In most companies, market research is both confusing and misunderstood. Add the desire (and need) to better understand brand into the mix, and you have a recipe for even further confusion. After all, just because you measure something doesn’t mean you understand it.

Our experience shows that the utilization of research to drive brand insight requires multiple approaches to effectively measure brand experience, and understand ways to improve it.

The brand research toolbox includes various sampling methodologies.

Some of the most popular include one-on-one interviews, web and phone based surveys and focus groups. Deciding what approach to use comes down to the one question that simply isn’t asked (or more accurately, answered) often enough: what (exactly) are we trying to accomplish?

At the core of MCorp’s Brand Mapping approach, we leverage brand research to balance insights, strategy and defensibility with our ultimate goal: a deep understanding of the brand, a defined path to improving it, and defensible metrics that tell you with a degree of certainty where you are and where you need to go. So when it comes to understanding your brand, where – if anywhere – do focus groups fit?

Bottom line, we don’t think that focus groups are an effective technique for this type of brand research. Why? Several reasons:

1. Even with a skilled moderator, focus groups tend to be influenced by the few dominant people in the group, driving potentially biased output.
2. Marketers find that focus groups tend to deliver a single perspective; individual opinions are hard to capture because of group dynamics.
3. As a series of opinion from groups of 9-12 people, the results simply aren’t projectable over a broader audience. Whether or not the opinions expressed are valid is one thing; but attempting to project these opinions over broader audiences simply isn’t possible.

In short, it’s really hard to quantify or validate results, the sample size is small, and you simply cannot generalize findings to the target population. In fact, we’ve been called in several times by organizations who have attempted to research their brand with focus groups to get to defensible conclusions, and failed.

And as a vehicle to quantitatively assess elements of a brand platform, focus groups are useless.

In our experience, focus groups tend to capture perceptions of a moment in time, not how customers really organize their lives and their emotions. And because group dynamics play such a large part in the findings, they aren’t effective for drawing conclusions about a given population, though they are often used for such purposes.

We’ve found that the most effective method of gathering qualitative data around current brand perceptions are one-on-one interviews: with employees, customers and prospects, as well as the broader market. In our experience, the “one-on-one” interview process yields insights and frank, honest opinions much more effectively than traditional focus group formats, while costing substantially less.

From this come competitive insights, indicators of brand loyalty and experience, and insights into what drives brand attitudes and perceptions. Once organized, the brand and its position in the market can be validated with projectable follow-on customer experience and brand research.

So Where Do Focus Groups Fit?

The whole idea of focus groups is get people to project their opinions and attitudes in an interactive group setting, where participants are free to talk with other members of the group. As a result, they’re more of an open-ended elicitation than some of the other methods in the brand research toolkit. In our experience, they can work well for brainstorming new brand ideas, perceptual mapping or gathering creative and concept feedback.

To be honest, all marketing research is subject to Nobel prize-winning physicist Werner Heisenberg’s famous observation: “We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” But  if you’re trying to brainstorm a new brand, creative concepts or brand extensions, focus groups are a great place to start (or finish). But if you’re trying to quantify your current brand, validate your position vs. your competition, understand attributes and values for internal audiences and external customer segments, then stick with methodologies which you can validate and defend.

We made our case for benchmarking and covered the different things that your organization can benchmark against in part 1 of this series. Now, we’ll start looking at what your company should benchmark against.

What to measure?  Why understanding the relationships between various performance measures is a primary objective of benchmarking.

Simplistically, understanding the relationships between various performance measures means measuring the right things and making certain that a focus on those things measured does not negatively impact performance against other important metrics.

Regardless of industry or area of focus (the areas we have the greatest experience in include branding, customer experience and marketing performance), it’s critical to be clear on what you’re trying to accomplish, and why. You don’t need to (nor should you) measure everything. Just the right things.

To benchmark performance against competitive industry leaders dictates a certain approach. If you wish to benchmark functional performance against non-competitive functional leaders (e.g. mortgage broker experience and satisfaction at a financial services institution vs. meeting planner experience and satisfaction with Ritz-Carlton) it dictates another.

If you are interested in measuring your performance (e.g. importance vs. importance on key experience or perceptual attributes) you’ll need to understand which segments to measure against. For instance: is the benchmarked opinion of an entire industry (e.g. 50,000 plus brokers) the measure you should be tracking and improving? Or is it the opinion of the top 20% of the segment that are the most profitable? How do your customers deviate from the industry overall?

If you improve performance against key metrics industry-wide (let’s say – just for example – speed to negotiated quote and commitment letter for commercial mortgage brokers), will that make you more profitable? Or, should you focus on improving the experience on the metrics that matter to the segment that represents your most profitable customers?

In our opinion, benchmarking is relevant only in so far as the metrics you benchmark are linked to key financial, business and customer objectives, and the metrics that define success for your business in these areas.

Although linking various metrics can be difficult to do, it is critically important for several reasons. If the cause-and-effect relationships are identified and understood, then these measures begin to provide the ability to serve as predictors of future organizational and financial performance.

Understanding the cause-and-effect relationship is relatively easy. Identifying leading and lagging indicators is typically more difficult, though critical.

Creating brand value is not a static process. A continual cycle of monitoring and assessment is key to maintaining relevance – and increasing value.

Building and maintaining a strong brand is not a simple task. In some companies, the hardest step is gaining a top-down organizational commitment. For those that do, the rewards are great. The following five steps can serve as an initial guide.

Step 1: Assessment

Understand your brand. What are the internal and external perceptions? How do your key audiences see you versus your competition? Are they aware? Engaged? Where are the gaps in your brands performance?  Brand research is the only way to effectively assess where you stand, and why.

Step 2: Strategy

Prioritize communication of rational and emotional perceptions that communicate key customer benefits, as well as the drivers of brand loyalty, repurchase and engagement.  Through a quantifiable understanding of what drives value for your brand, brand strategy will reinforce desired perceptions and behaviors.

Step 3: Architecture

Architect a strategic brand hierarchy that effectively communicates brand and messaging priorities through product and service lines, divisional and/or subsidiary relationships, geographies, segments and distribution channels.

Step 4: Application

Be relentlessly consistent with the delivery and control of your brand experience across all channels. Ensure that your brand is consistently – and effectively – delivered across all major categories of customer touchpoints, including static (such as print ads or direct mail), interactive (including web and online) and human (sales team, call centers, etc.).

Step 5: Monitoring

Brands must be maintained and monitored to ensure that they retain relevance and importance with key audiences. Assign explicit responsibility for custodianship and conduct periodic brand audits and tracking studies – leveraging your own methodologies, or a proven tool such as Brand Mapping – to provide ongoing market-driven feedback.

What is “strategic planning” – and how does it work?

While the phrases is used often (and often misused) Strategic Planning is critical to the success of any exercise. Bringing multiple perspectives into focus with an eye on defined objectives, it is the process an organization goes through to envision and achieve its future—identifying the steps and means necessary to leverage existing strengths and overcome identified weaknesses.

The benefits from a business point-of-view are clear. What are our revenue, growth and sales targets? What competitive and market forces can affect our future, for better or worse? What should (and what must) we do to achieve these goals?

While the level of involvement in creating the plan may vary depending on your product or service, timing and market situation, we believe that at a minimum you should ask for input from current customers, prospects and your in-house sales and marketing teams. Representatives from anticipated support functions (customer service, installation, and maintenance) should also be an integral part of the planning process.

The value of strategic planning for brand, marketing and customer experience.

Since both the value and revenue for virtually all organizations is driven by its customers, planning is critical when thinking about ways to connect with them. When it comes to meeting these business goals, your ability effectively market, relevantly brand and deliver customer experiences that drive customers closer are a few of core competencies required for business success.

Whether your objectives are to inform, persuade, sell, or reassure, you need a clear understanding of where you are, where you want to go, and what you need to do to get there. In this context, Strategic Planning serves as your road map, guiding and connecting every aspect of interacting with key audiences from awareness of your company, product or service to the creation and nurturing of loyal customer advocates.

It provides a framework for examining your customers, prospects and competition. It helps to drive innovation in products and services, and service levels, that allow you to pinpoint your brand, improve experiences, and focus marketing and related investments on the right customers, with the right offerings and the right messages.

Within the context of brand, marketing and customer experience, the strategic planning process can drive myriad positive end results. Among other benefits, the research-based definition and articulation of strategies and tactics will help your organization to:

• Determine and respond to shifts in customer wants and needs;
• Understand levels of current market awareness and position;
• Uncover competitive strategies and market trends, and evaluate the opportunities and threats they create;
• Refine relevant metrics to track ROI on your investments in all related areas, and improve that return over time;
• Understand target market perceptions of your strengths and weaknesses, and determine which to reinforce or address;
• Evaluate new product/service opportunities and the potential impact of external threats;
• Improve communications with your audiences, both internally and externally;
• Establish ongoing internal, market and competitive information-gathering procedures;
• Identify ways to accelerate and manage growth;
• And many others…

Establishing specific, measurable objectives and timelines against your plan also allows you to continually track—and adjust if necessary—your strategies, tactics, and investments. This creates appropriate expectations, accountability, and an effective means of measuring progress towards your goals.

Key to the successful delivery of brand experience is your ability to drive ownership and delivery of your brand from the inside out, top down and bottom up, throughout your organization.

Not only is internal brand management important for creating and maintaining strong brands, it is the critical first step for delivering a branded customer experience. Recognized as a key competitive differentiator by marketers across segments and sectors, brands that have been well-positioned in the past are finding that the competitive marketspace is shifting under their feet.

From decreased loyalty to increased price sensitivity, today’s customers are proactive, looking for and finding the brands they want – and leaving in heartbeat if the experience doesn’t measure up to expectations. In fact, 87% of customers surveyed in 2008 said they’d leave after a single negative experience.

Not much room for error, is there? This is where an understanding of the brand commitment threshold comes in – that point at which “The Company” cedes control of the brand to its employees, whose commitment to it is at heart of creating a branded customer experience.

Four steps to delivery of a branded customer experience: Understand—and control—the management, interpretation and delivery of your Brand.

Ultimately, the relevance and strength of your brand is defined by how well you are able to create and sustain delivery of an experience that creates differentiation (from your competition) and preference (for your brand). Including all your touchpoints – from your products and services to customer support, marketing activities, sales and more – how customers “experience” your brand is what will drive them closer to or away from your organization.

Our perspective – which has been validated by multiple research engagements run by MCorp Consulting, as well as studies from Forrester and others – is that employee behavior lies at the heart of the branded customer experience.

So how do you get there? Follow these four steps, with your organization crossing the brand commitment threshold in the process. They include:

1. Codified Brand: The first step in delivering your brand is defining it. What are your values? What is your promise? What does delivery on your promise mean to employees and customers? How does it look, and feel?
2. Implemented Brand: Once you’ve codified your brand, you’ll need to implement it. Beyond (but including) the consistent visual and verbal delivery of your brand across touchpoints and messaging matrices, management’s buy-in and support of the brand vision, and their support of employees in delivering it, are critical steps in crossing the threshold.
3. Interpreted Brand: Do your employees believe? Once they do – that the organization buys into the vision, from the “top down” – they’ll begin to own it. This means delivering on it in their interactions with each other, with customers, and with your broader community of audiences and stakeholders.
4. Experienced Brand: Bottom line? Your culture drives the brand experience. When the brand is articulated, management holds itself (and employees) accountable for delivering on it. At the same time, employees will interpret and begin delivering against it, consistently delivering the “branded customer experience“ which will set you apart.

At the end of the day, the value of most businesses is based almost entirely on the value and loyalty of their customers. And the value and loyalty of your customers is based on your employees, regardless of their role or position in the company. When it comes to “living the brand” everyone is equally responsible; your Brand comes from inside… and must be experienced internally first.

More than just a clear vision and values, your brand must inform and motivate employees and customers, driving both internal and external interactions. Crossing the Brand Commitment Threshold is what sets you apart from the competition, driving more prospects and customers, more effectively, closer to your organization.

The result? The consistent delivery of a differentiated, branded customer experience, and more satisfied, more loyal (and more profitable) customers as a result.