If You Can Find Meaning, You Can Message and Position Like a Boss.
It's All About Meaning.
Finding Meaning is an Indirect Process.
- Demographics or firmographics (I can't leave this out or I will get flamed)
- Experience with solving the problems solved by your product or service
- Experience with life when deprived of the "extra" that comes with your product or service
The above requires some thought before creating qualitative interviewing guides or quantitative surveys. For example, if you are offering a medical device, how many of your kind of case have they performed, and how big a deal is it to them? Or for an application, how much time do they spend on their smartphone and how big a part of their life is the medium? Beginning here helps you to sort your audience in accordance with how they are likely to view the problem it solves overall. It may be their life, or a minor afterthought.
The second set of questions are related to their behavior:
- What do they use now and why?
- What did they use before and why don't they use it anymore?
- How complete is their joy in using what they are using now?
This may seem simple, but if you are looking for meaning, you can't accept pat answers here and, more importantly, you must understand the potential answers you may get, even if you are in a qualitative phase of research. This is because when asked a simple question without any redirection, they will offer simple answers, and even experienced interviewers can be sidetracked by a simple answer.
The why's must get back to the most basic human needs. These human needs are the essence of the meaning of your product, and when uncovered and compared with who they are, offer the insight you require to get to meaning. This leads to the third set of questions.
The third set of questions gets to their values:
- How does this basic need compare to others you have?
- What does it mean to you to lack this value relative to others you have?
- Which of these basic needs could be synonymous with what you receive from the product or service?
These values are part of being human, and their hierarchy of importance vary from person to person, and group to group of people. Below is a short list with minimal overlap. Some may argue these can be separated out, and perhaps some can:
- Adventure or Exploration
- Accomplishment or Success
- Beauty or Attractiveness
- Creativity or Originality
- Duty or Responsibility
- Enlightenment or Enrichment
- Community or Oneness
- Justice or Fairness
- Security or Peace
This is not an exhaustive list, but it hopefully offers some insight into the core tiebacks that must be made to understand the meaning of your product or service. Following an initial exercise designed to determine which of these values are potential outcomes of using your product or service (seldom is a product or service only directed toward one of these or all of them), lines of questioning that ladder from the top of mind answers to why they bother to solve a particular problem to which of these values are granted by your product or service can be developed.
For example, the surgeon fulfills his or her career responsibilities with the use of the product on the basic level, and he or she may use a particular product or service to reduce opportunities for uncertain outcomes which provide better predictability concerning their time spent operating. This could mean they would have more time with their families or more time to do more cases. While the time spent in the OR is the same value point, they come to different ends which mean very different things to different audience members and respondent types. For the user of a smartphone app, the basic need is to find out where to eat, and they may use it so they can find what places to eat are new, so they can be part of a group that eats at the newest place in town or so they can experience a new taste or atmosphere to share with their loved one.
As mentioned before, these values are not held in the same esteem equally by everyone. And of course, not all values are addressed by every product or service. But applying this overall approach and thought process can help the astute marketer or product manager get to themes for creative and communications that will really make a more intimate connection with their audience.
Actionable Research delivers meaning.
Interested in finding out the meaning of your product or service to your target audience? Arrange an opportunity to speak with Actionable Research to learn more about how this methodology can apply to your unique research questions.
