Realism and shoe leather in research
There's no shortage of companies eager to conduct research to fuel your PR recommendations for clients. Good data is helpful, sure. But I recommend a different approach: Listen to your customers. Face to face. And not at a noisy, overstimulated trade show. Author and market researcher Paco Underhill's firm makes a practice of doing retail research by having a staff member track a consumer's behavior, in detail, as he or she navigates through the store. Me, I'd be highly suspicious of anyone stalking me with a clipboard. However, the research I'm talking about does not involve clipboards or stalking. Here's how one experience went: On a brief trip to the west coast, I had time to spare. I wandered into a small camera shop that catered to serious photographers. I asked "how's business," and then added that I worked for Kodak -- at the time, a powerhouse brand in photography. Unknown to me, the shop owner had serious issues -...