Invest Your Dollars in Research
September 21st, 2007
This week, I met with members of a marketing team from another major employer in the area. They wanted to talk about our methods, how we approach our assignments, and more importantly how we created the new nd.edu.
Each and every marketing communication project has its own unique challenges, yet some are always similar. This is especially true when dealing with marketing on the Web. If you take away the strategies, goals, and tactics of the assignment, the remainder is something I see during every project on which I work. I realized this during my meeting.
The question was asked where to best invest (or spend) marketing budget dollars. That is, is it best to invest out-of-pocket dollars into creative (design, images, photog.) or perhaps in the technical (development, coding, servers) or maybe even elsewhere? This is especially tricky if you seek to balance in-house talent (usually over capacity) with best of industry vendors that can help give you a booster-shot. I feel the answer is simple. And, this answer is the common bond that all major Web marketing projects share.
Invest your dollars in research first, then deliverables.
It sounds like common sense, but I am amazed how rarely this occurs. Any major Web marketing project that skips right to tactics and deliverables is not a marketing project. That is simply work to improve appearances. It’s a fake-out. A healthy, impactful, and measurable Web marketing project begins with an investment in knowledge.
What kind of knowledge is needed?
At least 20-25% of your budget should first be spent towards learning as much as possible about your end-users. This does not mean just looking at webstats, hits, and other clichéd metrics. You need to know demographics, behaviors, traits, and real personas of the people you are seeking to reach or impact. Each and every decision you make about tactics, creative, and technology should be based on in-depth knowledge of your real users.
If you base decisions on your gut or anecdotal evidence, then you are doomed. If you work with someone that feels research, focus groups, and surveys are a waste of money, then simply ask that person to produce for you detailed quantitative and qualitative demographics about your users. No chance.
Here’s the difference:
- A web project without research: “Let’s design a new website.”
- A web project with research: “We will reach emerging, young customers with on-line services in order to seed a relationship early. We will balance basic web marketing with traditional print for the senior customers.”
If you don’t have the knowledge, you are just making a pretty site. If you do have the knowledge, you make an impact.
