Kim Burkhardt's Blog, page 3

Four business lessons I’ve learned while doing photography

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Building something spectacular takes work (I spent a lot of time learning to do photography before taking this photo at Ireland’s Galway Cathedral)

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It’s takes patience and planning to get exactly the right timing (I took this photo of a plane flying past an afternoon moon).

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Taking a break allows one to come back with a fresh perspective (photo: Green Lake, Seattle, Washington)

 

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Libraries are beautiful civic resources (this library-over-the-river is in Renton, Washington)

 

Kim Burkhardt is a market research consultant and photographer.

 

Four business lessons I’ve learned while doing animal photography

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Find every opportunity to bask in the sunlight (yes, in fact, I did take all these photos)

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When you are dealt lemons, make lemonade

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Sometimes, it’s best to partner up with a team player to get a job done.

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Wear the team jersey and “play the game.”

 

Kim Burkhardt is a market research consultant and photographer.

New Year, Market Research, Be Competitive

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Does your new years’ resolution involve understanding more about a particular aspect of your firm’s market environment?  Understanding your market context is critical for positioning your firm for competitive advantage.

Quality market research matters.  It is critical for improving your marketing strategy.  Burkhardt & Co. can deliver insight into:

Competitive environment.   Identify the marketing position – and planned direction – of your brand competitors, product competitors, generic competitors, and “total budget” competitors.
Industry dynamics.   How much do you know about the forces impacting your industry?
Market size.  How much do you know about the size and composition of your industry?
Industry trends.   What’s happening in your industry that will affect your ability to compete in the next three years, five years, ten years?
Market and environmental forces.   Economic, political, legal, regulatory, technological, and cultural forces impact industry.  How will emerging trends within these forces will impact your business over the next several years?

Burkhardt & Co.  delivers market research insight into these environmental factors so you can enhance a successful and competitive market strategy.  Contact us for more information.

Brand positioning & competitive intelligence. How is your firm doing?

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How well is your firm competitively communicating brand value – at multiple levels – to current and potential customers?

When I work with clients to comparatively assess their competitors (competitive intelligence) regarding market positioning, it’s most natural to think of “direct competitors” – brand competitors and product competitors.  Really, though, firms need to be able to position and market themselves in reference to all types of competitive forces.

Your potential customers – when considering whether to do business with you – are ranking you withing their total spending budget.   Competitive intelligence is a valuable positioning tool in this regard.  When I taught college-level marketing courses, I taught students about competition at all of marketing’s four levels:

Brand competitors

The most direct type of competition.  When car buyers purchase vehicles, they choose between a Mercedes Benz or a BMW, a Honda Civic versus a Toyota Corolla.

Product competitors

Vehicle buyers choose between a sports car versus an SUV or a sedan – any type of personal transport vehicle. 

Generic competitors

Transportation competitors – personal vehicle versus joining a car share program, using ride shares or taxis, buying a bicycle, or taking public transit.

Total budget competitors

Total  budget competitors are every company that sells something your customers buy – vehicles, health insurance, holidays, you name it. 

 

Your potential customers have a “total spending budget” for all their expenditures.  When thinking of all the things they could purchase and whether they should spend a portion of their budget on your product or services, how are you communicating your value to customers within each of the four categories above?   Communicate why your product or service needs to be prioritized within customer budgets.  If you need to look more closely at this topic, consider bringing me on board for your assessment.

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Kim Burkhardt “wrote the book” on competitive intelligence (Competitive Intelligence Workbook). Contact me at Burkhardt & Co. for your competitive intelligence and market research projects.

Reflections on Business Communication

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Communication in business is a theme that impacts business at all levels.

I speak to this as the author of Competitive Intelligence Workbook (2001) and a 2008 article entitled “Self-Marketing: Getting Personal About Professional Success” and as an occasional marketing instructor.

When I taught undergraduate and graduate-level marketing courses, I taught students that the major theme of “marketing and promotions” is essentially about how businesses engage with customers to sell their products/services and manage customer relationships.

On a personal level, what and how we communicate in business meaningfully impacts the outcomes of our personal goals & interactions and the businesses in which we are involved.  Sheryl Sandberg, for example, very publicly made the point in recent years that women often stimy career success by not using a communication style she calls “leaning in” (see her book, Lean In).

I recently expanded of my 2008 article, “Self Marketing: Getting Personal About Professional Success” with a new article: “Agents of Success: Moving Forward Professionally.” The whole topic of how we present ourselves at work – particularly how we communicate – is so critical to professional advancement that it deserves further attention.  My new updated publication retains the original “how to” formula on how to apply the principles of business marketing to personal communications – in ways that promote increased personal success – and adds new narrative commentary on the dynamics of communication styles and what lies behind our communication-style choices (for example, discussion on the misguided aversion to “self promote”).  Order now!

Praise for “Agents of Success: Moving Forward Professionally”:

“Women make great advocates… for everyone except themselves.  If it’s time to re-write your script and promote the brand called “you”, this article has great tools and tips to help you move forward.”  Lois P. Frankel, Ph.D., author of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office

“Excellent reality check for getting a leg up in the competitive hiring environment we must all navigate.  Without awareness of our strengths and weaknesses, how can we inform others of what we can, or cannot do, for them?”  Jerry Arnold, aerospace engineer

About Kim Burkhardt


Kim Burkhardt, MBA is a market research and business development consultant.  Find more information at Burkhardt & Co.

Writers: Publishing and Marketing

I’ve discovered, while participating in writer’s groups, that new and emerging writers often have questions about getting published and how to develop a readership who will buy their books.  I’m sharing some of my knowledge and experience here.  This knowledge and experience comes from being a “sometimes writer,” having had to overcome certain idiosyncrasies myself, and from having taught marketing courses.

Check back occasionally for updates, edits, etc.

For starters, being a good writer and a good promoter are not separate qualities or behaviors.  In fact, they aren’t even opposite sides of the same coin.  Some people – perhaps introverts most often – have a romantic notion that being a “writer” is a singularly solitary activity that doesn’t require engaging with other people.  Not so.  Being a writer requires having readers.  Writing – unless it’s in the form of a personal diary, a shopping list, or a bookkeeping ledger for a small self-employment operation – is generally meant to be read.  Potential readers don’t know that your writing is available to be read just because you wrote it.  There’s no accidental serendipity that happens between writers and readers just because one wishes it so.  You, as the writer, have to make it so.  Your readers don’t know you exist – nor do they know where to find you – until you tell them.  Which means you need to find your readers and get the word to them that you have words to be read.  And cultivate a relationship with those readers.  Otherwise, your written words will be – and remain – very lonely words whose pages are only visited by, well, you.  The authors of lonely words are likewise lonely – and unpaid.  Therefore a good writer isn’t just one who knows how to write; a good writer is also a writer who believes enough in their own writing to get their writing into the hands of readers.  A good writer is, or becomes, a good marketer.

Now, for specific tips on being a book author self-marketer:

Tip #1: If you don’t believe enough in your own writing to promote it, why should anyone else believe that your writing is worth even reading – let alone promoting?  You can’t depend on a publisher to do your marketing, although the larger publishing houses will do some of your marketing.  First of all, you typically have to market your writing to get a publisher to accept you (lucky the few who are asked to write).  Then, even publishers expect you to participate in the marketing process.
Tip #2: You can’t start promoting today and have readers tomorrow.  Even in the digital age with insta-websites and insta-blogs, one can expect it to take ~two weeks for search engines to find and cache your website or blog!  Then there’s the time it takes for people to string together a search query that will connect them to your site.  Start marketing your book a few months before it’s ready to be published.  If you don’t already have built-in access to your target market, start developing access to your market even earlier.
Tip #3: You know how to write; apply that communication ability to written and spoken marketing.  You like what you’ve written, but that doesn’t mean that anyone else automatically knows of your writing or knows what it is that makes your writing worth reading.  Being witty and creative helps, of course, when you market your written material.  But only if “witty and creative” are “icing” that you put on the cake.  The basic ingredient of the “marketing cake mix” is this: “Here’s what I’m writing about” (be clear and specific) and here’s why YOU (the reader) are going to want to read it (not “here’s why I want you to read it”).  If you’d like to explore this further, pick up two basic primers at your local library and study them: a journalists’ how-to-book (how to cover the basics of a story – who, what, when, why, where) and a marketer’s tool-kit (what’s your product, who’s your market, and how do you communicate your product – i.e., writing – to your target market in ways that matter to THEM. “They,” after all, are the ones who will be PAYING to read your book!).
Tip #4: Who is your target audience?  You need to fully understand this so you can plan a marketing campaign that reaches your book buying audience.  Hardware stores and athletic gear shops aren’t the best place to sell Harry Potter books.  J.K. Rowling spent her time connecting with CHILDREN (although adults certainly joined in).  Clearly define which demographic groups are going to be interested in your topic. Then, set out to connect with that audience wherever they congregate.  If you are writing about fishing strategy, a fishing store might be a good place to arrange an “author event.” Since I wrote this tip when I was writing a book about my Irish great-great grandmother who was born in 1863, for example, I reached out to genealogical groups to interact with them.  I also provide two types of informational pages on my blog to interest potential readers: a page about the biographies of women born between 1700 – 1900 and a page with useful genealogy links in Ireland to help readers of Irish descent (giving them additional sources of info of interest to them generates good will).  I was careful to sprinkle relevant vocabulary throughout my blog that would help my most likely readers find my blog, thus helping them to find  my book.
Tip #5: You can’t just do one book promotion and then wait for readers to show up. One of the basic principles taught in marketing courses is that most customers don’t buy something the first time they hear about it.  The first time they hear about something typically serves as “awareness building” (“oh, this product exists”).  Subsequent marketing efforts (i.e., “touches” – meaning marketing efforts that reach a customer) then work to further interest an individual book buyer in your book.  So if you advertise so little that a potential book buyer only ever sees one advertisement for your book on one occasion, the only buyers you’re likely to get are “serious/avid readers.”  Plus, not every potential book buyer is going to see any one ad or promotion that you do – it takes multiple marketing efforts to reach potential readers (an author event in Los Angeles won’t reach potential buyers in Chicago, an online ad on Facebook or an online book club such as Goodreads will only reach people who have accounts with Facebook or Goodreads, etc.). Most people have to be “touched” two to five times before they make a purchase – meaning some combination of “seeing two advertisements,” hearing about the book from word of mouth, seeing or hearing a book review done about the book, seeing it on the shelf at the library, hearing about it on the radio, etc. and etc. That principle is somewhat less true with book buyers than for other products; book buyers are more likely to buy books from word of mouth or hearing it mentioned on NPR, but there’s still some truth to the idea of needing to reach general readers more than once.  If you’d like specific instructions on individual book marketing activities (author events, media publicity, etc.), one option would be to read the book titled The Frugal Book Promoter (no, I’m not the author!).
Tip #6:  Coordinate your marketing efforts for maximum combined effect.    If you reach potential book buyers several time in a short time period, that reinforces their thinking about your book (“Oh yes, I saw an ad last week about that book.   Maybe it’s interesting.”).  If you are going to do an author event at a local bookstore or library, put up flyers in advance so people know about your event.  Combine any advertising to coincide with your author event in an effort to reach potential readers twice (an interview with a local radio station, a book review in your local newspaper, a Facebook ad targeted to reach people in your city, etc.).
Tip #7: Tit for tat.  If you want local bookstores to be nice to you and carry your book, be nice to them.  The book store market is tough these days.  Online book sales are cutting into sales at bricks-and-mortars bookstores and those book stores are feeling the pinch.  How are they going to sell books if few people go into their stores?  That, of course, includes the increased difficulty of a bricks-and-mortar bookstore selling your book.  So, go in and BUY books at your local bookstore.  You are helping them AND helping another author.  They”ll notice.  That will matter when you want to sell your book.

Want an example of how to create a well-developed advertisement for a book?  There are many venues, of course for promoting your book, as mentioned above (author events, advertisements, book reviews, etc.).  Here is an example on developing a Facebook advertisement for a book: 

When you create a Facebook ad (which requires setting up an advertiser account), set up your ad to reach your book’s intended audience.  Facebook has features that allow you to target your audience in very specific ways. You can specify which countries to advertise in so that the ad only appears on the timeline of people with accounts based in that country. You can further specify your audience by various demographics: age, gender, Facebook behaviors (for example, only show the ad to people who shop online), etc.  Target your advertisement to the types of people who are most likely to read your book. Which means, of course, that you have to think ahead of time who your audience is (advertisements for Harry Potter books would be targeted to children, books on gardening would advertised to homeowners, etc.).  While this targeting strategy won’t allow you to reach every possible book buyer, it has the effect of reaching ONLY potential book buyers.  If you have written a book on a gardening for gardeners who live in northern climates, there’s no point running a general Facebook ad that runs nationally to everyone – that ad may get shown to teenagers living in Florida instead of adult homeowners living in northern states.  Also, there’s a little-known feature in Facebook advertising that allows you to reach specific audiences. You can specify that your ad ONLY be shown to people who already “like” a certain Facebook page.   If you have written a book about the history of rock music, run your Facebook ad to only be shown to Facebook users who are over the age of 40 who have liked the Facebook page for a popular rock musician (Rolling Stones, Elton John, etc.). Yes, you can be that specific in your ads. Facebook won’t tell you the names of who will see advertisements, but you can certainly be that specific about the demographics of which groups of people will see your advertisements).  Finally, think about what day and time to run your advertisement. You choose that when you set up your Facebook advertisement.  If you have written a book about Christian spirituality, Sunday morning at 10:00 am would be bad time to run your Facebook advertisement because your potential book buyers are going to be at church – which means that they won’t be on Facebook at the time of day when your ad is running.   Finally, take into consideration whether Facebook is the right place to even reach your audience.   I once was asked to help set up a website to sell a product to a particular demographic audience.  I told the potential client that setting up a website wasn’t a good move because people buying his particular product were unlikely to have internet access – which means they would never visit his website.  In his case, in person sales was most likely to be an effective sales strategy.   Are your potential readers likely to be on Facebook?  Many people are on Facebook, but not everyone.  If you’ve written a children’s book for ten-year-olds, they won’t be on Facebook since Facebook restricts their service to people aged thirteen or older.  However, the parents of ten-year-olds may see your Facebook ad.  In that instance, you might run a Facebook ad designed to inform parents about why they would want to buy your book for their children – which would be an ad written differently than an advertisement designed for a ten-year-old child.

“Discovering DNA in Old Books”

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An article in The Atlantic opens up “The Lab Discovering DNA in Old Books.”  Great read.  Here’s the article: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/02/dna-books-artifacts/582814/?fbclid=IwAR0Rf3uU-zg3JBufGucKZfMT3DS6mXQ1-81YJ24qADO59Ht6MK19UGZNTSw

This would be amazing to be part of.  As an analogy, I enjoy doing competitive intelligence and market research consulting as I spend my time methodically finding useful, relevant data and connecting-the-dots.

Market research, developmental stages – my two favorites

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I posted recently that in terms of using market research to understand market dynamics, there are four types of market research – exploratory, descriptive, explanatory, and predictive/casual research.  For an introductory description of each type, see that blog post .

Each has its’ interesting facets.  I do all four as required for individual clients.   All four are meant to shed light (insight) – like the light shown in this photo that I took recently.

My two favorite types of market research are exploratory research and predictive research.  When market disruptions occur, for example, exploratory research can be done to understand what’s emerging – sometimes providing market leadership opportunities.  Also, working with clients to explore something they don’t understand – whether it’s a new market or something else – results in them being more able to make capable business decisions.   Providing clients with research-driven exploratory insight can be gratifying as it can guide improved business planning.   On another hand, predictive research is when creative juices really flow – conducting both research and analysis to “connect the dots” of how to move forward to bring about specific results.

Contact me for your market research needs.

Identifying market research needs

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What type of market research will take your business projects to the next level?  There are four types of research studies:

Exploratory Research: Exploratory research is conducted to help define or articulate the basic parameters of a problem.
Descriptive Research: Once the basic parameters of a problem or need has been identified, descriptive research may be necessary to further describe the particular parameters or dynamics of the problem or need – who, what, when, and where.
Explanatory Research: Explanatory research defines “how or why” something is happening.  For example, “A + B = C” or “X is causing Y.”
Predictive or Casual Research: Predictive/casual research seeks to identify how to accomplish something. For example, what is the casual relationship that will get us from where we are to where we want to go (from Point A to Point B)?

Contact me for your market research projects.

Market Research Process

Segment from my recently re-published book, Competitive Intelligence Workbook.  For more information about Competitive Intelligence Workbook (including order information), visit my website.

 

RESEARCH PROCESS

An underlying process is common to all types of media and business research:

 

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Step One – Identification of Problem or Need

The research process begins by defining the problem to solve, the need to address, and/or the idea to develop.  Clear identification of what you hope to accomplish and the depth of understanding involved in problem identification is half the research battle, as this will dictate the direction of your research and subsequent analysis.  How you frame the question(s) for research and analysis determines whether the actual problems you face will be addressed or whether you risk doing really great research on the wrong subject.  This concept of problem identification can seem deceptively simple (sometimes it is straightforward!), but many case studies have been built around people and organizations who set out to research or solve a problem without getting at the core issue.  Research into how to produce more widgets won’t help a company that doesn’t need more widgets.

 

Step Two – Select and Design of Research Plan

Who needs to know the information?  How will the information be used?  How can we measure whether our research results solve the problem we are trying to address?

Once a purpose for research has been clearly defined in step one, it is time to select and develop a research plan.  Many approaches to research exist; an approach appropriate to the problem at hand must be selected.  The appropriate form of research, depending upon what needs to be known or solved, can include one or more of the following: general information gathering (i.e., make a few phone calls, obtaining existing reports or market data, etc.), market studies (studying a particular market issue or set of issues), market or consumer research (surveys, focus groups, etc), competitive intelligence (study the activities of competing firms), operations research (statistical modeling, performance analysis, etc.), or ????

Once an appropriate form of research has been identified, develop a tailored research plan based upon the research format selected.  A selected format will need to be tailored around some of the questions from step one of the research process: Who needs to know the information?  How will the information be used?  How can we measure whether our research results solve the problem we are trying to address?

 

Step Three – Data Collection

You have identified what needs to be solved or looked into.  You have developed a research plan appropriate for the defined problem.  You can now begin conducting the research by gathering data – interviewing market research respondents, etc.  The type of data sought and obtained will be determined by what you need to know and by the research methodology chosen.  If you are doing telephone surveys, data collection involves gathering survey responses by contacting the type – and quantity – of respondents chosen for the study.  If your study requires that you choose between two or more options (for example, relocate your company to City A, City B, or City C), you must gather relevant data that will help you make a decision.  If you need to fix an internal departmental problem…….. Information sources and areas of researcher expertise required for each type of research will be addressed in the chapters dedicated to each type of topical research.

Step Four – Data Analysis/Interpretation

Once data has been collected, you can move into the full process of data analysis and interpretation.  What does the data reveal about your question and/or problem under investigation?  Are there analytical models utilized for this type of research (SWOT analysis for competitive intelligence, for example)?  If you had any estimates of what would be revealed by the research, are your estimates confirmed or disproven by the actual data collected?  What do you think the company should do based on the results of the research (direct the consumer marketing in a certain direction, increase production, redirect strategic planning, etc)?  Who will need this data?  Project results need to be looked at, understood, and – most important – utilized.

Step Five – Preparation and Presentation of Results

Step five of the research process is the preparation and presentation of your report/recommendations.  In small firms, the researcher and the information user may be the same person.  If you are conducting research for your own use, you will want to organize your research results for your own ease of use and for future reference.  In larger companies, the researcher(s) and the end users are often different people.  If you are conducting research for someone else (a client, a supervisor, or another department), prepare reports tailored to the needs recipients – and in the format they desire.

Tabulated data will have been handled at the end of the research process; you may now need to adapt the tabulated results for use by various recipients (briefings, full reports, and varied reports/recommendations).  You will be in a position to provide varying levels of analysis and recommendations based upon the relationship you have with the people awaiting your report.

Use your report to cover the following: the type of research conducted, its’ purpose/application, project results, recommendations (as appropriate), and any suggestions for follow-up research (perhaps the first round of research identified additional issues that need to be addressed).  Organize written reports using accepted industry standards.  Sample reports – such as those provided in my early book entitled Competitive Intelligence Workbook – are found in the chapters devoted to specific types of research.

The effectiveness of your report will be measured in how – or how well – it gets utilized (step six).  Whether your research gets utilized will be determined in part by how well you present the results of your efforts.  Work to present your results in a manner that will be well received by respondents – clear, concise, and logically presented.  In your report, include only information that is relevant to the recipient.  Communicate directly, assertively, and accurately.  Communicate the actual results of the project to your client – whether the results “prove” or “disprove” what your client was hoping to learn.  Real research will be presented accurately, even if it disproves a pet theory of the client.

Step Six – Utilization of Research

Utilization of data (step six) is critical in research.  We’ve all heard stories of research conducted but never used.  Common reasons for lack of use include “it got lost in the bureaucracy,” it conflicted with the interests of someone in the company, there’s no budget for implementation, and – worst of all from the researcher’s perspective – the researchers fail to demonstrate how the research is relevant for the firm (the research may be interesting-only and/or have an application that needs to be explained).  In order to justify conducting research the research results should have some kind of tangible – and well articulated – application.  Improving a process, increasing the understanding of a problem, and the identification of new market opportunities are examples of tangible applications for research.  If you are the person reporting the results of research, articulate the results AND THEIR APPLICATION in a way that will be effectively received by recipients.  This often impacts the degree to which your research will be used to benefit the firm.  If you are reporting to management, present your report in a way that will be relevant for them (while something may seem obvious to the person(s) conducting research, you may have to spell it out to recipients who are working from their own point of view).  If charts and graphs will help, use them.  If certain communication styles are helpful, use those styles (clear and logical thinking, direct communication, aggressive statements/recommendations, etc.).  Work to get your research in front of decision makers.

Step Seven – Perpetuate Research Cycle

Finally, feed the results of your research back into the research process.  Some research may only have a one-time application (give example), but there are many instances when a research study is part of a larger process.  The larger process can be part of both a larger research process and/or part of a corporate/operations process.  Some forms of research are ongoing (i.e., tracking sales trends and demographic shifts, #, #, etc.).  Alternately, a given research process can be utilized by a corporate or operations process that management will want to study later, that could be duplicated in another part of the firm (benchmarking), or that may need periodic refinement.  In those instances, people will want research reports to understand how decisions were made and they may wish to periodically update your current research.  Further, a current research project (short-term) may fit into a larger (i.e., ongoing or recurring) research process.  You’ll want to ensure that the current work gets plugged in appropriately to the long-term process (feed in results, etc.).  This is not meant to suggest that research should continue simply for the sake of research; rather, an effort should be made to apply current knowledge to future research needs (separate sentence: Current knowledge/research results need to be saved in a format that can be accessed and utilized by the company in the future – reports, electronic data, etc.).

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This is a segment from my recently re-published book, Competitive Intelligence Workbook.  For more information about Competitive Intelligence Workbook (including order information), visit my website.

© Copyright, Competitive Intelligence Workbook.  Kim Burkhardt