The secrets of conducting market research or how to ensure the success of your (future) business: Part 3
How to do market research? You will find the answers in this article, offered to you by the market research agency IntoTheMinds. Find here episode 1 and here episode 2. We completed this series of articles in 2018 with the creation of an online market research guide that you can access free of charge on our website. For any question, request or quote for market research in Belgium, France or elsewhere, do not hesitate to contact...
What you should know about (online) surveys and market research
There is one key message that we repeat again and again to entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs when we coach them: sending an online survey is not doing market research. Market research is far more than that. Yet, this message seems to not to be understood by everyone because business owners, entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs have been polluted for years by biased messages on market research. Many firms proposing solutions of online surveys have relabeled themselves as...
“42” School: why Xavier Niel’s initiative may fail
Non-French people are likely not to know Xavier Niel. He is however a famous tech entrepreneur, a billionaire and the CEO of Free, the telecom company that has been shaking the grounds of telecom competition landscape for years. Xavier Niel declared a war to the three French telecom operators (SFR, Orange and Bouygues) in 2012 when he launched in January its own mobile phone offer starting as low as 2€/month. One year after starting in the...
50% of the firms created in 2006 have died: all the factors influencing firm’s survival
There is a lot of controversy around survival rate of startups. A survival rate of 25% after 7 years is often mentioned although there’s no evidence around it; other authors speak of a 90% survival rate. The discrepancy is so huge that real actual figures are very valuable. Such figures have been published last week by the French statistical institute INSEE (Link to the original source – in French only). In 2006 a total number of...
Thank You Merci
From time to time you meet inspiring people. I have the chance to meet many entrepreneurs coming from very different horizons and with various backgrounds. Although they are all special some of them show world-class expertise and skills. My encounter with Jean-Luc Colonna d’Istria will certainly remain as one of the most inspiring moments of 2013. The marketing director of Merci, the now world-famous concept store of Boulevard Beaumarchais in Paris was kind enough to give...
Find your audience: how to position your research work
As I explained in an earlier post, I was very disappointed to see my research work rejected at this year’s EMAC conference. Fortunately the very same research work was accepted and presented at the 5th International Conference on Rhetoric and Narratives in Management Research. This conference, though more limited in size than the EMAC and its hundreds of participants, gave me a great boost of energy … and hope. I was finally able to find people...
Is the future of online pure players in brick-and-mortar shops?
The question may seem provocative but the reign of pure online strategies may slowly come to an end. Consider the following 53% of all EU retailers are selling through the internet In Ireland, Denmark and the UK, between 88% and 93% of retailers use distance sales channels But distance selling only represents between 5% and 7% of the retail turnover (FTI estimates) Add to this the economic crisis situation, the perception by consumers that transport doesn’t...
4 advices to remember when measuring customer satisfaction
The Heathrow airport has installed devices to measure satisfaction after the security checks. Yet, we think did not get customer satisfaction right. The biggest mistake they did was to put the device too far away from the lane, making it out of reach for most customers. Hence only customers with a good reason will find the motivation (or need) to walk the extra steps to the device to give an input. As a result you see...
Lessons learned on a Design Thinking session: DO’s and DON’T’s
I’m just back from a Design Thinking workshop we organized in Bordeaux (France) for a e-commerce project. The least I can say is it was successful and extremely enriching. We had invited a group of people from different horizons representing the spectrum of the different stakeholders across the value chain. After a day of work new ideas emerged for the different distribution channels we considered during the session. As a sign of how worthwhile this workshop...
Have supermarkets signed their own death warrant ?
The latest stats show that prepared shopping carts tend to help supermarkets sustain their growth. Whereas in France supermarkets (-0.2%), hard discount (-0.4%) and small urban stores (-0.2%) all lost market shares, “drives” gained 1% on the same period. It’s therefore logical that all players propose it. Only for our subscribers: exclusive analyses and marketing advice Email address * Subscribe By signing up, you agree to our Terms of use and privacy policy. "I thought the...
Visit at Stella Cadente shop: well worth a design award
Stella Cadente proves it’s possible to obtain outstanding results with (relatively) little money. We visited their unique store in Paris (opened in April 2012 on 102 Boulevard Beaumarchais) and although it’s relatively small (<50m²) it offers a wonderful experience. We were welcomed by Armand Perrier, the head of communication, who explained us the genesis of the brand and of the store. Stella Cadente is a fashion designer who was also hired for interior design. In her...
One Day One Idea : Aesop’s technique to get customers in the store
On our latest trip to Paris, after we interviewed Merci’s managing director Jean-Luc Colonna d’Istria, we went for a tour in Paris’ trendy area “Le Marais”. One of the stores that caught our attention was Aesop in Rue Vieille du Temple. Aesop is an Australian upper tier brand of cosmetics that you won’t find everywhere (it’s actually one of the two brands to have a corner shop at Merci). As you can on the pictures they...
3 steps to align your online and offline experience with your global brand positioning
Brands sometimes take advantage of their positioning to launch some funny initiatives and propose a funny communication. Yet, when the positioning doesn’t match the communication, it can backfire (remember for instance the example of this bank that we gave a while ago). We already dealt with these aspects here and we would like to give you here another –good- example of how products can carry a touch of fun and be extremely well aligned with your...
What does branding mean? The example of Miss Vicky Wine
Anne-Victoire Monrozier has an interesting entrepreneurial story to tell. Despite having little experience in the wine industry, she built a new wine brand from scratch. How did she succeed and is it really a wine brand? This is what we discussed with her in Brussels in January. Anne-Victoire, ala Miss Vicky, is well known for her blog “Miss Vicky Wine”. She is #26 in ranking of the most influential people in the wine industry. Not bad...
The Wine Business Innovation Summit in Brussels
The Wine Business Innovation Summit (WBIS in short) was organized on Jan 19th in Brussels to gather entrepreneurs and leaders of the wine industry and fuel inspiration among the participants. The least we can say is that it was successful. We were invited to this event back in 2012 a time when the organizers, Jens de Maere and Marc Roisin, were looking for someone to give an inspiring introductory speech. Unfortunately the tight agenda eventually didn’t...
The 7 profiles of social network users
The dynamics of social networks depend on their users. They can be analyzed according to their content creation/consumption profile. There are 7 profiles, which we analyze here. Contact IntoTheMinds research agency The 7 types of social network user Research into the use of social networks generally uses a segmentation such as that proposed by Forrester (see above). This is a practical model for an initial understanding of online behavior. User profile Description Insights Creators Publish blog...
The secrets of market research: how to avoid pitfalls when creating a new venture. Part 2
In our first article of this series of 3 on market research, we dealt with the methodology of market research and with trends and competition analysis. Today we move to the analysis of demand and will go in depth on qualitative and quantitative research. Demand analysis This analysis aims at qualifying and quantifying the demand for your product or service. In other words your goal should be to “see” whether the market wants, needs your...
One Day One Idea : use offbeat humour to sell your stuffs
The marketing idea in brief Sometimes in worthwhile to be “offbeat”, i.e. not to follow the rules (especially the marketing ones). Look for instance at the example of this store I came across while in Barcelona on Passeig de Garcia. Pitty I can’t remember its name. It was just crowdy, full of people looking for the latest gadget to buy in this modern bric-a-brac. Even if you had already everything on earth you’d find something to...
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