In this tumultuous time when things seem to be changing minute by minute, many businesses are seeing their teams pulling together and connecting in ways they never have before.

So how do we read the current state of reality? How do we plan and then make adjustments along the way? What do you do when the future that you had hoped for didn’t quite materialize as you expected? Or didn’t happen as quickly as you planned for?

Marketing research is about gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information to help accomplish that as effectively and successfully as possible.

We often put the cart before the horse when evaluating new product ideas. How many times have you been in the midst of a new product development (NPD) effort when the conversation turned to the target market?

So in a world that's constantly changing and evolving, what are the keys to marketing stability? How can you consistently deliver and reinforce the right messages? How do you stay on strategy?

As you consider your strategy, you must also think about the environment in which your company or brand lives. This environment is shaped by many market forces that affect your corporate or brand strategy.

The place you end up after rebuilding may be a very different place. These 7 steps will help you focus on reimaging your brand by focusing on your product roadmap and reviewing your brand positioning.

How can distribution serve as a component or variable to support a company’s overall business and marketing strategy?

I know a single blog post is unlikely to change this race-against-the-clock mentality that has been set in motion over the past few years, but what if it could? Let's think about what we're sacrificing by settling for 'good enough.'

What are some of the principles, some truths, that we might take away from this laboratory of pure competition to help businesses increase their chances of long-term success?

To manage a successful business, you will need customer insights in order to inform the decisions that are being made on a daily basis regarding products, advertising, messaging, pricing, packaging, distribution, shelf displays, promotions, etc.

How can your organization manage the craziness in this world, given all the supply chain and logistics challenges? It seems like nearly everything has been impacted, from lumber and chip shortages, to chicken and ketchup wars.

Whether you are a believer in resolutions or not, goal-setting is an excellent process to help you roadmap your personal success!

There are a million reasons to say good riddance to 2020, including the loss, the financial hardships, the anxiety, and the damage to our mental health. Despite the long list of negatives from 2020, there are several positive trends from the year, including:

Messaging strategy should have a singular focus. The recipient should just have one key idea from your message. Whatever your brand's core promise is, that is where the messaging strategy should be focused.

So if a tree falls in the forest, and if you align, activate, and monitor your research results following key strategic research projects, you will not only be there to hear the sounds, but will also help your organization make decisions and take actions.

In today’s world of supply-chain issues, quiet quitting, quiet hiring, inflation and disinflation, it’s easy to hunker down and limit your line of sight to small details you can control or that require your immediate attention.

These are four ways to optimize your ROI on segmentation: create a bridging model, conduct an activation workshop, revise employee training procedures, and implement a typing tool.

Going into segmentation research, companies usually have firm plans, or at least an idea of how they will utilize the results. If a team is considering embarking on segmentation work without such plans, they’re probably not ready to spend the time or money required to make it happen.

Identifying the best methodology to uncover the most meaningful consumer insights at every step of the customer journey is vital. Customers know a great experience, an authentic brand, and exceptional products when they see them.

Whether your primary shoppers are using mostly System 1 or System 2 Thinking, you can diagnose the issues that are holding your product or brand back and course-correct them. Then, it will be a matter of tracking your progress over time to see how these modifications are working in the marketplace.

No company or corporation can do much about the financial panic, credit contraction, or recession. But while times of turmoil pose great threats to a business enterprise, turbulence also creates opportunities.

The strategic implications of the Internet are far reaching—for global commerce, for global marketing, and for global marketing research.

Operations Research and Management science is the application of the scientific method and advanced analytics to the solution of business problems. OR/MS involves building a mathematical model to define the relationships among the variables

Here are 6 megatrends that will have an impact on your business. What changes will they bring about for your brand and how will you address them?”

Understanding the markets, market sizing, brands, their brand equity, as well as the innovation pipeline for the organization is critical. Both companies may have growth strategies and plans that may not be achievable through organic growth, and a merger or acquisition comes in..

When thinking of a pivoting, from a business perspective: a foundational change in strategy or business tactics that lead in a new direction. Being strategic with a pivot and utilizing insights and data to purposefully pick a direction to pivot to, will help to ensure a successful change in direction.

A brand considering some form of strategic scarcity should research its plans among potential buyers to help ensure success.

Segmentation provides a representative framework for unifying a population’s attitudes and behaviors – while elections ultimately segregate - ostensibly for the purpose of achieving broad “representation.”

When segmentations lose their luster (or were not lustrous in the first place), there are options to reinvigorate them. Between diving deeper, realigning/renaming/re-reporting, activating, rerunning, or a combination of these, a stale segmentation can become useful again.

An Activation Workshop is a collaborative session that aligns the team and key stakeholders, finalizes planning, prioritizes actions, assigns responsibilities, and drives positive business change.

The use of high levels of debt (leverage) to fund buyouts, finance acquisitions, or defend against corporate raiders can make a company vulnerable. If your major competitor has just taken on a heavy burden of unproductive debt then your company might have a strategic opportunity of great potential.

Blogs on Marketing Research, Consulting and Analytics: Decision Analyst

Why do some companies thrive, while others perish? Why do some companies make extravagant profits, while others scrape by on bare subsistence? What is the secret to success? What is the secret to survival?