As marketers, we want our strategies to be data-driven, efficient, and effective. Research is crucial in ensuring we reach our goals.
In our second episode of “Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing,” Joanna Jones, CEO of Inter-Q Research, gave us tips and tricks to leverage qualitative research in the cybersecurity space.
Jones describes qualitative research as in-person meetings with the purpose of gathering themes and information, through focus group discussions, ethnogroups, or one-on-one interviews.
Given that not all of us will have access to consulting firms, Jones shared some tips on how we can conduct effective research within our own workplaces.
Gather general information from industry reports and your sales team
According to Jones, industry reports serve as a launchpad before delving deeper into primary research. Industry reports can come from specialized reports that you purchase and from conferences.
Important questions to ask the sales team include:
- What are you hearing in the field?
- What are your customers saying?
Get the product team involved
This is an important step because the product team needs to know where the marketers are headed since they are directly involved with what is being sold.
Ask the product team:
- What are the core needs?
- What can you develop around those needs?
Set up optimal Focus Groups
Ten to twelve participants is too big a crowd for focus group discussions. Jones says six to seven participants is the sweet spot so that everyone can be heard. For more technical discussions, smaller groups are even better!
In focus groups, participants have the tendency to avoid being the odd one out. Jones calls this “group bias.” To mitigate that, she suggests recommending that participants write down ideas or answers to questions first. This way, they are not influenced by others’ opinions and just adopt what the person before them said during group discussion.
Avoiding project failure
Breaking down the research stages is key in keeping the project feasible. Jones suggests narrowing down the number of issues to tackle in focus groups discussions to three to four issues. Marketers must avoid doing too much, too soon, in research.
A big thank you to Joanna Jones for arming us with the basics of qualitative research in marketing!
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Hacker Valley Media, or wherever you get your podcasts!
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