PortMA conducted a national online survey in 2014 to help a client update their marketing strategy with their website and other promotional materials. The client was beginning to see a nationwide decrease in their organization’s membership, so they wanted to learn about the attitudes of potential members. Through the research, we not only discovered their current attitude, but identified a new key demographic to promote membership toward.
Measurement Strategy
The client tasked us with consulting on their marketing strategy for 2014. We proposed obtaining 1,200 responses from potential members as a viable sample size in an online survey .
We restricted the sample to individuals between 18 and 40 because this organization caters to mostly young people. Prior research had indicated that individuals above 40 are not likely to join, so the attitudes of those below 40 needed to be captured for the purpose of refining strategy.
In addition to age, we ensured that the responses were geographically dispersed, so that the survey results were not overly reflective of consumer attitudes in a single region of the US.
What were the consumers’ attitudes?
Once we collected the responses, the next step was to identify the consumer attitudes toward the organization.
It’s important to point out that membership in this organization requires periodic, short-term commitments, including time away from family and time off work. This is a primary deterrent to membership those who have families and are acclimated to their careers. However, we discovered that most were not aware of the benefits offered to members.
This identified an opportunity to promote the organization’s benefits regarding career development and financial assistance. The former appeals to those looking to advance in their careers, while the latter appeals to those who could use extra money raising a family.
What did this mean for the marketing strategy?
We discovered that 68% of individuals surveyed would be interested in joining when they understood that membership provided a stipend and retirement benefits. 65% were interested because of career training.
Promoting these two benefits more heavily might increase membership, right? Yes, but only if the benefits are promoted to the right individuals.
We perused the data to identify trends among selected demographics. After some digging, we discovered a potential target prospect: mothers.
A significantly greater percentage of married women with children under 18 in the household were not only interested in those benefits, but they were also more likely to join the organization than any other demographic group (24% vs. 14%).
We recommended to the client that they increase their promotion efforts on their website and other materials on career training and financial benefits, then focus those efforts on appealing to mothers.
This is an example of a market research study that met its established objectives from start to finish, with a clear action plan for the client to follow.
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