startups, I advise them to listen to customers and find opportunities to have conversations with them.
People respond better to genuine conversations in which you are genuinely interested in their ideas and opinions.
Of course there is a role for questionnaires at particular points in research, but first we need to know the right questions to ask.
Before we engage fully with customers, we have to make assumptions about what they want and prefer. And if we get those assumptions wrong in the first place, our questionnaire will be asking the wrong questions.
Conversations are similar to focus groups since they are qualitative market research, in contrast to quantitative market research.
Qualitative market research is more open, inquisitive and humble. It’s where we find new ideas and the right questions to ask.
Quantitative market research can then ask specific questions and get numeric results that are meaningful.
For example, a fashion designer might use a questionnaire to ask customers: “Do you prefer yellow or red dresses?”
From a big enough sample, you can produce useful results. For example: “72% of respondents said they prefer yellow dresses to red ones”.
But what if it’s the wrong question in the first place?
What if customers don’t really want dresses at all but prefer trouser suits?
It’s in conversations, such as the one described by Sophie, that we learn deeper insights and new ideas about what customers really want, and what they are buying really.
Later, we can explore further using a questionnaire. But now at least we know what question to ask!
Using conversations as market research is primarily an attitude to customers.
If we believe we know everything and customers are just punters, we are never going to listen to them because we are too arrogant.
This leads to people talking AT customers.
On the other hand, if we believe we might be able to learn something new, see things in a different way, let’s ask customers and give them a good listening to.
So let’s talk WITH customers and listen to what they say.
In simple terms, that’s a conversation.