Accompanied shopping, also known as shopper shadowing or in-store observation, is a qualitative market research technique where a researcher follows and observes a shopper during their shopping experience. This method provides valuable insights into consumer behavior, decision-making processes, and interactions with products and store environments.

Definition of Accompanied Shopping

Accompanied shopping involves a researcher accompanying a consumer during a shopping trip to observe and record their behavior, preferences, and interactions. The goal is to understand the consumer’s shopping habits, motivations, and challenges in a natural setting.

Accompanied shopping has its roots in ethnographic research methods, where researchers immerse themselves in the participant’s environment to gather qualitative data. This technique gained popularity in market research as retailers and brands sought more accurate and detailed insights into consumer behavior. The method has evolved with technological advancements, incorporating tools like mobile devices and cameras for more comprehensive data collection.

Alternative Terms

Accompanied shopping is also referred to as:

Shopper Shadowing
In-Store Observation
Shopping Ethnography

Who Uses Accompanied Shopping?

Accompanied shopping is used by market researchers, retailers, and brands looking to gain a deeper understanding of consumer behavior. It is particularly valuable for:

Retailers: To optimize store layouts, product placements, and customer service.
Brands: To gain insights into how consumers interact with their products and competitors’ products.
Market Research Firms: To provide clients with detailed qualitative data on consumer behavior.

What is the Purpose of Accompanied Shopping?

The primary purpose of accompanied shopping is to gather in-depth insights into the consumer’s shopping experience. It helps researchers understand:

Shopping Patterns: The routes consumers take, the time spent in different sections, and the sequence of their shopping activities.
Decision-Making Processes: How consumers make choices, the factors influencing their decisions, and their interactions with products and promotions.
Pain Points and Motivations: The challenges consumers face, their needs, and the motivations behind their purchases.

When is Accompanied Shopping Used?

Accompanied shopping is used in various contexts, including:

New Product Launches: To understand how consumers discover and react to new products.
Store Redesigns: To evaluate the effectiveness of changes in store layout and design.
Promotional Campaigns: To assess the impact of in-store promotions and marketing activities.
Competitor Analysis: To compare consumer interactions with the brand’s products versus competitors’ products.

Why is Accompanied Shopping Important?

Accompanied shopping is important because it provides:

Real-World Insights: Observing consumers in a natural shopping environment offers more authentic insights than controlled experiments or surveys.
Contextual Understanding: Researchers can see the context in which decisions are made, providing a deeper understanding of consumer behavior.
Immediate Feedback: Researchers can ask follow-up questions and gather immediate feedback from consumers during the shopping trip.

How is Accompanied Shopping Conducted?

Conducting accompanied shopping involves several steps:

Recruitment: Selecting participants who match the target demographic for the study.
Preparation: Briefing participants on the process and obtaining their consent for observation.
Observation: The researcher accompanies the participant on their shopping trip, taking notes and recording observations.
Interaction: Engaging with the participant to ask questions and clarify behaviors and decisions.
Analysis: Analyzing the collected data to identify patterns, insights, and actionable recommendations.

Benefits for Brands and Retailers

For brands and retailers, accompanied shopping offers several benefits:

Enhanced Customer Experience: By understanding consumer pain points and preferences, brands can improve the overall shopping experience.
Optimized Store Layout: Insights into shopping patterns help retailers design more effective store layouts and product placements.
Informed Marketing Strategies: Detailed observations of consumer interactions with products and promotions inform more targeted and effective marketing strategies.
Competitive Advantage: Understanding how consumers interact with competitors’ products provides valuable insights for product development and positioning.

In conclusion, accompanied shopping is a powerful market research tool that offers rich, contextual insights into consumer behavior. By observing and interacting with shoppers in their natural environment, researchers and brands can gain a deeper understanding of the shopping experience, leading to more informed decisions and improved customer satisfaction.

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At Kadence, it’s our job to help you with every aspect of your research strategy. We’ve done this with countless businesses, and we’d love to do it with you. To find out more, get in touch with us.

An access panel is a pre-recruited group of individuals who have agreed to participate in market research surveys and studies. These panels are typically used by researchers to gain insights into consumer behavior, preferences, and trends. Access panels can be composed of a diverse range of individuals, tailored to specific demographics, or targeted based on particular characteristics relevant to the research objectives.

Definition of an Access Panel

An access panel is essentially a database of potential respondents who have opted-in to participate in various market research activities. These panels are managed by research firms or companies specializing in data collection and analysis.

Historical Context

The concept of access panels has evolved with advancements in technology and changes in market research methodologies. Initially, panels were managed through direct mail and phone calls, but the rise of the internet has significantly streamlined the recruitment and management process. Online access panels emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s, providing researchers with more efficient ways to reach diverse and global audiences.

Alternative Terms

Access panels are also known by other names such as research panels, online panels, or survey panels. While the terms may vary, the core concept remains the same—maintaining a ready pool of respondents for market research purposes.

Who Uses Access Panels?

Access panels are primarily used by market research firms, company marketing departments, and academic researchers. They are invaluable for studies requiring specific demographic insights or longitudinal research where tracking changes over time is crucial. Companies looking to launch new products, understand customer satisfaction or evaluate brand perception frequently rely on access panels.

What is the Purpose of an Access Panel?

The main purpose of an access panel is to provide a ready pool of respondents for quick and efficient data collection. This approach saves time and resources compared to recruiting participants for each individual study. Access panels enable researchers to conduct surveys, product tests, and other research activities more swiftly and at a lower cost.

When are Access Panels Used?

Access panels are used whenever there is a need for reliable, consistent, and quick access to research participants. They are particularly useful for:

Continuous tracking studies: Monitoring changes in consumer behavior over time.
Ad hoc surveys: Conducting one-off studies on specific topics.
Targeted research: Reaching specific demographics or consumer segments.
Product testing: Gaining feedback on new or existing products.

Why are Access Panels Important?

Access panels are crucial for the efficiency and effectiveness of market research. They:

Enhance speed and efficiency: Reduce the time needed to recruit participants for each study.
Improve reliability: Provide a consistent and known group of respondents, improving the reliability of longitudinal studies.
Cost-effective: Reduce the costs associated with participant recruitment and retention.
Flexibility: Allow researchers to quickly access diverse demographics and specific target groups.

How are Access Panels Managed?

Managing an access panel involves continuous recruitment, engagement, and maintenance to ensure the panel remains active and representative. This includes:

Recruitment: Using various channels to invite potential participants to join the panel.
Engagement: Keeping panel members engaged through regular communication, incentives, and feedback.
Data quality: Regularly updating the panel database to maintain accurate and up-to-date information.
Compliance: Ensuring data privacy and ethical standards are adhered to, protecting panel members’ information.

Benefits for Brands

For brands, access panels offer numerous benefits:

Quick Insights: Brands can gather rapid feedback on new products, campaigns, or concepts, allowing for agile decision-making.
Targeted Data: Panels can be segmented to match the brand’s target demographics, ensuring the data collected is relevant and actionable.
Cost Savings: With an established panel, brands save on the costs associated with participant recruitment for each study.
Brand Engagement: Regular surveys and interactions with panel members can enhance brand loyalty and engagement, as participants feel valued for their opinions.

In conclusion, access panels are a vital tool in the market research industry, providing quick, reliable, and cost-effective access to a broad range of respondents. By understanding their definition, purpose, historical context, and management, researchers and brands can better leverage these panels to gain valuable insights and make informed decisions.

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Expanding into a new market is one of the boldest moves a brand can make. It’s an opportunity to unlock new customer segments, diversify risk, and drive meaningful growth. But it’s also a calculated risk—one that requires more than ambition to get right.

A new market isn’t always defined by geography. It could mean entering a different region, selling in a new language, or targeting a customer base with distinct needs and preferences. Each path brings its own set of unknowns. And while the rewards can be significant, the failure rate is high. For every successful market entry, roughly four others fall short—often due to a lack of preparation, misreading demand, or expanding too fast.

What separates the winners from the rest isn’t just a great product. It’s the strength of the market entry strategy behind it.

Why enter a new market?

Entering a new market requires time, investment, and a willingness to adapt. So why do it? For many brands, the decision is driven by a combination of growth potential, competitive pressure, and long-term sustainability.

Here are some of the most common reasons:

To reach new customers and grow revenue. New markets offer access to fresh audiences who may have never encountered your brand. With the right strategy, this can translate into meaningful business growth.
To move beyond a saturated market. If your current market has reached its limit, expansion may be the only path forward. Tapping into new demand can reinvigorate growth.
To meet regulatory or customer requirements. In some sectors, regulations or customer needs may require your product to be available in different regions or languages.
To keep pace with competitors. If others in your category are expanding into new markets, staying still may leave your brand at a disadvantage.

Not every market expansion is motivated by revenue alone. Sometimes it’s about future-proofing your business, staying relevant, or unlocking operational efficiencies. Whatever the reason, the choice to enter a new market should be backed by evidence—and a plan.

Understand the Customer

A successful market entry begins with knowing who you’re selling to. This goes beyond general demographics. You need to uncover what motivates your potential customers, what problems they face, and how your product fits into their lives.

Research methods that can help include:

Focus groups and in-depth interviews (IDIs)
Online surveys and quantitative studies
Online communities and digital qualitative research
Insights from your sales and customer service teams
First-hand observation through time spent in the market

These approaches help you tailor your product features, pricing, and messaging to match the expectations and behaviors of your new audience.

Domestic vs International Markets

Once you’ve evaluated your customers and competitors, the next step is deciding what type of market you’re entering. Are you expanding into a new region within your home country, or are you taking your business overseas?

Domestic markets often feel more familiar. The cultural norms, language, legal systems, and infrastructure typically align with what your team already knows. While challenges still exist, the learning curve tends to be shorter.

International markets, by contrast, introduce a different level of complexity. Expanding across borders means adapting to new laws, languages, business customs, and consumer behaviors. There are often logistical hurdles as well, from shipping and supply chains to currency conversion and tax regulation.

Despite the added complexity, international expansion offers unique rewards. It opens the door to untapped demand, elevates brand visibility on a global stage, and strengthens long-term resilience. But the leap requires a deeper level of preparation, local insight, and cultural fluency.

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How to Prepare for Market Entry

Succeeding in a new market depends on more than a compelling product. It requires a deep understanding of the landscape—commercial, cultural, and competitive—and a plan that balances ambition with operational readiness.

Research the Market Opportunity

Before you commit to expansion, assess the market’s potential. What is its size and growth rate? What are the dominant trends, and how stable is the economic and political climate?

Answering these questions often involves a mix of desk research, expert interviews, and primary research conducted with potential customers. The goal is to understand whether the opportunity justifies the investment and to surface any barriers that could limit your success.

Test for Product-Market Fit

What works in one market may not translate to another. You’ll need to explore:

Does your product meet a real need in the new market?
Are there gaps in the current offering that your brand can fill?
Will your pricing, packaging, or positioning need to shift?
Are you targeting a demographic with different goals, pain points, or cultural expectations?

Use this early research to refine your offer. If necessary, adapt your value proposition to better align with what matters most to your new customers.

Map the Competitive Landscape

Understanding your competitors is just as important as understanding your audience. Identify the key players in your target market and analyze how they position themselves. Look for:

Areas of saturation
Untapped niches
Mistakes you can avoid

Established brands will have the advantage of local knowledge and customer loyalty. To succeed, you’ll need a plan that sets you apart—either through your offer, your brand story, or the customer experience you provide.

Account for Cultural Differences

Cultural insight is one of the most overlooked success factors in market entry. A message that resonates in one country may fall flat—or even offend—in another. From business etiquette to purchasing behavior, you’ll need to immerse yourself in the local context.

Spending time in the market or working with local partners can help bridge these gaps. At Kadence, we support market entry projects with teams based across Asia, the US, and Europe, offering clients immediate access to local expertise.

Understand the Regulatory Environment

Compliance is critical. Local laws around taxation, trade, labeling, marketing, and data privacy vary widely. One misstep can damage your brand reputation or result in significant penalties.

For example, Europe’s GDPR imposes strict rules around how businesses collect and store personal data. If your expansion includes online operations in the EU, these requirements will apply to you—even if you’re headquartered elsewhere.

Partnering with legal advisors or local experts will help you navigate this complexity and avoid costly errors.

Build a Scalable Plan

It’s not just about entering the market—it’s about sustaining growth once you’re there. Around 65% of startups fail due to premature scaling. Without a clear roadmap, even the best-intentioned expansions can overstretch resources and stall progress.

Create a plan that outlines:

How you’ll launch and localize
Milestones for measuring early success
When and how to scale operations
Contingency steps if results fall short

Patience and discipline matter. A slower, well-paced rollout often leads to stronger long-term performance than aggressive expansion with no guardrails.

Risks of Market Entry

Every new market presents opportunity, but it also comes with risk. Brands that expand without understanding the potential pitfalls often find themselves reacting to problems they could have planned for. Below are some of the most common risks to address before you commit to a move.

Cultural Misalignment

One of the most underestimated challenges is cultural difference. Language, customs, consumer behavior, and even communication styles vary widely across regions. If your messaging or product fails to resonate—or worse, offends—you’ll face an uphill battle.

Working with local partners or experts who understand the market’s cultural nuances is essential. Immersion and research can help you align with local expectations from the outset.

Regulatory and Legal Complexity

Legal requirements vary from country to country. You may face unfamiliar tax codes, import restrictions, product certification rules, or data privacy laws. Missteps here can slow down your launch or result in costly penalties.

Take the European Union’s GDPR, for example. These regulations apply to any business handling the personal data of EU citizens—even those based elsewhere. Failing to comply can lead to heavy fines.

Legal due diligence should be a core part of your planning process. It’s best to engage local legal advisors early on.

Political and Economic Instability

Some markets carry higher exposure to political unrest, sudden regulatory shifts, or economic volatility. Currency fluctuation alone can impact your profitability overnight if your business isn’t set up to manage exchange rate risks.

Understanding the local business climate—beyond just consumer demand—can help you weigh whether the risk is worth the potential reward.

Logistical and Operational Barriers

Entering a new market often means building or adapting supply chains, distribution networks, and customer service operations. Challenges in sourcing, delivery times, or after-sales support can erode customer trust quickly.

Consider how your operations will scale across borders, and whether you need to partner with third-party logistics providers or invest in local infrastructure.

Premature Scaling

Even with strong demand signals, expanding too quickly is a leading cause of failure. Brands that invest heavily before securing product-market fit or a reliable operational base may find themselves overextended.

A phased approach allows you to test assumptions, adapt quickly, and scale with confidence. Growth should follow proof—not precede it.

Assess Your Readiness

Before you commit to a market entry strategy, take a step back and assess whether your business is truly ready to expand. These questions can help you identify gaps in your planning and avoid costly assumptions.

Does this product solve a real problem for customers in the new market?
Are you targeting a different age group, cultural mindset, or income level?
Will your existing marketing channels reach the right audience, or do you need to adjust?
Is your pricing aligned with local purchasing power and expectations?

Answering these questions early can help you focus your resources and choose the strategy that best fits your goals.

Market Entry Strategies

Once you’ve validated the opportunity and assessed the risks, the next decision is how to enter the market. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach—your strategy should reflect your goals, resources, product type, and appetite for risk.

Below are the most common market entry strategies, each with its own advantages and trade-offs.

Direct Exporting

Direct exporting involves selling your product into the new market without intermediaries. You’ll manage everything from logistics and distribution to marketing and sales.

Advantages:

Full control over your brand, pricing, and customer experience
Greater profit potential, since no third party takes a share

Challenges:

High upfront investment
Requires internal infrastructure and export expertise
May be difficult to manage across time zones and borders

This approach is best suited to brands with strong operational capacity and a clear understanding of the target market.

Indirect Exporting

In this model, you work with intermediaries—such as agents, distributors, or trading companies—who manage the export process for you.

Options include:

Buying agents, who represent foreign buyers and source products on their behalf
Distributors or wholesalers, who purchase and resell your product locally
Export management companies (EMCs), which handle end-to-end export logistics
Piggybacking, where a local company adds your product to their existing distribution network

Advantages:

Lower financial risk and resource demand
Allows you to test a market without a major commitment
Quick access to existing infrastructure and customer bases

Challenges:

Reduced control over brand representation and pricing
Less direct contact with customers
Margins are typically lower due to third-party fees

Indirect exporting is often a smart first step for brands new to international markets.

Local Production or Manufacturing

Instead of exporting products into a new market, some companies choose to produce them locally. This can reduce logistics costs, shorten supply chains, and align more closely with local expectations or regulatory requirements.

Advantages:

Faster delivery and lower shipping costs
Easier to respond to local demand or customization needs
Potential tax or tariff benefits

Challenges:

High setup and operational costs
Legal and HR complexities
Exposure to local market volatility

Local production is more viable for companies with long-term growth plans and high-volume expectations.

Franchising and Licensing

Franchising and licensing allow other entities to operate under your brand in exchange for fees or royalties. While commonly used in sectors like quick-service restaurants, this model also applies to retail, fitness, education, and more.

Franchising provides a full operational model, brand, and support system to the franchisee.
Licensing typically grants use of intellectual property or technology with less operational involvement.

Advantages:

Fast market access with minimal investment
Local partners carry operational responsibility
Scalable across multiple regions

Challenges:

Quality control can be difficult to enforce
Success depends heavily on the capabilities of your franchisees or licensees

This model is ideal for businesses with strong brand equity and a replicable business model.

Each of these strategies can be adapted to suit your brand’s maturity, product type, and market conditions. In some cases, brands combine multiple approaches—for example, launching through indirect exports while exploring licensing or local partnerships for long-term growth.

Partner with Experts Who Understand the Landscape

Entering a new market is never simple. It takes clear strategy, local insight, and a willingness to adapt along the way. The brands that succeed are the ones that prepare well, ask the right questions, and make informed choices at every step.

At Kadence, we help brands do exactly that. Whether you’re expanding into a neighboring region or launching in a completely new market, we bring the research, frameworks, and local expertise to guide your move. From sizing the opportunity to selecting the right strategy, we work alongside your team to build a plan that’s grounded in evidence and tailored to your goals.

Learn more in our comprehensive guide to market entry, explore our market entry services, or get in touch to start a conversation.

Market segmentations can be powerful tools for companies big and small. By tailoring your strategy based on the needs of your key customer segments, you can better appeal to the customers that matter most. But how do you segment your audience and what are the different forms of segmentation you can use?

There are 5 main types of segmentation

A segmentation divides the market up into distinct groups of customers, and identifies those that are most valuable to your business. There are 5 main ways you can do this.

Geographic segmentation

The first and most basic form of segmentation is geographic segmentation. This approach to segmentation looks to create groups of customers based on the following factors:

Country
Region
City
Area e.g. urban, suburban, rural
Climate or season
Timezone
Language

Geographic data is some of the easiest data to obtain and analyse, and for some businesses this can be a useful way of segmenting the market. Imagine you’re an automotive manufacturer selling a four wheel drive. Segmenting the market based on location could be useful as a starting point as you’re likely to have much greater success targeting those in rural locations than urban centres. But this example shows that the effectiveness of a geographic segmentation is limited. There are a number of other factors that play into willingness to buy a four wheel drive – income level, lifestage, previous purchase patterns, attitudes and values all play a role too.

This demonstrates that in most cases segmenting on geographic factors alone is insufficient. Doing so can lead you down a dangerous path. Assuming that all customers are the same simply because they live in the same place is reductionist and can risk stereotyping and as a result, alienating customers.

Demographic segmentation

As the name suggests, a demographic segmentation seeks create customer segments based on demographic information including:

Age
Gender
Income level
Level of education

As with a geographic segmentation, this is one of the easiest ways for a company to approach segmentation as demographic data on existing customers is easy to collect and in many cases, is already readily accessible in a company CRM system.

It does have some uses. For instance, if you’re a luxury brand, focusing on existing or potential customers who earn above a certain income threshold is a no-brainer, as it means you’re able to focus your resources on the people that are most likely to be able to buy your product.

That said, segmenting on demographic factors alone has been largely discredited, as whilst people may be the same age or earn a similar amount, this does not mean they are all the same.

That said, many brands still seem to be falling into the trap of targeting based on generational differences and the current obsession with “millennials” or “Gen Z” is case in point. Joon, Air France’s failed attempt to to create an airline for millennials, shows the danger in doing this. The airline played into all the stereotypes about this segment – hip and trendy uniforms for the crew, digital services including VR headsets on board and quinoa front and centre in the in-flight menu. Unsurprisingly, the concept alienated target and non-customers alike and the airline flopped.

Firmographic segmentation

A firmographic segmentation is often used for segmenting B2B customers. It relies on similar principles to a demographic segmentation, looking at factors about current and target companies such as:

Company size
Industry
Job title

Like geographic and demographic segmentations, this type of data is readily available either in a company CRM system or online so can be a good starting point for businesses wanting to segment the market and focus on the customers with most potential. But when working in B2B, we mustn’t forget that the clients we are dealing aren’t just companies. They are people too. A marketing manager in a small firm in the professional services sector might have more in common with a marketer in a large FMCG firm than with their peers, as their motivations and values may be similar.

Behavioural segmentation

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More sophisticated forms of segmentation look not just at who consumers are, but how they behave in relation to your brand and category. Behavioural segmentations do what they say on the tin, they analyse customers based on their past behaviours such as:

Spending patterns
Browsing history
Interactions with the brand

Behavioural segmentations have become popular with digital first brands and B2B firms embracing marketing automation, as not only can this data be easily gathered and analysed, but once the segmentation has been finalised, it’s possible to allocate customers to a segment and then tailor comms accordingly – all within the digital ecosystem. For instance, a first time buyer will receive different promotions and messaging to a returning customer. This can be very powerful, ensuring that marketing campaigns have more cut through and result in greater conversion.

However there are some drawbacks. Behavioural segmentations are predominantly based on a consumer’s digital footprint. As we’re all aware, this only tells half the story. Whilst you might be able to identify that a customer is looking for a new pair of shoes, you won’t know why. As such, marketing strategies based on behavioural segmentations tend to be quite product-focused and won’t necessarily connect with consumers on a deeper level. Behavioural segmentations are also less helpful for informing product development. Sure – you’ll be able to ascertain the product or service a customer is interested in right now, but behavioural segmentations don’t take into account customer needs which can reveal opportunities for innovation or to optimise your existing offering.

Needs based segmentation

The fifth and final type of segmentation is a needs based segmentation. Needs based segmentations look to segment customers based on attitudinal factors such as:

Needs
Values
Motivations
Priorities

Needs based segmentations are widely regarded as the most effective approach to take segmentation and as such, make up the vast majority of segmentations used by businesses nowadays. Why?

Needs based segmentations don’t assume that people are the same simply because they share geographic or demographic characteristics or because they’ve bought the same thing. Instead they look deeper, creating groups of people based on shared needs and values.

This can be extremely powerful as it allows you to understand how your product or brand fits into customers’ lives, helping to put their needs at the heart of your strategy and allowing you to be more customer-centric as a business.

Segmenting based on needs can power innovation by illuminating unmet needs or areas where your product or service falls short. It can provide inspiration for powerful marketing campaigns that align with consumers’ attitudes and values, creating a strong connection with the brand and fostering loyalty.

Market segmentation studies can be powerful tools for any business. Find out more about our capabilities in this area or get in touch to discuss a new project with us. We’d be happy to share our expertise.

In today’s globally connected world, every product has a potentially vast market. Trying to target everyone in this market with the same materials, approaches, and techniques would be crazy — people are too varied and different to respond to the same marketing message.

So how do you ensure your marketing connects effectively with as many people as possible in your target market? The only real solution is to use market segmentation.

In simple terms, market segmentation is the process of taking a diverse and varied market and dividing it into more homogeneous segments.

Typically you’ll split your market into sub-groups based on criteria like their needs, behaviours and attitudes. . Market segmentation is nothing new, but it delivers a wide range of benefits to businesses if you do it the right way.

In this guide, we’ll take a look at why market segmentation is so important, the benefits it delivers, and how you can do it effectively.

Why do we need it?

Targeting everyone in a broad market with the same message is a fast route to poor response rates and low conversion rates.

Imagine you’re selling a new smartphone. The kind of message that will resonate with a 19-year-old customer is likelyto be very different from the message that resonates with a 74-year-old. Whichever you opt for, you’ll end up alienating a segment of your market.

It’s crucial to split your market into different groups so you can use a more tailored marketing message for each one. This works across all channels, from social media ads to email and direct mail.

What are the benefits of market segmentation?

There are many good reasons to segment your market, such as:

Better conversion rates. The ultimate reason to use segmentation is to improve your conversion rates and increase your revenue. By targeting groups with an offering more relevant to them, you boost your chances of a positive response.

It helps you lower acquisition costs by focusing on the most profitable customers. By targeting customers who are easier to sell to and bring on board, you’ll be able to focus your efforts more efficiently and avoid spending lots of resources on tricky customers. This is the approach MetLife took with their segmentation efforts, and it’s strategy we’ve used to great effect with a university looking to secure donations from its alumni.

Create more tailored marketing content. By creating content and ads that are specifically targeted to a certain sub-group of your market, you’ll be able to build a closer relationship with customers. This ensures better retention and stronger connections that, over time, leads to more sales.

Better response to marketing campaigns. Email is one area where segmentation can work extremely well. Research by Mailchimp found that segmented campaigns had open rates 14.31% higher than those that didn’t use segmentation.

It saves cost. By increasing the accuracy of your marketing, you’ll get more for your money and ensure less is wasted on poorly targeted marketing campaigns

Greater personalization. In one report by SmarterHQ, 80% of people who classify themselves as frequent shoppers said they only shop with brands who personalize their experience. By segmenting your market, it’s possible to personalize your messaging and connect more deeply with your target audience.

Better service. A good segmentation can help you to provide more effective customer service. Some businesses empower their front of house or call centre staff with information as to what segment a customer falls into so that they can tailor their interactions accordingly.

It provides a focus for further market research so that you spend your budget and time on getting to know your most valuable customers

How to do market segmentation

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Before you start segmenting your market, it’s important to know what to aim for. A good market segment should have the following attributes:

It’s big enough to be profitable. If your segment is too small, there simply won’t be enough demand for your product or service and you’ll fail to reach your goals.

The members of your market are similar enough to respond to one message. This is the main reason to segment — is your sub-group homogenous enough for the same marketing strategies to be relevant and effective?

It’s future-proofed. Will your segment stand the test of time?

It’s distinct. The segment is memorable and easy to distinguish from other segments.

What categories should you segment your market into?

When it comes to deciding on the criteria for your segments, there are a number of options. Let’s take a look at some of the main types of market segmentation and the benefits and drawbacks of each.

Demographic segmentation. This involves using criteria like age, gender or income level to segment your customer base.. It’s one of the easiest ways to quickly start dividing up your market,but it is a very simplistic and outdated approach to segmentation. As Mark Ritson rightly argues “millenials are not a segment”. Assuming that everyone of a certain age has the same needs and attitudes and behaves in the same way is misguided and has resulted in some well-known marketing fails. Take Joon, Air France’s sub-brand for millennial travellers. Rooted in stereotypes, the brand alienated its target customers and crashed and burned.
Geographic segmentation. Similar to demographic segmentation, segmenting your customers based on where they live can leave you in hot water. Assuming that all consumers are the same just because they live in the same place is reductionist and is unlikely to be effective as a segmentation strategy.
Behavioral segmentation. This type of segmentation is based on how customers have responded or behaved in the past in their interactions with your brand. It’ll help you understand your most profitable customers and what to sell to them but the drawback is in the name. This type of segmentation only tells you how customers have behaved in the past. As such, it’s a poor predictor of future behaviour, and it doesn’t provide any insights around motivations, values or needs which can help you connect with consumers on a deeper level.
Psychographic segmentation. This segments customers based on their views, values and lifestyles. s . It makes it easier to create a more resonant and relatable marketing message and avoid alienating your market with views they won’t agree with.
Needs-based segmentation. This is by far and away the most effective approach to segmentation. Segmenting people with similar needs allows you to be more targeted in product and service design or marketing campaign development, as you can focus on addressing customer needs and pain points. What’s more needs-based segmentations tend to be more long lasting and future-proofed than other approaches.

Market segmentation is a great way to ensure you’re targeting the right customers and tailoring your interactions for maximum success.

It allows you to forge a deeper bond with your audience. and whilst, it requires more work than a one-size-fits-all message, it’s well worth it in terms of the results.

At Kadence International, we help our clients design effective market segmentation studies and do it in a way that maximizes revenue. To find out how we can do this for you, get in touch.

In the world of market research, we can only get so far by relying on hard, numerical data.

Hard metrics like (generated from quantitative research) are extremely useful and should form a core part of any business strategy. But they only tell part of the overall story.

To dig deeper and gain a fuller picture of why our customers behave the way they do, it’s important to consider supplementing quantitative research with a more qualitative approach. Qualitative research is based on conversational and open-ended communication and aims to dive a little deeper than quantitative metrics and explore the why behind customer’s actions.

If you want to get the most out of your research, you should be using both approaches. In this guide, we’ll take a look at what qualitative research is, what makes it so useful, and how you can employ it in your own work.

How is qualitative research different from quantitative research?

Quantitative research:

Is more data-based, relying on hard data points and objective measurements
It uses statistics and numerical data to identify trends and patterns
Allows you to quickly establish what’s happening, and look at possible causes

Quantitative studies are extremely valuable. They allow us to gain a reliable, accurate understanding of what’s happening in our market and amongst our customers, and make clear-headed decisions that influence the bigger picture. But quantitative data alone isn’t enough.

Qualitative research is more human-focused. It’s less concerned with numbers and figures, and more focused on what customers have to say. It can take the form of interviews, focus groups or online communities and its goal is to dig into the more intangible and subjective reasons why customers behave the way they do.

Why is qualitative research useful?

Qualitative research is useful because it helps us dive into the human factors driving our customers’ actions. People are complex and often unpredictable, and our behaviour can’t really be boiled down into a series of metrics..

For example, we might know that sales for one product are outperforming another. But why is this happening? Our hard metrics can show us the overall trend and might allow us to pinpoint certain glaring patterns, but they don’t tell us what’s going on in our customers’ minds.

For this, we need qualitative studies. We need to gain insight into the microtrends that lie beneath bigger patterns.

The benefits don’t end there, though. Qualitative research means getting to know your customers and their motivations better. Here’s how that helps:

It can help you to understand customer needs, generating new ideas for products and services.

It can provide valuable feedback on your existing offering. Using qualitative research you can explore pain points and barriers to use, helping you understand how to improve your current products and services.

It can be a useful input to your marketing. By truly understanding your audience, you can take a more personalized approach, speaking their language and talking to your customers in a way they can really relate to. It can also provide useful input to campaign or content development. By understanding customer needs you can create marketing content that solves specific problems for your audience and delivers real value in response to the challenges they face and the pain points they grapple with.

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Qualitative research methods

Qualitative research is made up of a range of different methods and techniques. Each has its own use cases, and the best approaches will combine several methodologies based on your customers and your goals. Here are some of the main methods:

Focus groups. This is where you bring a small number of customers (usually less than 15) together in a group to discuss a particular issue. By tapping into the power of group dynamics, we’re able to uncover rich insights around attitudes and behaviours, and explore underlying motivations, need states and perceptions.

One-to-one, in-depth interviews. Here, researchers speak to customers directly, in a one-to-one setting. It’s a good way to get truly in-depth on a topic, delving into the participant’s opinions and gaining valuable feedback and insight. In depth interviews can be carried in person, on the phone or online.

Expert interviews. Similar to in-depth interviews, expert interviews involve speaking to industry experts to build a rich understanding of the market and where it’s heading. This approach can help you explore the impact of emerging trends to help future proof your business.

Ethnography. This is where researchers immerse themselves in customers’ worlds to understand more about their day to day lives and the role that brands and products play. Ethnography can take different forms, from visiting consumers and accompanying them as they go about their day, to mobile self-ethnography where consumers complete video tasks to show us how they live.

Online communities. This is where groups of consumers are brought together over a series of days on an online platform to explore specific issues. Consumers then complete individual or group tasks, enabling the researcher to uncover rich insights. Like mobile self-ethnography, online communities can involve photo and video tasks and are a great way of bringing an audience to life for key stakeholders. What’s more, as online communities consumers over a longer time period than an in-depth interview or a focus group, they allow you to explore complex or sensitive issues and uncover deep insights into attitudes and values to inform your decision-making.

Traditionally qualitative research was done according to the grounded theory method. This is a framework for research that involves collecting qualitative data through the above methods and then using that data to form a theory or hypothesis. However, it’s easy to underestimate the sheer amount of data you can collect through qualitative research and this is particularly true of online methods such as online communities. As such, it’s often not feasible to use the grounded theory method. At Kadence we take a different and more structured approach, exploring hypotheses with key stakeholders and designing the research so that we can test these. This means that the research is tightly focused on the areas that matter most to stakeholders, ensuring that the insights we uncover are actionable.

Some examples of qualitative research questions you might ask:

How important is corporate responsibility to our customers?
What are the main reasons people use social media?
Why do people want to work for our organization?
How do adult males feel about hair loss?
What are the key motivations for undertaking a weight loss programme?

Qualitative research is essential if you want to truly understand your customers and improve your product or service to deliver what they want and need. It goes hand in hand with more quantitative methods of research and helps add context, explanation, and depth to the more numerical and data-based metrics.

At Kadence, we can help you get the most out of qualitative research, to better understand your customers and market on all levels. To find out how, get in touch with us.

Marketing textbooks are littered with examples of products or services which flopped when they hit the market.

Take Juicero, in which investors pumped a staggering $120 million – all for a wi-fi connected juice maker which nobody had indicated they wanted or needed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was scrapped within two years.

Or ESPN’s mobile phone service, which was pitched at the wrong price – some $400 – whilst also offering the target audience a lack of choice around handset. The service was swiftly shut down, with ESPN instead opting to provide content to Verizon.

And remember New Coke? Launched in 1985, it’s still remembered today as a major marketing misstep.The product was abandoned after only a few weeks, with Cola-Cola reverting back to its old formula.

It’s clear that some of the world’s most innovative companies have failed to accurately foresee the impact of new launches when they hit the target market. Even Google, for instance, arguably launched its wearable Google Glass concept too soon. Its sky-high price did not help, and it failed to connect with consumers.

Fortunately there is a way to avoid this type of failure. By conducting product concept testing before a product launch, businesses are able to develop their ideas in a safe and controlled space with the target audience ahead of launch.

The concept in question can be many different things. It might be a totally new set of product ideas that no one has ever seen before. It might be a redesign or rebrand.

Testing methods can be online, for instance via quantitative surveys or via online communities focused on gathering qualitative insight; or face-to-face, in a focus group or series of in-depth interviews.

Whatever the method, conducting concept testing can pinpoint the value – or otherwise – of specific features and benefits, as well as indicating whether a product concept will be a major hit or a more niche offering which may not justify the cost and resources needed to make a reality.

Concept testing does require an investment in market research, but any costs at this stage will be minimal in comparison to launching a product which goes on to fail.

After all, testing is the process of uncovering what your potential consumers like or dislike about your concept, helping you identify which ideas will fly and guiding their future development to ensure success. What’s more, concept testing can enable marketers to understand what to communicate at launch, whilst also helping to identify the customer segments with the most potential

Here are the five key reasons why concept testing is so important:

1. Concept testing can help you filter ideas so you know which to develop further

Concept testing can help you move beyond blue-sky thinking and determine which of your ideas will be a hit. Rather than relying on subjective opinion, it gives you data that can bring the whole team on board by providing a consensus about which projects to develop and which to shelve.

In this way, great concept testing unites teams behind the ideas that have real potential. There’s no need to worry about office politics or lengthy and frustrating ‘design by committee’. With concept testing you can hear directly from the consumer what’s likely to cut it – and what won’t.

By using a range of qualitative and quantitative techniques, you can understand the consumer view of different concepts, and explore whether the products or services you’re looking to develop will resonate. Employing a range of testing tools enables you to identify the product concepts with the highest appeal, as well as understand how these can be refined. This allows you to move to the next stage of development with confidence.

It’s no overstatement to say that the use of a well-designed, concept testing survey or a skilfully moderated online community can pave the way to success. But any survey template or discussion guide needs to be designed in such a way that ensures that the overall package, as well as individual features or attributes are each assessed and fed back on.

This is something that needs to happen in the early stages of decision-making, too. It cannot be left too late as the point of concept testing is to help you iterate your ideas and to tweak them ahead of launch so that they are primed for success.

2. Concept testing can help you steer clear of bad decision-making.

Testing concepts in detail before launch may sound like it will delay your go-to-market strategy, but in the long run it can save your organisation significant time, prevent financial losses, and protect your relationship with customers. Failed products or services are enormously costly but fortunately concept testing exists not only to help you avoid the bad ideas, but also to uncover those with untapped potential.

Concept testing can help you to find the strongest option to take forward among a number of choices or find ways to improve underperforming concepts. Either way, it’s a great way to ensure, quickly and easily, that whatever you’re planning has a solid chance of success. In this way, concept testing can help you avoid an embarrassing failure and take your product development processes from good to great, thanks to that all-important feedback from those who matter – your customers.

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3. Concept testing can help you understand what elements matter to consumers.

Even if you immediately gauge that your product ideas are likely to fly, there are still many additional things to consider through testing methods – such as your positioning, the kind of packaging or branding that would be considered attractive and – arguably the most important factor in the production of any product or service – the most appropriate price.

In this way, a concept test is a way to optimise your innovation, drastically reduce the risk of project failure and limit excessive costs. Concept testing is crucial for product developers to determine the innovation’s chance of success. It can shed light on blind spots, inefficiencies, misinterpretations or problems that can lead to failure. Using testing methods like surveys as well as qualitative research, via a focus group, in depth interview or online community, can all help to tease out your target audience’s wants or needs.

4. Concept testing enables you to fix problems prior to launch.

The sooner concept testing is undertaken, the more flexibility there is for optimising your initial idea to develop a product that customers truly want and need.

Through concept testing you can understand what elements don’t fly with customers so you can ditch underperforming elements to save costs or iteratively improve concepts so that they better meet consumer needs. With an online community, for instance, it’s possible to develop concepts based on consumer feedback, and then upload them for further feedback, in this way allowing you to refine ideas swiftly.

5. Ultimately, concept testing ensures that you develop products that consumers will buy.

Concept testing puts the consumer voice at the heart of product development, thereby ensuring that new products will resonate with customers, dramatically increasing business performance.

The results of a concept test can help you to identify the pain – or the delight – relating to new ideas. Concept testing can enable you to establish how your product would fit into the lives of your target audience; how often they might use it and, crucially, which product concept they would be willing to pay for.

Good concept testing means getting under the skin of your customer and letting their feelings and needs guide you towards the solutions with the most potential. By putting consumers central to product development, you can develop products and services that outperform the competition.

In order to achieve this, it’s important to partner with skilled market researchers that can design studies that get you the insights you need. From a qualitative perspective, this means professionals that can help people open up, answer fully, and elaborate on their responses to concepts. In an online community for instance, the researcher must carefully guide and curate the discussion in order to gain in-depth feedback.

Ultimately, concept testing gives you a better idea of consumers’ reactions to your ideas. It clarifies the need your solution is addressing, consumers’ perceptions of the product, how it fares against other similar solutions, and what can be done to maximise adoption and market impact.

So it should come as no surprise to learn that this type of market research can have a huge impact on your business, enabling you to understand where to focus efforts in product development by uncovering the view of the target market.

Product development need never be risk, nor the creation of successful products be a wild stab in the dark. If you’d like our support with a concept testing project, please get in touch or request a proposal.

What is a central location test?

Essentially, it’s a way of carrying out product market research—specifically, a central location test—that’s done in a controlled environment, not in the participant’s home.

In this way, it differs from methods like online surveys or online communities. Sometimes, central location tests are referred to as “hall tests”.

The main reason to use a central location test is to be able to test physical products in a face-to-face setting, exercising more control of the testing process. By being in the room with the participants, it’s easier to control for bias, engage more with the process, and ideally gain accurate and useful results.

In this article, we’ll dive a little deeper into the reasons for carrying out a central location test in market research, the different types available, and share best practice tips for conducting this type of research. Let’s get started.

Why Conduct A Central Location Test?

Here are some of the most common reasons for conducting a central location test for your products:

It helps minimize bias. In a central location test, everyone is monitored together in the same space. It’s easy to eliminate outside influences, present questions in the same order to avoid confusion and ensure participants answer logically.

You can observe body language and other types of indirect feedback. This isn’t always possible online, but it can be very useful when making decisions. Participants might also say things or raise questions that they wouldn’t have the chance to do otherwise, which can lead to a more detailed understanding of their opinion.

You can test things like taste, smell, and touch, which typically isn’t always possible if the test is conducted at home, without the logistical challenge of sending products to each respondent.

It’s convenient. A central location test makes it possible to test large numbers of people in the same place at the same time, helping save time and resources.

You can ask follow-up questions and tailor interactions with participants in real-time based on their responses. This allows you to go further to capture additional information than might be possible with other testing methods like a survey or online community—making the central location test a uniquely immersive option.

Common Use Cases for Central Location Testing

A central location test is particularly valuable in industries where sensory or in-person interaction matters. Some of the most common use cases include:

Taste tests for new food or beverage products in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG).
Cosmetic or skincare trials where texture, scent, or application needs to be evaluated firsthand.
Packaging tests, allowing participants to handle different versions and provide feedback.
Retail shelf simulations where visual merchandising, pricing, or placement is studied in a controlled setting.

By using a shared venue, brands can reduce variability in responses and directly compare reactions to physical products, prototypes, or concepts.

The Different Types of Central Location Tests

There are a number of different ways to carry out your central location test, depending on your objectives and the type of product being tested. The following are the main formats a central location test can take:

Monadic. This is where everyone focuses on the same product. The goal is simple: assess how well it would work if taken to market.

Paired comparison. Here, participants compare two products and choose which one they think is best.

Sequential monadic. First, participants assess one product, as in the monadic model. Then, they move on to a second product and assess that. Finally, they compare the two.

Proto-monadic. This is slightly different from the above. Participants start by assessing one product (product A), then go straight into comparing it with another. The order is usually rotated between participants, so each product gets to be product A an equal number of times.

Repeat paired comparison. Here, participants assess the same pair of products multiple times. The goal is to make sure feedback was not random or based on first impressions, with the goal of getting a more accurate end result.

How to Conduct a Central Location Test in Market Research

Recruit the right sample of participants for your central location test. This is usually done by looking at your target customer base and then scaling it down so it’s small enough for the test. The most important part is to get a representative spread but also focus only on people who really are in your target demographic.

Find a good venue. This will depend on how many people you are planning to engage. It also needs to accommodate the logistical needs of the test. We have a network of tried and tested venues we’ve used over the years in multiple markets.

Make sure you’re working with a trained team. Your team needs to be trained to ask questions, monitor responses, and ask any required follow-up questions during a central location test. They’ll need to know how to do this in a way that avoids bias and doesn’t steer the participant in a certain direction.

Design the survey well. Here are some tips:

Include an introduction to the survey. This can be written or verbally delivered, but it should clearly explain how everything works, address any confusion, and explain the reasons behind the survey.

Start with some screening questions. These are usually based on things like age and profession, and the goal is to disqualify candidates who don’t fit into your target demographic or who simply aren’t a good fit. Screening can also be done in advance if you are pre-recruiting for the central location test.

Make sure the questions follow logically and intuitively. Group similar questions together, and try not to mislead or confuse your participants. A well-structured central location test questionnaire should balance closed questions for quantifying preferences with space for participants to elaborate on their reasoning.

Analyze and take action. Once the central location test is complete, it’s time to analyze the results and implement your findings. This is perhaps the most important part — if you do this incorrectly, you risk wasting the investment in the entire process. Ensure the results are clearly presented, and any key insights are highlighted so your stakeholders can understand them. This way, you’ll be able to use the findings to convince others in your company and drive real action.

Depending on your objectives, a central location test can be designed as a quantitative, qualitative, or blended study. Many CLTs rely on structured surveys for measurable results—such as rating taste, ease of use, or packaging appeal. Others incorporate qualitative elements like focus groups or open-ended interviews to uncover the reasons behind participant preferences. In blended approaches, brands often use both: numerical scores to guide decisions and discussion-based feedback to refine them.

How a Central Location Test Works

While each test varies depending on product and objectives, most central location tests follow a similar structure:

Recruit participants based on your target audience and screening criteria.
Prepare the venue with all necessary materials, ensuring the setting is distraction-free.
Facilitate the test, using moderators or facilitators to guide participants through product interaction.
Collect feedback through structured surveys, observational notes, or follow-up interviews.
Analyze the results, ensuring biases are accounted for and data is actionable.

This repeatable process makes CLT a reliable format for generating both qualitative and quantitative insights.

What Does a Central Location Test Look Like in Practice?

Let’s say a beverage brand wants to test two new juice flavours before launch. They set up a central location test at a rented venue in Manchester. Pre-screened participants from their target demographic are invited in staggered groups. Each participant tastes both flavours (labelled blindly), fills out a brief quantitative survey about preference, perceived freshness, and likelihood to purchase, and then joins a short moderated discussion to explain their choices.

Observers behind a one-way mirror note facial expressions and body language. The research team compiles the survey data to see which flavour wins out numerically, while the qualitative comments help explain why—offering insights into packaging, taste notes, and price expectations that numbers alone wouldn’t reveal.

Is Central location testing (CLT) cost-effective?

Central location testing can be a cost-effective approach for market research, depending on the specific context and research objectives. CLT allows researchers to gather data from a large number of participants in a controlled environment, which can offer cost savings compared to conducting individual interviews or surveys. By bringing participants to a central location, researchers can efficiently collect data from multiple individuals within a short period.

Additionally, the centralized setting allows for standardized procedures, streamlined logistics, and easier management of participant recruitment. However, it’s important to note that the cost-effectiveness of CLT depends on factors such as the size of the target population, the complexity of the research objectives, and the resources required for the facility and equipment rental. CLT may require additional costs for participant incentives, venue rental, moderator fees, audiovisual equipment, and data analysis.

Researchers should carefully plan and design the CLT study to maximise cost-effectiveness, ensuring that the sample size, research objectives, and methodology align with the budget and desired outcomes. It’s also worth considering alternative research methods, such as online surveys or virtual focus groups, which may offer cost advantages in certain situations.

While central location testing can provide valuable insights and efficiencies, its cost-effectiveness will vary depending on the research context and careful consideration of budgetary constraints.

Focus Groups and Central Location Testing

Focus groups are a commonly used technique within CLT. In focus groups, a small group of individuals is brought together to engage in a guided discussion led by a moderator. This interactive format allows researchers to delve deep into participants’ opinions, attitudes, and preferences. Through open and dynamic group conversations, focus groups provide qualitative insights into consumer perceptions, motivations, and behaviours. By incorporating focus groups into a central location test, businesses can gain valuable feedback, generate ideas, and uncover nuanced insights to inform decision-making and drive product development. The rich and interactive nature of focus groups makes them a powerful tool for understanding consumer perspectives and refining strategies to create products that better meet customer needs.

Challenges and How to Avoid Them

If your central location test is properly planned, uses trained staff, and is professionally designed, it should run smoothly. However, here are some challenges to look out for.

Interviewer cheating. Sometimes interviewers can deliberately provoke biases or push participants towards certain answers. This can be avoided by working with a trusted partner and reliable staff.

For certain types of central location test formats — for instance, where you’re recruiting people from a mall and then bringing them to a central location testing facility, you can face problems in recruiting if there are fewer shoppers than usual. For this reason, it’s best to organize tests and recruit participants in advance.

Biased responses to interviewers. Sometimes, participants might have a very positive psychological response to their interviewer. Maybe they like their personality or their looks. In these cases, they can give answers that might differ from their beliefs. This is another reason why training your interviewers carefully is so important.

Central location testing is a great way to get feedback on your products in a face-to-face environment with a reduced risk of bias. It allows for more interaction between interviewers and participants, delivering much more accurate and nuanced responses.

Partner with Kadence on Your Next Central Location Test

At Kadence, it’s our job to ensure you create and conduct the most effective market research projects possible — including central location tests for in-person product evaluation. Whether you’re testing new product concepts, packaging formats, or sensory elements, our team can help you design a robust central location test that delivers meaningful insights and ensures your central location test meets its objectives. To find out more about how we can support your next study, request a proposal.

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Frequently Asked Questions about Central Location Testing

Q: Is a central location test qualitative or quantitative?
A CLT can be either, depending on how it’s structured. Many involve quantitative surveys, while others include focus groups or observational methods that generate qualitative insights.

Q: Where are central location tests typically held?
Tests can take place in hotels, testing labs, research facilities, conference rooms, or even mall intercept locations—anywhere that allows for controlled conditions.

Q: How long does a central location test usually take?
Most sessions run between 30 and 90 minutes per participant, though timings vary based on the number of products and complexity of feedback collection.

Q: How does CLT compare to in-home testing?
CLT offers greater control and faster turnaround, while in-home testing provides a more naturalistic setting. The right method depends on your product and goals.

Survey design is an important part of doing business and market research. Put simply, it refers to the process of creating surveys that get responses.

This is important because it allows you to better understand the market and your customers, so you can make more data-driven decisions, and fix areas that are falling short. Done right, a good survey can be the driving force for huge positive change.

How to design a survey

Planning

The first stage of survey design is all about planning. This is where you’ll decide what you want to focus on, why you’re running a survey at all, who you want to target, and more.

If you don’t get this stage right, you’ll end up with a survey that doesn’t have any clear goals, or fails to achieve its objectives. To get any meaningful feedback from a survey, you need to be clear about what you’re trying to achieve.

This initial stage is extremely important and is not something to skim over or rush through. In fact, the planning stage should take up a large chunk of the overall process.

1. Figure out your goals

The goal of the survey is what gives it structure and influences every part of the process. Here are some examples of goals for surveys:

Find out what customers think about your brand versus the competition

Assess the main challenges faced by customers in your industry

Learn what customer like the most and least about a specific product

Goals should typically be narrow enough that there is no risk of confusing your stakeholders or your respondents. Narrow goals also avoid overwhelming your respondents with questions.

A clearly defined goal helps the team draw inspiration and stay united and focused. Once you have decided on a goal, you’ll have a much better idea of what type of questions to ask, the type of respondents you want to reach , and so on.

In other words, you need to set a goal in order for the rest of the process to click into place.

2. Decide who you want to target with your survey

The next stage of the planning process involves deciding who will actually take part in your survey.

This is called the target population, and it should reflect the goal. For example, if you’re asking how your product impacts a person’s job it’s probably not a good idea to target people under 16, or people over 70 as they are unlikely to be working.

3. Choose the right sample

The target population you choose will often be too large to effectively survey. This means you’ll have to select a sample — a smaller group that represents the larger demographic. You can then take these results and extrapolate them to the wider population.

Done right, this group will be representative enough to act as a miniature version of the whole. Sampling allows you to achieve your goals with a fraction of the cost, time, and resources required to survey the entire target population, which in most cases, would simply not be possible.

4. Pick the right survey method

This stage of the planning process will be driven by your goal and your target demographic. Some examples of different methods include:

Online Internet surveys
CATI (computer aided telephone interviewing)
Central location testing

Every method has its pros and cons. Online surveys enable you to reach a large number of people quickly, but they’re less appropriate if you’ve got a physical product you want people to interact with. Instead a central location test might be more appropriate in this instance.

Every survey is different. If your target population is mostly people over the age of 65 or in geographical locations where internet access is not widespread, online surveys will probably not be the best method. Likewise, a central location test might not work well if your target demographic is very busy.

Once you have decided on a goal, established a target population and a sample, and chosen the method for your survey, it’s time to get down to actually creating it.

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Creating your survey

Creating your survey is all about making it as easy as possible for your respondents to read, understand, and answer. If you overwhelm them with information and confusing formats, they’ll quickly give up and you’ll end up with fewer answers and a smaller pool of data at the end.

Here are some ways to make your survey as effective as possible:

Use questions wisely

The best way to ask questions is sparingly. You need to ask enough to gather a good amount of information, but if you use too many you risk driving your respondents away.

It’s always best to start with a clear introduction that introduces the survey, explains the format, and addresses any initial questions the reader might have. You might then start with some screener questions (about age or job title, for example) to filter out any respondents who don’t match the target demographic.

Don’t waste questions — only ask when necessary

Ask one question at a time, combining multiple questions into one creates confusion

Choose the right question type for your audience, mode of survey, and what you’re asking. Options include multiple-choice, open questions, closed questions, ratings, and so on.

Keep your questions short, simple, and clear. Avoid using jargon and including unnecessary information.

Design and layout is important — make it clear which questions to answer and how

Executing the survey

Once the survey is planned and created, it’s time to actually carry it out. If you have done the earlier stages correctly, this part should run smoothly. However, in practice, errors and unexpected setbacks are common. Here’s how to execute your survey in the best way possible:

Work with trained researchers

If your survey will be carried out in person or on the telephone, it’s important that your staff know how to ask questions. Make sure you’re working with a team that is trained to ask open-ended questions correctly, in a way that avoids confusion or tempts bias.

Pilot surveys

A common practice is to conduct a smaller pilot survey before the main one, which can help identify any problems with the survey and give you an opportunity to make some tweaks before sending it to the full sample group.

Avoiding bias

One of the main challenges when conducting surveys is bias. It’s easy to accidentally lead your respondents down a certain path and encourage them to answer in a certain way, which you must avoid in order to get accurate and valuable results. To minimize bias:

Avoid leading questions like comparisons with other companies or products

Keep questions as precise and simple as possible to eliminate the risk of misunderstanding

Try to predict inherent biases in your target group and work to mitigate them

Analyzing and sharing results

After the survey is complete, the final steps are to analyze and share the results. This is an extremely important step, as this is where you put into practice what you learned and draw value from the survey.

It’s important to categorize and analyze the results properly. This process might be as simple as collecting the results in an excel spreadsheet, or it might be much more detailed, using a range of advanced analysis techniques..

Think about how the survey relates to your overall business and marketing, and how you can act on the insights you gained and use them to achieve your goals.

Create a summary report

A summary report is a great way to share your results with your stakeholders in the business. It’s a document that breaks down what your survey set out to achieve and what the key findings were. We regularly create summary reports, as well longer, more detailed reports for our clients.

Make sure to clearly show what your aims were and what you learned, and present this in a way that anyone – regardless of market research literacy – can get to grips with. It’s worth working with a good designer to present the findings in the best way possible. At Kadence we have our own design team who help us to create impactful reports that make data easy to understand and act upon.

Survey design can seem like a challenging process, and it does require input and collaboration from many parts of the company.

However, the rewards are worth it. A well-designed survey can provide a much more intimate understanding of your customer base and how your products and services are received. It can yield incredibly valuable feedback and prompt much-needed change.

To find out how Kadence can help your organisation plan more effective surveys and harness data for maximum effect, reach out to request a proposal.

What is conjoint analysis? It’s often lauded as an extremely effective way to gain detailed insights and conduct market research, but how does it work?

Essentially, conjoint analysis is a way of measuring the value that customers place on a product’s features. It typically works via a survey, which looks something like this:

Participants are shown a combination of features (called attributes) for a product. If the product is a smartphone, for example, they might be shown the price, memory size, screen resolution, and camera quality.

They’re then asked to compare different attributes. For example, what would they choose out of a $150 phone and a $250 phone? Do they prefer 32GB of memory or 64GB? There are several different ways to structure this, as we’ll find out.

After the answers have been collected, it’s up to us to analyze the results to inform the right marketing decisions.

In this article, we’ll look at this process in more detail and dig deeper into the different types of conjoint analysis and the various benefits it can deliver.

Why do conjoint analysis?

There are several reasons to conduct a conjoint analysis. These include:

To measure and understand customer preference for certain product features

To assess or predict how well a product will do if brought to market

To gain an understanding of how changes to price affect demand

To predict future trends, for example around the adoption of certain features

How to do conjoint analysis

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Choose the right survey type

The first stage is to decide on the correct survey type. There are several ways to do a conjoint analysis — here are the main methods.

Ratings-based conjoint analysis. This is where participants give each attribute a rating, for example on a scale of 1-100.

Ranking-based conjoint analysis. This is where participants rank the attributes in order from best to worst. There is also best vs worst analysis, where participants simply pick their favourite and least favourite attributes out of the selection.

Choice-based conjoint analysis (CBC). This is the most commonly used model and the one this guide will focus on. It presents combinations of attributes to participants and asks them to choose which they prefer.

One of the most powerful advantages of choice-based conjoint analysis is that it can allow you to use modelling to predict how customers will feel about combinations they didn’t even assess.

In other words, in an extremely efficient way of predicting responses to features without having to spend a huge amount of time testing each combination.

Identify the relevant attributes (features)

Next, it’s time to decide which product attributes you want to have your respondents compare and assess. The key is to not use too many. We typically avoid using more than 5 or 6 attributes e.g. for a car colour, engine size. We do this to reduce the cognitive load on respondents to ensure they really engage with the choices presented to them.

For each attribute, you need to add levels. For example, if your participants are assessing a smartphone, one attribute might be ‘price’, and the levels might be $200, $350, and $700.

The levels will usually reflect the different tiers of the product you’re considering selling. For the smartphone, you might be releasing a basic model, a higher-end model, and a deluxe model. The levels for attributes such as price, camera size, and memory will align with those tiers.

Levels should be chosen based on factors like:

How interesting and valuable they are for management — will they inform useful decisions?

How well they avoid bias

How realistic they are

In the CBC method, there are two commonly used models for making choices:

Single choice with none. This requires the participant to make one choice out of the selection. There is also the possibility to select none of the options.

Single choice. This is the same as above, but there is no ‘none’ option — the participant has to pick one.

Design the questionnaire

Screener questions

Most Surveys start with some screener questions. These are general questions around demographics like the respondent’s age, job title, or purchase habits. The goal is to filter out those who won’t be a good fit for the survey based on the people you’re trying to target.

Introduce and explain

It’s important to take some time at the beginning of the survey and in your questions to clearly explain what the respondents need to do to answer the question. Surveys should be as clear and easy to follow as possible.

Create the right questions

The questions you choose, and how you structure them, will make or break your survey. Here are some guidelines to follow:

Questions should follow on from one another logically and be grouped together intuitively. It’s best not to confuse your participants by ordering your questions in a confusing way.

People often give more accurate and useful answers when you use situational questions g. For example, instead of asking, “Which phone would you buy”, ask something like, “Thinking back to the last time you purchased a phone — if you had the following options instead, which would you have picked?”

Finish with some demographic questions so that you can further understand your customer base and analyse the results by demographic to understand any meaningful differences.

Analyze and take action

Once the survey has been written, scripted , sent out, and completed by your target group, it’s time to analyze the results and take action on them. This is perhaps the most important part of the process, as it’s where your research can really make a tangible impact.

There are several ways to analyze your results, based on how you designed the survey. The most important thing is to collect and analyse your data in a way that makes it easy to draw useful conclusions and share them.

This will allow you to gain real value from the survey and present those findings to others in the company. This:

Helps justify your decisions and actions

Informs future plans and inspires new features

Identifies areas that need to change or improve

At Kadence, it’s our job to ensure you create and conduct the most effective surveys and market research possible, giving your brand the edge. To find out more about how we can help with conjoint analysis and more, get in touch to request a proposal.