In these uncertain times, it’s only natural to want to make decisions based on facts rather than gut instincts.
What truly resonates with your target audience, what developments and solutions do they envision? What products and brands are they using? Where and how are they sourcing their goods? What do they expect from wholesalers and brand manufacturers? Where do they get their information and what platforms do they actively use? In other words, how and where can you target your audience? In our previous blog on research, you can find 7 good reasons to do market research.
When it comes to research, you have come to the right place with us. Did you know we have been active in foodservice research since 2016 and have had a professional panel in place for over 20 years?
In the Netherlands and Belgium, we have our own panel of over 13,000 members dedicated to quantitative and qualitative research. Read more about our Professional Community (in Dutch) here.
Tailor made research
Looking to take more of a deep dive in your category? Want to know what drives your target audience? To know your target audience’s decision tree for your category, brand awareness or experience? Interested in understanding your brand distribution? Or is your company or brand in a market other than foodservice? Or perhaps you want to do research throughout Europe? We can help you with that, too.
We work together with you to explore the questions you want answers to and establish the right approach to research. Whether this involves in-depth interviews or online research, we make sure you ask your target audience the right questions using the best possible method. Of course, we also create a clear and comprehensive report including graphs and the key conclusions.
And what happens once you’ve got the results? We then help translate that into your activation, category or account plan so you can achieve greater success in the food B2B market.
Why does GROUP7 conduct research?
All of our trajectories are based on three steps: Insight – Direction – Action.
We start with insight. To truly understand the situation, you have to do research and data analysis. We use existing research from the Professional Community or conduct tailor made research. This can range from in-depth interviews with your target audience, from chefs and bakers, to key accounts or buyers at wholesalers.
We then use this insight in our persona and customer journey processes to make your company, brand or product more visible and easier to find, with the ultimate goal of achieving higher conversion rates by putting the right digital tools and budgets to work.
Read more about our persona and customer journey process.
What do our tailor made research projects involve?
Step 1: Defining the issue
Before we ever present you with a proposal, we first sit down with you and ask ourselves the following questions:
- What do we really want to know?
- What target group are we looking to discuss, who is our focus for the research?
- Who is the customer?
- What customer issue are we looking to address?
- Ask yourself the questions before you start to (re)search: 5x why?
- We look at the issue from multiple perspectives.
Step 2: Don’t research what you already know
Start by looking at all the information already available to you. This is data you won’t actually need to research, or that can provide you with hypotheses to explore. This could include information such as wholesale data, market data, google analytics, campaign statistics or previous reports from quantitative or qualitative research.
Step 3: What critical information are you missing?
We use a work session according to the size of the trajectory and the question. What do you know and what do you not yet know? What assumptions are you making?
Use the assumption matrix as a tool to help you categorise all the pieces of the puzzle.
- What do we want to know?
- What important information is not yet known?
- How will we go about exploring these information gaps?
Step 4: The research proposal
We then present you with a proposal that corresponds exactly to your research needs and target audience. This can involve qualitative or quantitative research. Or both depending on your demands and needs.
Step 5: Conducting the research
Comprehensive qualitative interviews on location or digitally
Qualitative research allows you to gain insight into topics where there is little existing knowledge and where you truly want to go in-depth with your target audience. Here, we take a look at several important aspects. What are the drivers, values and needs of your target audience?
Qualitative research provides deeper insight into your category or a new concept you want to test, for example. This is how we find out what the biggest barriers are (pains) and what brings them peace of mind (gains)?
Quantitative research online
You are looking to do quantitative research in order to validate your qualitative insight or for numbers-based distribution aspects such as brand awareness, ordering behaviour, usage, etc.
How does that work with us?
- We work together with you to draft the questionnaire, which we then programme, test and translate if necessary.
- The respondents receive an email invitation to participate and complete the questionnaire, which should take a maximum of 8 minutes, including 2 open-ended questions and other multiple-choice questions. Images or videos can also be added to the online questionnaire to ask questions about a concept.
Step 6: Analysis and report
After the survey has been completed, we start the analysis and report process. We create a logical structure for the report that provides you with answers to your issue and often even more. We use text and graphics in the report that you can instantly use in your presentations. We also draw the main conclusions and provide advice.
Step 7: And action!
One thing we certainly don’t want at GROUP7 is for a report to just get lost in a drawer. We present the results to you and your team and transform this advice into concrete actions and next steps. This will help you get the most out of the data and research and achieve success faster.
Maybe you are curious about the budget you’ll need to set aside for this? We start from 2900 euros and above, depending on your budget as well as the complexity and size of your research question.
Want to know more? Would you like to chat further? Then please contact Carolien Plevier.
Email: Carolien.plevier@group7.eu
Telephone: +31 (0)6 10 88 70 40
Contact us for more information or to plan an appointment.