Want faster, cheaper, better research? Get your hands dirty. Go guerrilla. Go to where your customers and prospects are are. Hang out where your target does real things in real-time under real conditions. This is where you can have casual, comfortable, genuine conversations. This is where you can walk in the shoes. This is where your consumers are their absolute selves and act accordingly. And where you can make observations and gather subtle insights that consumers would never even think to articulate, let alone be comfortable enough to mention in a more sterile or artificial research setting.
By way of example, on a client assignment awhile back, we spent a couple of weeks with dog owners. We hung out in dog parks, backyards and trails. We tried products and lived life alongside people and their pets. We learned a TON by experiencing what consumers experience…and by simply chatting people up. We also learned by observing subtleties and taking note of the occasional frustrated look on a dog owner’s face…a cringe…a frown…a change in body language – things that people never think to say, even when you ask, but that are real.
The result: deeper insights that drove several new product innovations, with incremental national shelf space to match (and competitors who never saw any of it coming). This can, and has worked with a variety of products, services, technology and start ups in all kinds of settings. Just show up. Get your hands dirty. And see what happens.
