In order to understand market research in PR, we need to define the term. The American Marketing Association has a great definition: it’s the function that links the consumer to the marketer through information. In order to have a strategy that gets marketing penetration and sales volume, you need to know what the mindset is of your target consumers. PR is all about changing minds. So it behooves us to find out what the mindset is of your consumers and clients before we start a PR campaign.
We find out things like what they think of your industry, what their opinion is of your company and if they know about you, your products, your services, what do they need and want, what do they hate, what do they like, what do they dislike, how your marketing message is to reach them, would they be more receptive to listen to or actually read rather than just toss or throw away. These are just some of the things that we can find out in our marketing research.
Past bad experiences, tainted viewpoints, bad publicity about a product or a certain company or a type of company can all cause difficulty for you — unless you have the marketing intelligence to be able to push through those emotional barriers. If you don’t have that, it’ll cost you a lot of time and a lot of money to figure it out and you may never get there.
The reason why we get such good results in Public Relations is because we know what the media wants. Not only do we do our own market research on the media, but we do it on the target markets of our clients. And when we present stories to the media, we’re talking about their target markets that they know. They know that we understand the buttons and the barriers and what people want to hear about or read or listen to. And that’s why they trust us.
Let me give you an example. Take a manufacturing company — they spent a lot of money on their marketing campaign. And what they thought that what their target market was interested in was that their products were “green” and environmentally sound. Their sales tanked. So when JoTo came in, we did marketing research. And we found out their target market didn’t care a thing about being green. All they wanted was a durable product that was long-lasting and economical. Those were the three buttons. We used that in an online PR campaign because this is where the consumer for that customer searched for products and services. These articles, we got in online news outlets and we used the buttons. It’s durable, long-lasting and economical. They were also able to use the same buttons in their marketing campaign. And since then, their sales have taken off and they’re selling more than they ever have before.
Here’s another example. A group of physicians — they were seeing lowered insurance reimbursement rates and they desperately needed to find something to supplement their income. When JoTo came in, we did marketing research on their patients and their prospective patients. And we found out what they were willing to pay cash for and also there was a real need for certain preventative healthcare services. The doctors took that information and not only were they able to supplement their income, but now they’re expanding into whole new revenue.
The bottom line is if you don’t have marketing research, you won’t know what your target market needs, wants, likes or what they respond to. You don’t have to make that mistake. Marketing research is how we do PR in the new economy.