In our fast changing markets, many marketing strategists say they don’t have enough information about how and why customers purchase from their category…  and that makes it hard to build powerful brands.

The following three Jen Hartt market research tips tell how you can uncover insights from the hearts and minds of your consumers.

• The first way is to flesh out the contextual background influencing your consumers’ behaviors (hint: you won’t surface this rich information by asking “why?”)
  Start with curiosity, intense curiosity, and mix in circular questioning that shelves the word why and instead asks:
  – Where were you when you bought product A?
  – What else was happening then?  Who was with you?
  – What did they think about you choosing A?
  And so on as you follow the emotional energy of your respondents.
• The second way is to draw on multiple projective techniques to surface the real reasons, the non-rational Heart reasons why we buy what we do.
  
• The third way is to use laddering techniques to identify the hidden emotional benefits that drive choice.
  How laddering can get at a brand’s essence –
  E.g., What happens when a client chooses Hartt and Mind to elicit emotional end-benefits?