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LAUREN SCHLAU CONSULTING Marketing Research | Strategic Consulting |
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OUR SERVICES LAUREN SCHLAU CONSULTING is a Los Angeles based women business enterprise (wbe) that has been in operation since 1992. We provide market research and consulting services to private companies, non-profit, and public sector agencies through market intelligence and insights to help clients know their customers and assess their market position to help then stay ahead in the marketplace.
Market Research and Strategic Consulting Services:
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How well do you really know your customer? According to Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth (among countless others), “if you want to succeed in business you must be in touch with the demands of the marketplace. While many businesses think they understand their customers, few of them really do. What most companies view as an understanding of their customer's wants, needs, and desires more often reflects their own internal biases, perceptions, and judgments.”
Among the most effective means to truly identify your customers is market research, to provide insight into: who are your customers, where are they from, what do they want, what drives them to your brand, how do they perceive and use your offerings (and your competitors!), and how satisfied are they?
These and other key questions can be addressed by conducting custom designed market research studies, invaluable in helping to plan services, programs, and identifying future marketplace and product needs.
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To effectively develop and sustain market visitor/patron programs, it is vital to measure their contributions to the local economy. These impacts focus on measuring visitor/patron volume, visitor/patron spending, local tax impacts generated and employment supported by activity. In addition, these studies identify visitor/patron demographics and behaviors including factors such as: geographic origin, planning resources used, reasons for visiting, venues and activities and other trip and visitors characteristics.
Studies should be performed on a recurring basis, e.g., every two-to-three years, both to establish benchmarks and to chart progress over time. Such studies have multiple uses including: measuring program effectiveness, guiding marketing program messaging and placement, improving competitive positioning, developing optimal utilization, and guiding future development of infrastructure, services and amenities.
LSC has conducted numerous visitor and patron impact studies over the years for a range of clients throughout California. We have a proven methodology that is replicable, comparable and consistent to provide clients with current, vital and useful data.
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Critical questions for any marketing organization are: How many people inquire for information to your entity and how many eventually visit/patronize? What level of influence did your organization and its marketing efforts have on visitation/patronization; that is, how many potential visitors converted to actual visitors?
While many factors influence the decision-making process, advertising, promotion programs and agency services should be credited for their fair share of the resulting volume, spending and tax impacts.
LSC conducts conversion studies that include identifying visitor/patron trip behaviors (length of stay, lodging, transportation, spending, etc.), influence of visitation for targeted media and visitor demographics, The results are used to estimate visitation and “conversion rates, visitor spending, “return on investment”, and local taxes generated.
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A brand encompasses, in the mind of the consumer, the essence of what the brand represents, and promise of what will be delivered or experienced. Once developed, the brand provides tremendous economic leverage and strategic advantage in generating awareness and motivation for purchasing the brand offerings in the marketplace.
Brand perceptions can and should be managed, beginning with the awareness of how the brand is perceived in the market place.
LSC works with clients to help identify those perceptions and gaps in perceptions between brand managers and customers through a brand research process. The research also provides the foundation for further marketing and communications to reposition and/or strengthen the brand.
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Is the organization doing its best? Does it have identified goals, accomplish goals in a timely and cost efficient manner and with the appropriate personnel?
LSC can help the entity answer these questions and improve operations through organizational effectiveness studies. Within specific activity areas, we conduct process assessments in terms of how well, how long, with what results and at what cost do tasks and projects take. The results reveal problems and present solutions to improve program and organizational effectiveness and reduce operating costs.
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Marketing and operations are expensive undertakings that should be founded on thoughtful research and planning. Market and business plans commit to paper research findings and actions plans for utilization of scarce resources, and measurements for future performance and accountability.
Within this process, LSC considers the entity’s competitive market position, strengths/ weaknesses, opportunities/threats, and sets goals/objectives, strategies and action plans, including media, for accomplishing those goals.
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In certain circumstances, standard quantitative research is not appropriate; that is, rather than testing a large population sample from which to make projections, a small sample is preferable, usually related to testing new concepts or deep seated perceptions and perspectives. It is in smaller settings that conversation take place to allow customers the opportunity to express perceptions and perspectives. The results themselves may be used for decision-making or may form the basis for subsequent quantitative research.
LSC principal Lauren Schlau is a trained facilitator, and works with clients to identify the best approach, the types of questions to be asked, the optimal recruitment participants and then analyzes the meanings and applicability of the results. |
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Copyright © 2010 LSC Marketing Research & Strategic Management Consulting. All rights reserved.