Tracking for Modern Day Decision Making
Tracking’s role in a company’s fast-tempo, 21st century decision-making.
Be honest. How many of your colleagues are champing at the bit to attend the latest brand and communications tracking presentation? Or clamour for the latest results over the water cooler? We know. We feel your pain.
There are plenty of complaints about tracking studies, not least that the presentations are long, tedious and dominated by flatline charts – one potential client told us that their last presentation consisted of no less than 186 charts, many of which they didn’t understand.
If being power-pointed to the edge of despair isn’t tough enough, results are backward-looking and often come after you can do anything about them.
This can all leave you in a quandary: you have the data, you know what the customers are thinking, but you’re none the wiser about how that information can make a positive impact on your business.
Believe me, no agency wants to leave a client feeling this way. We’re a committed bunch, who genuinely want our contributions to inspire your business.
And at Monkey See, we’re convinced that a good tracking study still has a vital role to play in a company’s fast-tempo, 21st century decision-making. For most businesses there remains no better source material to explore things such as:
- Long-term trends for the category and brand;
- The ratio between share of mind and share of voice;
- The growth of smaller brands;
- The relative position of your brand to that of competitors;
- The cut-through and effectiveness of campaigns;
- The connection between business metrics and advertising.
So, the question is, how can we make tracking studies more relevant, more dynamic, more accessible and bring the best out of your decision-making?
The fundamental answer is collaboration, working together to optimise the study. More specifically, here are some of the things we can do:
Questionnaire design
It is no longer enough for all brand and communications trackers to include the same old, standard questions. To be powerful they must reflect decision-making in your category and how people answer questionnaires.
Analysis and interpretation
There’s no shortage of data these days; what businesses need is interpretation. This means ensuring analysis relates to decision-making as it happens, while combining trending results with other business metrics to give a holistic view of what it all means.
Delivery
We fit the mode of delivery with the business. For one client we provide a workshop-style presentation, where intel from other areas – such as website analytics and customer service research – is worked into the discussion. For another, it’s a telephone chat before the Monday morning sales meeting. For one, we send a summary on Boxing Day – perfect sense, when the subject is their Christmas sales campaign.
Timing
Brand metrics change slowly. To reflect this, we offer different tracking solutions – sometimes by campaign, by quarter or even annually that fit with the market dynamics and your business need.
Relationships
The main factor in a study’s ability to affect decision-making really is our relationship. We need to be able to ask you questions to ensure that we understand your business; and you should feel able to pick up the phone whenever there’s a question or need.
