OJ and the Job to be Done

Okay since I have missed the OJ bandwagon, I may as well admit that I am talking about an incident a couple of weeks ago when my son spilled orange juice (OJ) over my laptop keyboard. As a result a number of keys did not work (although I could copy and paste!) and had a...

The worrying truth behind the rhetoric of “the polls are always wrong”

Perhaps I am getting a little grumpy in my old age – I have now been in my mid-twenties for almost two decades – but I am beginning get really annoyed by the continual refrain that the polls are always wrong. The idea seems to be that if you say it enough times it becomes...

Outcome driven process innovation

To be honest I dislike talking about large scale organisations as they tend not to be my customer base and often managers do not consider something to be their responsibility. However occasionally it is worth talking about such organisations because it is often clearer when the real needs and desires of customers are simply not...

Labeling is important

  When we started on the quest for a diagnosis for my son to understand why his behaviour was different from other children we were met with the response from some people that you shouldn’t give people labels.   As I have been segmenting and profiling customers for clients for years, this is rather like...

Guide to creating an evidence-based marketing strategy (in-depth post)

It is always worth taking time to think about your customers and collect as much information as you can without harming the customer experience. Here is a good way to structure information so you can understand what you do know and what you need to find out.

Improving customer experiences

Introduction

A couple of years ago, I (along with Andy Madeley of Swiss Peaks) asked local business in Staffordshire how much they would spend on various elements of the marketing mix if they had a £10,000 budget.  The result for market research was around £500 or 0.5% which is probably more realistic for most firms than the 1% of turnover that is often cited.

In fact if you had a budget of £5,000, I would recommend spending £500 on market research and in most cases that figure would not change if your budget was £20,000.

But what does £500 (+VAT) get you these days?

The simple answer is whatever information you need to create an evidence-based marketing strategy or business plan. You can do a lot of this yourself – a good researcher may be quicker in knowing where to find information, but once you have the framework you can…

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Want to join Kotler (7Ps of marketing) by taking the guesswork out of growth?

Longer post on the various jobs to be done techniques and how these can be used by any company to transform the way they do business.

What C M Bowra teaches us about jobs to be done

"I don't know about you, gentlemen, but in Oxford I, at least, am known by my face" C M Bowra The now apochryphal story about legendary scholar Sir Maurice Bowra (CM Bowra) tells us a great deal about how, when you understand the job to be done, you can come up with an improved solution....

“Cheaper, Better, Faster,” A child explains why needs statements are not fit for purpose.

Whenever you interview people about needs statements or how they would improve a product or service at least one person says something akin  to "Cheaper, Better, Faster". Such a statement is rarely possible to turn into any meaningful action because you have to interpret what each of the three words means. You are likely to...

Brexit and Burnt Bread: The need to interpret the data responsibly

"Opinion is half way between knowledge and ignorance" Plato There are a number of ways to deal with fake news or alternative facts but the best way is to appreciate real "experts" in journalism and other areas of life.  The problem is arguably a bigger problem in the UK than in the US as we...