There isn’t a marketer out there who hasn’t at one time or another questioned whether he or she was putting the right messages into the market. After all it is all about how and what we communicate. This is true regardless if we are in acquisition mode or focusing on customer retention techniques. Those of us in B2B marketing research know this all too well.

Well then how can we test our value propositions, taglines, and various other messaging points? If you have access to databases (customers and prospects), an online survey platform, and the ear of your creative team then you are good to go. The tools currently available to market researchers allow us to effectively test numerous variations of written copy, visuals and/or audio. What used to take rooms full of people can now be done quickly, discreetly (we don’t want our competitors to catch wind), and with a reasonable budget. With this said there are a few things we need to have lined up.

First, we have to know whom we want to speak to. This question is always at the heart of any customer insights research. If your market is segmented, then it is reasonable to expect that different messages will generate different responses across your segments. For example, if you are involved in higher education marketing then you may have one set of messages for parents of prospective students, one slate for prospective first-time traditional students, one for alumni, and another for potential evening MBA students. Know your audiences and develop a slate for each segment to vote on.

Which leads us to the next point; if you have a viable marketing database then you can pull names from that. If not, or if you wish to include a perspective outside of your house files then you can acquire sample. This can be a very effective method for reaching out to key sub-populations, e.g. business executives, parents with school-age children, prospects within a specific geographic area, etc.

Which leads to the final point; how do we present the questions in the context of our questionnaire design? There are multiple ways from simple ranking procedures (e.g. please rank these five statements for their appropriateness to Acme, Inc.) to more complex methods such as Max-Diff. Although more complex, this procedure produces metric data which can be used as a basis for market segmentation. One alternative is to create a multiple response question (e.g. select any or all statements that apply to Papa Joe’s Pizza) and then follow with a question which asks them to select their most preferred statement. This can be accomplished with simple logic and masking.

Why speak, unless you know the right thing to say!