The latest Custom Market Research Case Study told how the Printing Industries of America Economic and Market Research team developed, analyzed, troubleshot, and delivered solutions for Magner Sanborn, a full service advertising and brand design agency. Fully aware of the value of big data insights, Magner Sanborn “wanted to leverage their client’s brand, but first they needed to know where they stood in the market,” according to Ed Gleeson, director, Economic and Market Research.
Jill Hulswit can tell you how she and her associates did just that. As account supervisor at Magner Sanborn since 2008, she is responsible for maintaining client relationships and managing projects internally for her company. The goal was to determine the current market awareness of their client’s digital printing technology in the commercial printing industry. Unfamiliar with the industry, they partnered with the Printing Industries of America’s Economic and Market Research team, tapping into their industry expertise to craft a survey relevant to the target market.
What market information did they uncover? How can companies use custom market research from Printing Industries of America to reach their goals? We asked Ms. Hulswit to share her experience.
Q: What was the challenge your company was facing, and what prompted you to contact the Printing Industries of America Economic and Market Research department for a solution?
Jill Hulswit: We needed to gauge levels of awareness and interest about a client brand in order to provide guidance for their 2014 marketing activities and a benchmark to measure against in the future. The client’s market is a very niche, hard-to-reach audience: industrial-commercial press manufacturers. We were on a tight timeline and could not identify or purchase reliable lists of OEM contacts. So we contracted Printing Industries of America to help us with development of a respondent list—plus, we leveraged their services and expertise to code and send the survey, manage response, and deliver crosstabs for our final analysis.
Q: How did you and your researcher, Ed Gleeson work together from the start of the project?
JH: Ed is great. He listened to our needs and the challenges we were facing in this project and helped work through issues with custom solutions. We didn’t have all of the answers at the beginning, because that’s the nature of research—there’s no telling who or how people will respond. But as we ran into hurdles (i.e., super compressed timelines and very low response), Ed worked with us to find solutions and get responses—in some cases, this meant manual work and personally calling qualified respondents. There was never a concern about whether we’d be able to get this job done, it was just a matter of figuring out how. In the end, we got there; Ed delivered enough responses (176) from the right people so that we could provide statistically reliable metrics and analysis to our client.
Q: Can you describe how you worked with your researcher throughout the project? And as a company not directly involved with the printing industry, were there any modifications that had to be made?
JH: Ed was very responsive and easy to work with. Our team developed the survey draft, questions, and quotas. But Ed provided recommendations on copy that helped us to be more in line with industry-speak. Plus, we jointly reworked problematic questions to ensure we would be qualifying only the people we needed while disqualifying the rest.
Ed coded, sent, and managed survey responses, so we didn’t have to worry about these elements. He created a digital dashboard of high-level research highlights so we could check in as necessary and provide the client updates throughout the process.
Some of Printing Industries of America’s research processes and forms varied from what we might typically see, but Ed was able to alter his standard protocol and deliver the results we needed, formatted as requested.
Q: What was the outcome of the research?
JH: The project was successful. The goal was to establish a benchmark for brand awareness and consideration so that, moving forward, we can measure our progress against these metrics. It did that. The client is now more motivated to have an active and visible role in 2014—to build the brand and drive sales.
Q: Would you recommend Custom Market Research services from Printing Industries of America to your peers?
JH: Absolutely. Reliable research is invaluable. And Printing Industries of America was very helpful, accommodating, and easy to work with.
Q: Would you use our services again as a follow-up to this brand awareness project and/or for additional projects?
JH: Yes. However, as the client continues to expand globally, we’ll have to tap into custom international lists and databases.
Want to learn more about how Proprietary Print Market Research Service can help you better leverage your brand? Just contact Ed Gleeson, Director, Economic and Market Research at 800-910-4283, ext. 756 or by clicking here.