SIVO is thrilled to present The SIVO Insights Forum, an on-demand panel discussion with esteemed Insights executives. You’re invited to tune in here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX3aO1k61QE
The lively conversation focuses on “Bridging The Gap: Translating Insights Into Meaningful Business Results" with industry leaders:
Learn from world-class Insights leaders as they discuss:
Feel free to share with your team and reach out with any questions that spark as you watch!
About SIVO:
SIVO is a global insights and strategy firm specializing in understanding people and their needs and beliefs that drive behavior. We partner with world-class brands to answer key questions that fuel business growth and innovation.
SIVO Interview with Mary McIlrath, Children and Family Market Research Expert
By Kerry Juhl
Recently, SIVO, Inc. was lucky enough to have Mary McIlrath join our expanding team. Mary has amassed a wealth of experience in Children and Family market research. She is a recognized expert in the generations space, having established a successful Generation Z and Generation Alpha research practice in her past role. She has taught MBA courses in Qualitative Research at the University of Wisconsin and Quantitative Research at the University of Illinois and lectured at Northwestern University.
I recently sat down with Mary to discuss her experience with studying families and generational differences.
Question: Mary, you have been studying families and generational differences for most of your career. How did you become a subject matter expert on this topic?
Mary: I have always been fascinated by understanding generational differences and family dynamics. I come from both industry and academic perspectives—it’s common for former academics to work in industry, but it’s rare birds like me who keep a foot in both disciplines over a career. I’ve been able to harvest the best of both worlds. For example, my academic experience instilled a mindset that respondents should benefit as much or more than the researcher. This is particularly important when working with children and adolescents. Their needs come first; when they are met, the client also benefits. Industry experience has helped me be effective and efficient in conducting research. My dual expertise gives me a deep toolbox of constructs and methods to help my clients achieve their business objectives, with the well-being of the family at center stage.
Question: Mary, what does a typical U.S. family look like today?
Mary: It’s something in continuous flux. Sometimes it’s single-parent households. Sometimes it’s families with two dads. Sometimes it’s blended homes containing multiple generations. What has gradually become less common is the Norman Rockwellian image of two opposite-gender people raising a gaggle of kids with traditional gender roles. For instance, in 1968, 85% of children under 18 yrs. old lived with two parents (regardless of marital status) but that number has dropped to 70% in 2020. About 25% of children live with a single parent in the household.*
Question: How are manufacturers and marketers responding to the needs of today’s children and families?
Mary: It’s a sea change from how brands thought about families in the early days of youth research in the 1980s and 1990s. Those who used to make simple toys, TV shows, or food and beverages for kids are now thinking of how to stay relevant with their offerings and communication in the Metaverse. They are thinking about what is to come in Augmented Reality (AR) since Pokemon Go flipped the script. They are brainstorming what Virtual Reality (VR) will look like. That’s no small task, especially since children’s sense of balance and depth are still developing and putting them outside 3D spaces risks hampering their natural brain development.
Question: What is the latest regulatory environment for marketing and advertising to youth and families?
Mary: If you work on kid brands, it is critical to understand global ethics around marketing and advertising to children and families. Countries around the world have differing laws about when it is acceptable to advertise to young people. Those in the U.S. are the least restrictive because of industry self-established watchdogs like CARU (Children’s Advertising Review Unit). This organization does regular and thorough audits of marketing campaigns to children and calls out/suggests changes to anything that seems unfair.
Question: How does this impact conducting market research with kids and families?
Mary: In the U.S. it’s allowable to do research directly with children with a parent’s consent. It’s “cleaner” data coming straight from children rather than filtered through parents who mistakenly think they know what their kids truly want.
Question: What are a few of your best practices for conducting market research with kids and families?
Mary: Here are a few tips from my experience:
SIVO is excited for Mary to join our team and strengthen our Children and Family market research capabilities. To learn about how kids and families interact with and think about your brand, please reach out to us at Contact@SIVOInsights.com.
*source: 2020 Census Bureau's Current Population Survey
Through the SIVO, Inc. "Modern Ways of Working" Mini Chat series, we spoke with a strategic consumer insights leader, Anna Estlund, Senior Director of Insights and Strategy at Pernod Ricard.
In this conversation with Natasha Weith, Anna discusses how she is working to the ways her team works to drive impact and efficiency. Examples include building more flexibility into her teams roles, spending more time focused on the front and end stages of projects and hiring on demand talent to extend the bandwidth of her team. All of these things allow Anna and her team to maximize their value and relevance to the organization. Check it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhrIyqHooiM
Special thanks to Anna for generously sharing her experience and knowledge with our peers across the Insights industry!
In your brand's early development stages, you likely gave much thought to the idea of a buyer persona.
You researched who you expected to purchase your products, how they would interact with your brand, and which factors would influence them to choose your brand over a competitor's. You painted a picture of what their needs are, what they do, and how their key motivators would align with your offerings.
Now, it's time to see that journey in action.
The path to purchase describes the journey that your target buyers take from the moment they first discover your product or service until they ultimately decide to buy it. The better you understand this journey, the easier it is to connect with them at key milestones and decision points to convert them from awareness to consideration to purchase, and then to repeat purchases.
Today, we're sharing how to conduct this research effectively and what to do with the results you uncover.
Put simply, the path to purchase encompasses all of the steps that your users take as they convert from a prospect into a paying customer. This can include multiple different channels, touchpoints, and platforms.
While each person's brand experience will be nuanced and unique, most leads take a few central steps as they travel along this journey. These include:
Also known as a customer journey or buyer journey, the path to purchase can be a valuable part of your audience analysis. It allows you to climb inside the mind of your prospective buyers, and current buyers and understand why and how they're engaging with your brand.
Let's break these stages down a little, explaining the important aspects to research and analyze.
The first step in the path to purchase is awareness. This is the moment that your prospective customers first learn about your brand, and it sets the tone and the stage for the rest of your interactions together.
Years ago, mass marketing campaigns were more effective than they were today. Modern buyers want customization and personalization at every turn, and 80% are more likely to purchase from a brand that offers tailored experiences. This means that gone are the days when you could send out one e-mail blast or a generic postcard to your leads and expect them to convert.
Now, the most effective ways to reach your target audience include:
Not only should these outreach measures be personalized, but they should also include a call-to-action (CTA) that encourages users to take that next step. Do you want them to check out your website, sign up for your e-newsletter, contact you to set up a consultation? Remember to make the CTA clear, actionable, and easy to follow.
Once you've initiated the path to purchase, you can track your marketing efforts, e.g., engagement and response rate, to understand how effective your chosen tactics were. For instance, with inbound marketing campaigns, most website analytics platforms, such as Google Analytics, or CRM systems, such as, HubSpot, allow you to easily monitor the traffic going to your website, the number of views each blog gets, or the success rate of your paid online ads.
Regularly review these numbers to understand which channels are the most successful. Then, fine-tune the most profitable ones and look for ways to eliminate or phase out the ones that aren't as fruitful.
For larger brands with national distribution, you can also conduct advertising and brand awareness tracking research to understand the percentage of consumers who are aware of your advertising and brand, pre vs. post the execution of your marketing campaign or in regular intervals such as, one or two times per year.
Key questions to ask at this stage include:
Piquing the interest of your target buyer is only the first part of the path to purchase. Next, the prospect will consider all of the features that your company or product offers, comparing them against others in your same space. They're looking for differentiators that set your brand apart, such as price point, quality, speed of delivery, product features, and more.
To perform this competitive analysis, they may perform the following steps:
At the core of this step is the buyer's need for information and insights. If you can provide this intelligence about your solution better than anyone else can, then you're more likely to move them from this phase of the buyer journey to the next.
In this step, you'll need to research and manage your online presence and reputation. Do you know what your target buyers will see when they search for your brand name online?
There are reputation management tools that can help you uncover and respond to your company reviews. In addition to the reviews on your website or Google Business Profile, remember to also check common and industry-specific third-party review sites.
Another area to research is how well you've explained and demonstrated your product or service. If a prospective customer wanted to learn more about how your solution works, are there online descriptions, manuals, sheets, videos, or in-store signage that make this step simple? The more transparent you can be, the easier it is to compare your solution against another.
Key questions to ask at this stage include:
After a lead discovers and researches your brand, they may decide to take that next step and make a purchase. To help them get there, you'll need to provide information that reveals why your company or offering is the best fit for their needs.
Depending on the solution you offer, this could require the buyer to make a significant investment. They'll want to review all of their options and compare top features to make sure they're making a wise decision.
This final stage of the path to purchase is all about sealing the deal. Research your company's current methods for engaging prospects and moving them along the sales funnel.
Some companies with “Business to Business” (B2B) offerings might use this time to perform presentations, pitches, and demos to share how their products work. Others with “Business to Consumer” (B2C) offerings might use advertising, on-package claims, third-party endorsements and in-store signage to demonstrate their benefits to prospective buyers. . The nature of your business and the type of audience you serve will dictate the exact strategy you deploy.
Key questions to ask at this stage include:
At each stage of the consumer path to purchase, you'll have the opportunity to gather insights into buyer behaviors. As you do, it's important to know what metrics to track, when to dive in, and who to involve. Here are a few tips to help you make the most of the data you obtain.
As brands seek to improve their buyers’ path to purchase experience, most are focused primarily on hard numbers, aka quantitative data, about the purchase, including volume, amount and frequency of sales, who and where purchased, percent of repeat purchases, etc. While this type of behavioral data is extremely important -, but don't underestimate the value of qualitative insights about the buying journey.
The ultimate goal of each phase is to understand the mindset of your buyers, and you can't get there with quantitative measurements alone. You need to understand the emotions that your prospective buyers are feeling, as well as what's behind their concerns, hesitancies, and excitement.
A few of the ways you can capture qualitative feedback include:
Not only are these insights helpful in directing your current and future campaigns, but they can also motivate your internal stakeholders. If you can share direct quotes and client feedback with your C-suite and marketing teams, it's easier for them to understand the human side of their work, in addition to the technical and economical side.
For some B2C companies, there is a primary shopper involved in each brand interaction. However, most B2B transactions involve other, behind-the-scenes decision-makers and influencers.
As such, resist the temptation to consider the path to purchase as strictly linear and one-dimensional in nature. In reality, it's more multi-faceted and complex.
Try to learn about the key stakeholders involved in buying decisions, as well as their specific roles. It also helps to understand how they interact with one another, as well as when each one enters and leaves the buyer journey. While some will be involved from start to finish, others may join and leave at different times.
To get the fullest view of your path to purchase, don't start your research at the first time the buyer and seller interact. Instead, go back even further to the pre-shopping stage. Increasingly, this means analyzing how buyers live, work, and how they find and compare offerings to meet their needs.
Today, most buyers are hopping online to discover new brands. In fact, in the B2B sphere, the average customer performs 12 different searches before deciding to engage with a specific brand. While it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly when a buyer first discovers your brand, spend time exploring different purchasing triggers to understand how to optimize these interactions.
As you research and learn more about your customerpath to purchase, you can customize and fine-tune your offerings and marketing communications to appeal precisely to those who are interested in them the most.
At SIVO, we're dedicated to helping our clients understand their buyers' needs, beliefs, and behaviors. We can help you gain visibility and address challenges by asking the right questions directly to your target audiences. Then, we'll work with you to turn those insights into actionable steps that can drive conversions, improve engagement, and build brand reputation. Contact us at Contact@SIVOInsights.com or go to SIVOInsights.com today to schedule a discovery call and connect!
Innovation requires seamless collaboration, agility, and the ability to pivot wisely and effectively. Timelines are tight and the right talent is critical to successfully manage the Insights process. SIVO’s On Demand Talent™ team recently provided a Consumer Insights Innovation Lead for Betsy Frost, Chief Revenue Officer at DRY Soda Company.
DRY Soda needed a Consumer Insights expert to manage the First Moment of Truth (FMOT) consumer learning for a new product launch, DRY Botanical Bitters & Soda, a ready-to-drink non-alcoholic cocktail with zero sugar.
“…it felt like SIVO was a member of our team.”
From the get-go, the SIVO’s talent creatively leveraged DRY Soda’s internal assets and owned social media to recruit the right consumers for quick-turnaround learning. Timelines and budgets were priorities, with no room for missteps. When supply chain complexities forced an immediate change in launch plans, the team worked smartly and effectively to pivot from cans to bottles in a record 15 days. Navigating a plethora of moving parts, including new package design, messaging, team alignment, and consumer feedback demanded an experienced team to pull it off successfully!
During Consumer Research, Frost was thrilled to listen, participate and ultimately make the right real-time decisions from an outside vantage point rather than having to lead and facilitate herself.
Frost said, “You made it super easy and streamlined for me…it felt like SIVO was a member of our team.”
To learn more about the DRY Soda story and line of products available, visit drinkdry. Check out this new product: DRY Botanical Bitters & Soda!
You can Shop Now or click the ‘Find Dry’ link to leverage the unique geo-locator. It allows you to buy online or from the store front retailer of your choice. This shoppable platform is powered by Pear Commerce technology.
SIVO Insights On-Demand Talent provides the right talent for your business needs; it is NOT a one size fits all model. What talent do you need to immediately impact YOUR business? Email Brent Budke to successfully match the right talent.
Are you curious what working differently looks like? – just ask. SIVO Insights can help you figure out the best path forward for you or your company to get the resources – and talent – you need. Schedule a discovery call today to get started.
SIVO Insights brings together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence. Have a business challenge? Let's talk!
We bring together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence
