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| MR Perspectives is a twice-monthly newsletter that provides perspectives on market research topics of interest, best practices tips, emerging trends, quick case studies, and other useful information. |
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The American Marketing Association will host its 2005 Executive Insights Conference, in which research leaders and marketing executives will share business insights, at the Rancho Las Palmas Marriott Resort & Spa in Rancho Mirage, Calif. |
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The American Marketing Association will host a training series called Marketing ROI Techniques: Improving Campaign Strategies, Analytics and Profitability at the Batterymarch Conference Center in Boston. The series continues Feb. 10-11 at the Grand Hyatt Atlanta in Buckhead.
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Polaris employees donated more than $900 in clothes, household items and grocery gift certificates to two struggling Atlanta families in a holiday charity project. This year was the third year in a row that Polaris adopted families though the Families First holiday program. Polaris employees individually donated more than $450 to the project, which the company matched. Employees shopped for clothes, shoes, diapers, jewelry, dishes and toys for the families, each of which included a couple with an infant. Other employees wrapped the gifts and delivered them to the Atlanta charity’s headquarters in the weeks before Christmas. “This project really helped make Christmas better for some deserving families,” said Polaris President Jan E. Carlson. “I’m proud of the way Polaris employees joined in the spirit of giving.” Families First is a nonprofit organization that sponsors foster care homes, provides adoption services, runs four group homes for children with emotional and behavioral problems, and sponsors a variety of community centers and other programs designed to help children and struggling families. |
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Manage Relationships Through Strategic SellingAcademic and professional researchers conduct various types of relationship marketing research. Researchers have tried to compare an individual's relationship with a brand or product, for instance, by associating it with the properties of such relationships as that of a mother with child, of siblings, an aunt and a nephew, or of best friends. While an interesting topic for discussion, we leave that for a future issue. To better manage your internal and external business relationships, having a clear understanding of strategic selling concepts can be the key to your success. Have you ever read a book on selling, specifically strategic selling (bonus points if the book was on selling service-related intangibles)? As a market researcher, marketer or someone with other functional responsibility within your company, you might ask why you would ever want to read such books. After all, you don't want to do sales. Perhaps you don't even like your own company's salesperson (that you don't like car salespeople is a given). Strategic selling is all about establishing and understanding relationships -- or more clearly stated, relationship research. There are many reasons why would you need to understand relationships from a sales perspective. Strategic selling is different from what many see as traditional sales in that the focus is on successful long-term relationships rather than a quick sale of a tangible product, which is how many people understand sales. According to a leading book on strategic selling, The New Strategic Selling by Stephen Heiman and Diane Sanchez, "the philosophy is based on the premise that getting an individual order is never enough: true selling success rests on such ‘beyond the order’ achievements as repeat business, solid referrals, and long term relationships." While the entire book is a strategic and tactical tool for thousands of sales professionals, it is equally enlightening for anyone who needs to:
Specific to research, it addresses about how to:
The sections of this particular book that are great for anyone conducting strategic research are the 100 pages in stage two, "laying the foundation of strategic analysis." Covered in that section are:
Each of the five sections are self evident except the last -- the win-win philosophy. Since it is a wonderfully empowering and critical concept, it is worth a quick explanation. In any sales/persuasion situation and most interpersonal dialogues, there are two or more alternatives, points of views or agendas. The concept of a win-win is simple in that everyone gets what they need at a reasonable expense without sacrificing too much in return. Specifically relating to a marketing research vendor relationship, that means your company receives marketing research intelligence that was appropriately priced -- you did not pay too much or too little and the research company made a reasonable profit and did not lose money or overcharge. In such a case, everyone wins, hence the win-win philosophy. In far too many cases, both professionally and personally, the relationship becomes a win-lose or lose-lose proposition, which should be avoided at all costs since they invariably lead to projects that do not meet established expectations. Reading a sales strategy book such as the one mentioned above can help you realize the circumstances that lead to win-win relationships as well as high-quality decision making processes. With strategic selling, you can get more accomplished in a day's work whether you are a marketer, researcher or CEO. Worldwide Research SpendingThe top 50 U.S.-based marketing research firms accounted for $5.8 billion in U.S. research revenues in 2003 and $11.5 billion in worldwide research revenues, according to Jack Honomichl in the June issue of the American Marketing Association's Marketing News magazine. Between 2002 and 2003, that represents a growth rate of 5.9 percent in U.S. revenues and 2.6 percent in worldwide revenues (source: CASRO). As marketing and marketing research budgets appear to have come back in 2004, those percentages are expected to jump even higher between 2003 and 2004 when those figures become available. According to an August issue of Marketing News, the top 25 marketing research companies, by total revenues, are based in:
Source: company provided data to Marketing News But you might wonder where the money gets spent, figuring that The Netherlands certainly cannot make up 26 percent of worldwide market research dollar spending. According to a July summary of worldwide spending in Marketing News, here is the proportion of marketing research dollars spent in the various countries:
Source: ESOMAR |
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