1. Syndicated research results available for purchase covering you and your markets
2. Tracking data from your POS or other sales records
3. Customer transaction data
4. Employee, customer, and supplier comments and gossip
5. Original research you design tracking customer satisfaction and use of competitors.

• Strategic Information tells you the likely return on an investment to more advertising and which markets to target or re-target with new media partners.

• Tactical Information focuses on the design, execution, and evaluation of media, cross promotions with partners, along with your direct mail and other one-on-one marketing programs aimed at new, VIP, and lost customers.

Media and promotion tracking are critical.

• You need to know if media partners and promotion programs are delivering new business or whether programs are reaching the same people year in and year out who are now tending to be less responsive.

• If you are using advertising to drive customers to your web site, you need to understand the differences within your current customer base and your target markets between those who do and do not actively use the Internet.   Do these segments use the same or different media?   Are their lifestyles similar or different and what is the implication for how you use marketing partners?   And it can sometimes be more useful to simply drop them a line via old fashion direct mail.   (We can help with target market lists matched to your needs.)
  

Your days as a brash competitor may have passed so that today you're the entrenched market leader dominating the market.   To stay ahead of the competition you need to stay on top of needed competitive changes to your business model:   everything from merchandising to after sale service.  Ask your customers, suppliers, and employees where they see the market going.  They'll tell you.  Cwi Associates can help.  For example:

• Various companies produce and sell survey research data covering major metro areas.   Through regular surveys, consumers report their interests, favorite stores and brands, and market specific media habits.   The data allows us to predict the reach of your advertising before you spend a dime.   The data is not expensive.   NEVER rely on your media partner for correct data on how well they reach your target market.

• Your internal files can gauge customer "churn" and the rate at which you need to replace customers who move or drop out of your category.   And your internal files created by the POS system can help you track your advertising and your promotions.   Use this data to see if new customers were attracted, old ones rejuvenated, or whether you simply gave away revenue in the interest of traffic.

• But you need to stay focused on the overall market. Even though you're growing, your market share might in fact be dropping.   You need to monitor the overall growth and change in the market by market segment.   And if the market is decaying, you need to know that as well so you can take corrective action.
  

• If you are losing customers or losing pieces of their business, you need to know why. The best way to find out is to ask your sales force and your customers directly.   So don't forget the old fashioned comment card.   And use e-mail after the sale to ask customers "how are we doing?".

  You can easily use the Internet as part of a more formal research program.   Collect information from your own customers using a questionnaire they complete and return via e-mail and the Internet.  The returned "surveys" can be received so that a data base of responses is automatically created, thus eliminating data entry expense.  But if you don't know the questions you should be asking or how to ask them correctly, then you're efforts may not pay off.   Contact us for help in pulling it together for you.

• It's always helpful to "mystery shop" your competitors.  And the Internet can help. Since your competitor's also have web sites, you can use the Internet to stay on top of what they are doing and offering, including their pricing. And there are lots of "free" sources of information relevant to your markets.

• If your focus is e-commerce, see E-Commerce Done Right for a quick review of how you can use transaction tracking at your web site to identify best customers, track the programs that worked to bring them to your web site and more.

• But even in this digital age, businesses still need to take advantage of the information they get simply from talking to suppliers and customers, including good old fashioned gossip and consumer opinion.

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