We take pride in delivering actionable insights, not just observations, to our clients. Sometimes this is easier said than done. There are times the experiential marketing data tells a story, but we don’t understand why it is telling us what it is telling us. When that happens, we conduct secondary research by delving into third-party explanations of similar experiences. That additional information can help us to give our clients a likely explanation for the peculiarity we are witnessing.
It’s important to use authoritative sources that have clearly attributed information. (We do not consider Wikipedia an authoritative source). We never want to present unsubstantiated information. Million-dollar decisions may be based on our reporting, so we want to be 100% confident that we are steering our clients in the right direction.
Secondary experiential marketing resources can come from a variety of places.
I subscribe to several newsletters for industries about which I report (insurance, tourism, spirits, etc.) The information can be hit or miss, but sometimes I find a real gem. For example, I read an insurance industry newsletter that specifically mentioned experiential marketing and its impact on consumer perceptions. I was able to use the information in that newsletter to demonstrate that the program I was measuring had an even greater impact than originally thought.
Books and reports are often available from other research companies. Purchasing these can be expensive, so it’s important to know ahead of time that the value derived from these resources will be greater than the cost. These professional resources help me understand specific industries in much more depth. They help me to better understand why we are seeing what appeared to be a peculiarity and how to present data with a crystal clear explanation. They also provide benchmarks that help to demonstrate performance more effectively.
Sometimes a Google search leads me to exactly what I need. I’ve hit some serious home runs with this type of research. I was writing a flash report for a tourism program, when I saw “intent to take a vacation” to a particular state was significantly lower in Colorado than anywhere else. I did a Google search of “Colorado residents’ vacation perceptions and habits.” I discovered that people who live in Colorado prefer to vacation within Colorado because they feel that it has everything they want. That information really helped to build a better story.
Searching secondary experiential marketing resources will take extra time.
That’s a fact. Maybe that’s why it’s called re-search. The search for in-depth understanding does not stop with initial discovery. Digging deeper requires more than searching. It requires re-searching. The extra time spent re-searching is well worth it, if I can help a client gain deeper insights into the experiential marketing experience results.
Photo Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkdenver/