How to find out what Scientists really need.
How can marketing make sure that companies are developing the right products to meet the needs of scientists? Developing and positioning products to rapidly gain market share requires marketing to own the customer insight piece at each stage of the product development process.
Market research has a place in uncovering information about customer needs and behaviour but it needs marketing involvement. The best way to find out what customers want is to talk to them directly or at a minimum, listen to them while market researchers are doing the questioning. The power of hearing it “from the horse’s mouth” shouldn’t be underestimated.
It’s sometimes difficult for customers to articulate what they need and a technique that is very powerful to uncover latent need is to do observational research. It’s very interesting if you can get customers to agree to you filming what they’re doing and then sit with them afterwards and play back the video. When you discuss it with them, you can probe each step in their workflow to understand what they do and why they do it that way to identify where their needs are. Scientists are often not conscious of why they do certain steps in a workflow in the way that they do them because it’s part of a protocol or method that they’ve always used. They are often very open when you ask them to reflect on why they do things in a particular way and it produces some enlightening insights.
Focus groups are also another good way to get customer feedback. One of the main advantages is that you can observe how participants interact with each other. There is a lot of value in listening to how they challenge each other and describe their specific usage scenarios and how these differ.
It’s sensible to start with a wide spectrum of possible customers and then narrowing it down to those that are likely to be the biggest users of the product. Avoid only interviewing people who are already customers as they may have a positive bias towards your company and its products. Also include customers of competitor products and some participants who say they would not use the product even though they have an identified need, to get truly critical feedback on the product concept.
This article is an extract from a podcast on Life Science Marketing Radio. You can listen to the full discussion between Chris Connor and Marina Hop by clicking on the link.
