Voices: the CMB Blog

Last month, we released our 10 Quick Facts You Should Know About Consumer Behavior on Facebook, and there was a lot of great discussion about how different companies are using the mega-site. The sheer number of Facebook users, all over the world, means brands and companies know they need to engage and they want to know what fans like about their brand (and what they don’t like) and how it impacts their behavior.

But, what about that other social media giant—the place where everyone from hip techies to budding revolutionaries go to speak their minds in 140 characters or less? This week we released a new Consumer Pulse report highlighting 10 Quick Facts You Should Know About Consumer Behavior on Twitter. In collaboration with our friends at Constant Contact, we asked nearly 1,500 Americans over 18 about their Twitter habits, and the results are in. Here are a few of the facts that stood out:

Consumers follow brands on Twitter for exclusivity, promotions and to be “in the know” (tweet this)

While Facebook users are interested in showing off their brand loyalty, brand followers on Twitter like getting the latest news and promotions before anyone else. What is the lesson for brands? Don’t treat your Facebook content like your Twitter content, while the vast majority of Twitter users are also on Facebook, they don’t need warmed over content they’ve already seen, they want to hear about innovations and deals before everyone else.

One-third of brand followers are interacting with brands more this year than last (tweet this)

As Twitter grows, brands have a great, and growing, opportunity to listen to their promoters and detractors, and respond directly. While the majority of brand followers on Twitter do not engage in two-way conversation with brands—brand followers are engaged, the vast majority follow fewer than 10 brands.

75% of consumers have never “un-followed” a brand on Twitter (tweet this)

While “un-following” a brand is as simple as clicking a button, most brand followers are loyal to the brands they follow. This loyalty is no reason not to invest time in your tweets, 67% of brand followers expect unique content from the brands they follow.

Nearly half of consumers on Twitter have been tweeting less than one year (tweet this)

Twitter just celebrated its 5^th birthday but many users are just diving in now. Once, home primarily to early adopters and those in the tech industry, a significant percentage of Twitter users are very new to the platform. And it’s not just the very young. Twitter’s gaining new ground with older folks as well, a quarter of users over 50 reported tweeting less than once month.

In short, consumers expect brand presence on Twitter, and they expect more than just recycled Facebook posts. Twitter is a unique medium with its own rules, language, and etiquette, but the opportunity to listen and interact with consumers in your backyard and around the world is priceless.

Download the full report here.

Posted by Kristen Garvey. Kristen is CMB’s VP of marketing, a mom of two and is getting ready to hit Orlando for The Market Research Event. You can follow Kristen on Twitter @KristenGarvey

Last year we shared some of the key trends in cloud computing conversion with the potential  to make 2011 the year of the cloud. Namely, easy integration of cloud and non-cloud computing apps, system management apps that work across platforms, and support from third party service providers who “get” the cloud and its challenges. So, was 2011 the year of the cloud? Our recent Tech Pulse: Cloud Computing Trends and Needs, surveyed over 200 IT professionals and the results revealed an answer a bit more complicated than yes or no.

As expected, cloud conversion has grown steadily in the past year; more than 80% of companies currently use the cloud to house at least some of their apps or platforms. Beyond the growing ubiquity of cloud computing adoption, our study also looked at the following trends:

Cloud adoption is happening at US companies, but on an ad hoc basis: Companies with no plan to introduce cloud computing are rare, but even fewer have adopted a comprehensive company-wide plan. Instead, conversion to cloud computing is primarily implemented within business groups or for specific applications.

Many IT departments are now proactively promoting cloud technologies at their companies:  In sharp contrast to just a few years ago, a majority of IT departments now see themselves as the champions of cloud computing initiatives at their company, while they view more resistance from non-IT executives and line of business managers. Perceived recent improvements to cloud-based technologies along with economic uncertainty have helped changed IT departments from cloud resistors to cloud promoters.

The ad hoc nature of cloud adoption at US companies is creating cloud-based consulting opportunities.  There is a real opportunity for third party consulting and professional service providers that can help companies address cloud-based integration and security challenges. Application management for most companies now is a hodgepodge of non-cloud; private cloud; public cloud and hybrid cloud delivery models with sensitive data moving in and out of company firewalls and across different providers’ public cloud platforms. This is emerging as one of the most serious IT management challenges for the near future.

While this study revealed IT professionals’ lingering reservations about security and integration, it also revealed an opportunity for third party service providers in configuring company infrastructure to work effectively in the new cloud environment.  Clearly 2011 is proving to be a ramp-up period for the cloud.  Now that more IT professionals are primed for cloud adoption, cloud investment by the major players is surging and the enterprise mobility market is trending upwards, the buzz about cloud computing should rapidly come to fruition.

 Download our latest Tech Pulse: Cloud Computing-Trends and Needs here.

Posted by Brian Jones. Brian is a Project Manager with CMB's Tech team.

Last week, the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit occurred in Glendale Arizona. The Institute for International Research (IIR) hosted the event, and it featured three full days of presentations about measuring customer feedback, operationalizing it, and optimizing programs to maintain business success.  I was fortunate to chair the Action Planning track, so I enjoyed unique one-on-one discussions with the presenters in my track as I prepared to introduce and lead discussion for each of the presentations. 

One of the biggest topics at the conference was social media.  Whether it was the Social Media CRM symposium, which led off with a presentation on “Linking Social Media to Consumer Behavior” by Becky Carroll from Petra Consulting Group, the keynote speech by Jeanne Bliss from CustomerBliss, or the several presentations showing how companies have applied information captured through social media to make decisions, folks are still trying to wrap their arms around it.

My take on it: Most companies are dipping their toes in the “deep pool” of social media, and the continued interest reflects a need to assess their experience relative to other companies.  In the end, market research vendors and clients are looking to establish the process for integrating this new data and communications channel…

Two presentations from Maritz Research stood out in this regard.  Randy Brandt presented findings from recently completed research comparing Consumer Generated Media (CGM) guest ratings for a luxury hotel chain via TripAdvisor to guest ratings with ratings from a traditional direct brand solicitation for that same chain.  The results identified strong differences in data between the two channels.  It’s not a surprise, as the sample of guests providing their input via CGM is a small subset of guests (even smaller than the 15-20% who might typically respond to a brand solicitation) with a different set of motivations for sharing their opinions.  This unique apples-to-apple comparison truly demonstrates the challenges we face – as researchers - when we are asked to bring together two very different evaluation samples.

This fed nicely into the presentation by David Ensing (also from Maritz), who spoke about integrating data from multiple Voice of the Customer sources, including social media.  As David noted, research managers are now dealing with lots of information and trying to make sense of it all; and with research budgets constrained, researchers are looking at (relatively inexpensive) social media information and trying to figure out if it is useful and if so, how it is useful.  We are seeing a shift from solely one-off/ad hoc research studies to a combination of ad hoc with continuous listening, and this may strike researchers as a threat to their role.  However, it shouldn’t be that way.

David summed up his presentation with a clear opportunity for market researchers to take the lead: “We believe that the future of marketing research is not just in collecting customer feedback through surveys, but also in integrating multiple sources of company-controlled information both with each other and with new information streams, such as consumer-generated media.”

Personally, I believe the market researchers who have been successful at applying research outcomes to business decisions will find this skill to be vital in maintaining leadership and effectivenes in this new landscape.  Market researchers really need to think of themselves as people who inform internal clients who strive to make decisions to improve their business.

I find the current mass of data at everyone’s disposal can be daunting and confusing, in large part because the technologies that pull and deliver the data do a great job at just that – pulling and delivering.  Heck, most companies in the data delivery business would consider shock, awe, and confusion from massive data to be a “good thing."  To a point that's true, but they fail to translate and inform. 

This is where market researchers need to take a lead role.  As the stewards of applying research outcomes to business decisions, the skills that allow them to translate and inform will be vital in maintaining a lead role in this new landscape.  Market researchers really need to think of themselves as people who organize and give structure to all data – and then deliver information in a precise manner that informs internal clients who need the information to make business decisions. 

Posted by Jeff McKenna. Jeff is a senior consultant at CMB and a lover of the mid-west, beer, and customer satisfaction data.

You'll also find CMB'ers at The Market Research Event (TMRE). Are you planning on going to TMRE? CMB is an event sponsor and presenter at the conference. Feel free to use the code: TMRE11CMB when you register for a discounted price. We hope to see you there. Learn more about the conference here.

Did you attend the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit? What did you think?

“You would make great rail meat.”

If you’d asked me this April, I would have guessed that “rail meat” had something to do with a train and maybe an unlucky cow. But as sailors know rail meat  is “a sailing term used for people who use their weight to stop a boat from capsizing while racing.”

This summer a friend introduced me to sailing and gave me the opportunity to be rail meat in a of couple races.  I learned that sailing is both chaotic and loud, and it was during the endless shouting of commands (where the only word I really understood was “duck!”) that I came to realize that sailing is all about communication.  The teams that exceled were the ones that found a way to clearly communicate with each other.  In business as in sailing, breakdowns in communication can spell disaster.  In the world of market research, how we communicate our questions to respondents can have a real impact on the results we get.

Here are a few tips to avoid capsizing a project.

Know your audience.  I remember the very first time I was allowed to steer the boat during a fun outing and was told to “tack.”  My random wheel spinning elicited the question “what are you doing?” to which I honestly responded “I have no idea!”  When writing questionnaires, it is important to write for your respondents.  If they are not industry insiders, then don’t use those terms.  Remember, you will always get data back, but it may not be an answer to the question you posed unless it's clearly worded.

Keep it simple.  Use the simplest terminology possible when you are writing the questionnaire.  Then have someone outside your core project team read it to see how they interpret questions.  You might be amazed at the kinds of words people interpret differently.  For instance, if I ask you to define “marketing” I bet I would get many different interpretations back even though most readers of this blog are marketers.

Stay Organized:  A poorly organized and worded questionnaire can be frustrating at any length. Asking respondents to complete questions organized by topic is logical. Begin the questionnaire with simple questions, and move to the more complex. This increases the comfort of the respondent and the likelihood they’ll stay with you until the last question.

Like staying upright on a sailboat, developing questionnaires can be hard work but committing yourself to communicating clearly in your questionnaire will help keep your project sailing smoothly.

Kirsten Rasmuson is a Senior Project Manager at CMB. Next summer she looks forward to a promotion from rail meat to crew member.  

In this month’s “John’s Corner,” John  and Megan discuss the evolution of segmentation.

MM: Market segmentation has been around a long time and new methodologies continue to develop.  Why is segmentation so relevant to business?

JM: Segmentation comes from economics; it supplies some of the greatest benefits to businesses available through market research.  Its great contribution is enabling major improvements in two critical areas. First it aids effectiveness—identifying and getting products or services to the right people, and second it increases efficiency—less spend per person. That's a very simplified characterization of the classical approach to segmentation.

MM: In the past two decades, a more nuanced view of segmentation has evolved at CMB, can you speak to that?

JM: Segmentation was a dominant research focus for us from day one. Most marketing decisions require segmentation.  As we conducted more projects we used our learnings to establish guidelines that would ensure clients received more and more useful outcomes. These best practices that are still used today and include: starting with the end in mind—determining  how the segmentation will be used before you begin; allowing  for multiple bases—taking a comprehensive, model-based approach— incorporating all potential bases; leveraging existing resources and databases; and above all having an open mind and letting the segments define themselves.

MM: How, and at what point in the process, do you determine what approach to take for segmentation?

JM: About twenty years ago we realized that there were two types of decisions for which segmentation was used. The first was strategic, dealing with decisions about what the business unit was doing, and the second was tactical, focusing on how to carry the strategy out such as targeted messaging. Understanding these options was significant when we scoped projects and determined how to proceed.  As our client base grew with multiple divisions we realized that for diversified businesses there was a third set of decisions to address: those at the corporate level above the business units.  However, it was not until about 2003 with Microsoft that we had the opportunity to conduct this corporate level segmentation.

MM: So you decided that there are three levels of segmentation: corporate, strategic, and tactical. What made the corporate level so necessary?

JM: Keep in mind that across all of these levels we are looking at decisions.  Decisions required at the corporate level are opportunity based and about organizational alignment (e.g., work together) versus more narrow decisions about market communication or product design. For large corporations with multiple divisions you need a broad view to focus synergies across the organization. To segment by divisions in large corporations is to miss the bigger picture and obscure the most fundamental decisions that ensure that the total organization will meet its goals. The corporate level segmentation provides the market focus framework to identify, understand, and capture corporate opportunities.

MM: In an age of big corporations and conglomerates, why don’t we see your three level approach used more broadly?

JM: I think the fundamental reason lies with the education system where segmentation is treated as a homogenous marketing phenomenon, and has failed to recognize management decision making. This myopia is also certainly reinforced by day to day practice. I’m sure most people in market research understand that segmentation projects differ but not sufficiently to make a radical differentiation that informs how projects are scoped and undertaken— which is really the key.

So what do you think, has segmentation evolved? What best fits the corporate culture?