Resources to Read
READ our latest whitepapers on best practices.
Shoppers expect to move frictionlessly between digital and physical shopping experiences, however, we find a growing divide between customer expectations (and experiences) in online and in-store environments. This digital / physical gap presents both a challenge and an opportunity for brands to create truly seamless shopping journeys. We mined our 2021-2024 retail projects in aggregate and found 4 themes and insights across our work to help brands bridge the gap to deliver a more seamless customer experience across shopping channels.
This white paper as produced using our 2-bot thought leadership system as seen at IA’s AI Ignite! Conference in October 2024
How can a university ensure all students feel like they belong on campus? In an increasingly diverse higher education landscape, San Francisco State University set out to understand its Latinx student population’s sense of belonging and gather feedback on both positive and challenging experiences with university culture, activities, and programs. In a 2-phase mixed methods initiative sponsored by SFSU and the Latinx Student Center, KNow Research conducted market research which revealed the importance of feeling represented, respected, and connected to faculty, staff, and fellow students in fostering a strong sense of belonging. Importantly, it also showcased the barriers to belonging that universities can help their students overcome.
Getting the message “right” is a critical component of a successful communications campaign. So, how do marketers make sure they are serving up the most relevant and timely information? They ask them! By leveraging a thoughtful qualitative approach with mixed audiences, KNow helped our 2023 pro bono recipient, Peace by Piece International, uncover important audience insights that set the course for their next year of marketing and communications strategies.
While industry conferences are important for professional development and networking, at KNow have been leaning on these events as a source of 360-degree insights. Industry events are a rich source for finding hard to reach audiences for research, as well they also provide many opportunities for insights professionals become better consultants.
Sometimes truly understanding shopper behavior takes more than an analytics team’s predictions. With the help of website and data teams, the KNow Research team connected with online shoppers when their shopping carts were full, but at the specific time when the data suggested they were likely to leave the site without purchasing. With our Booth® Insights methodology, our team helped the brand understand its website conversion by uncovering specific navigation and communication opportunities after talking to customers.
Originally pioneered by the tech sector to “hack” programming problems, Hack Days can be an all-hands-on-deck opportunity for your team to collaborate and problem-solve with meaningful and productive outcomes. KNow Research included a Hack Day at our 2022 company offsite, and we’re here to encourage other teams to take advantage of the method to elevate, improve or design deliverables or offerings as a team
KNow’s 2022 pro-bono research project recipient was the Chicago Humanities Festival (CHF). This year, the organization’s top priority was to invest in a re-positioned, forward-looking brand to achieve growth goals among its target audience, feeding directly into CHF’s strategic plan.
Our researchers helped CHF understand which promises, and benefits (and ultimately messages) to prioritize both for current supporters and future audiences. With this knowledge, CHF’s marketing committee can bring these findings into future campaigns, so they can center their programming around culture – through connection and experience.
Learn how KNow Research used a multifaceted approach to its project with its 2021 pro bono project recipient: The Global Coworking Unconference Conference
We sought to hear stories of how professionals were managing the changes and what they were seeking in coworking spaces.
GCUC invited our team to attend and host a workshop at the first in-person GCUC conference in months. The outcome was a layered approach to gathering insights which gave us a fuller picture of the topic and provided GCUC with a story to share with their global community.
Learn fraud prevention best practices from our Integrity Initiative.
We offer thought starters and resources to the insights industry to protect the integrity of qualitative insights from participant fraud.
We went straight to the source – to ‘fraudsters’ and ‘professional participants’ themselves, to understand their motivations and strategies for qualifying for studies so we could determine how to better safeguard against them.
Learn about how KNow Research and our quantitative partners band together to develop, validate and deliver actionable personas!
Brands need to revisit and refresh their audience personas often to ensure updated and actionable personas. Over the years, we have found 4 key steps to persona design that any brand can use to Assess, Revisit, Validate and Illuminate these crucial customer groups.
3 Ways for Customer Insights Professionals to Leverage Virtual Collaborative Whiteboards…
The team at KNow sought ways to make our interactions with participants, clients, and remote teams more interactive and engaging, so we explored and experimented with virtual collaborative platforms to find the best fit. We discovered that not only can we use these platforms to recreate the backroom experience for participants and clients, but we can also use them for analysis and reporting – an unexpected and exciting outcome!
From April 2020 to April 2021, KNow Research joined forces with the quantitative financial insights experts at Logica Research to contribute qualitative insights to our ongoing Future of Money study. Together we completed 4 rounds of research, strategically scheduled at key moments since the beginning of the pandemic.
KNow stepped into complement Logica’s study by providing a qualitative picture of how people were financially affected by the effects of this pandemic year. The goal was to provide color on how people:
1. Make money
2. Spend money
3. Save or invest money
4. Engage with financial brands
By adapting the technique to the changing times, we brought the quantitative insights to life in the key four areas…
KNow Research’s 2020 pro bono study was for Financial Gym, a personal financial services company that takes a fitness-inspired approach to their clients’ finances. Their initial plan for 2020 was to do a traveling roadshow across the US, connecting with customers nationwide in order to expand their offerings. And then, well, 2020 happened…
We stepped in to help them learn from their prospective customers despite not being out on the road, using a combined approach with our new Booth® Insights methodology and social media research tools. Click through to find out what we uncovered!
Read more about our Booth® Insights methodology HERE!
Brands want to ensure their communication comes across as relatable, authentic and in touch with the needs of their audiences. So they turn to insights professionals, who keep a pulse on audiences’ outlooks and reactions to brand’s representations of the world by way of:
– Best practices for brands to effectively strike the right balance.
– Ideas for researchers to generate insights to guide brands in these efforts.
