EMAIL: info@imagefive.com PHONE: 251 224-5465
We Eliminate Blind-Spots and Provide
Meaningful Insights so You Clearly Hear the Voice of the Market
Collect hidden and guarded data and intelligence from the marketplace you need about your target customers, demographics, buying traits, competitors, market trends and economic shifts to make informed decisions when shaping your go-to-market strategy and tactics.
PRIMARY RESEARCH
We collect fact-based, first-hand data using interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and focus groups.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
We harvest unbiased, pertinent information from valid sources that are published and publicly available.
OUTSIDE INSIGHTS
We challenge current assumptions and sacred-cows guiding strategic and tactical plans with of market realities.
LEVERAGE AN
OUTSIDE-IN FOUNDATION
GOAL
Bring fact-based market intelligence into your company, avoiding natural organizational filtering mechanisms that often obscure reality.
OUTCOME
Our outside-in approach provides decision makers unbiased market research to see things as they actually are, rather than how they think they are, or would like them to be.
what you don't know is more important than what you do know
Eliminate Blind Spots
Blind spots, faulty assumptions and incomplete/incorrect information can easily derail a strategic plan and its execution. They are found in every organization and obstruct visibility into competition, market forces, customer behavior, and even internal practices. Many things get in the way of effective strategic planning and tactical execution without notice until it’s too late.
Think of us as 'another set of eyes' with forty years of experience. We help you identify unforeseen obstacles, validate and eliminate faulty assumptions, assess alternatives, and provide insights not otherwise available.
We help you see things as they really are, rather than how you would like them to be.
BLIND SPOTS ARE REAL
Blind Spots
conventional wisdom (and assumptions) which no longer holds true,
but which still guides business strategy can sabotage your go to market programs
Blind Spots can be found everywhere in the organization
and result from:
Seeing things as you would like them to be rather that how they really are
Faulty assumptions that inhibit the success of strategic and tactical plans
Unidentified gaps in go to market plans that weaken results
Organizational practices that are counter-productive to reaching goals
Sacred cows that guide ineffective execution
1. Look at things through another set of eyes
2. Challenge, test, and validate the assumptions that are driving your go to market plans
3. Bring objective, unfiltered information into your organization about competition, market forces, and customer behavior
4. Isolate critical go to market practices and objectively assess their effectiveness
5. Take action
5 Steps to Eliminate Blind Spots that are Obscuring
Strategic Vision
Ninety percent of the time, Blind Spots are the root cause of strategic and tactical plans failing to meet expectations.
Customer Research
Objective ... Unbiased ... Unfilterd
Do you really know your market as well as you should ?
Have you ever thought that you might not know your market as well as you thought you did. We're talking about both current customers as well a potential customers, and the external influences that impact your market.
Customers don't always tell you the whole truth. Sometimes they tell you what they think you want to hear, or don't tell you what you need to hear. There are more barriers to getting objective, un-filtered data than you think.
Having the information needed to make effective go-to-market decisions means you have to get past the market intelligence barriers.
That's where third-party customer research comes in play.
Our Research Captures the
Voice of the Market
We start by studying your particular situation and identify existing gaps in market intelligence. Internal interviews are used establish the baseline. From here we develop specific hypothesises and set out to either prove or disprove them. We go directly to the marketplace to capture our intelligence.
Whatever the findings, we learn and share what the market is actually thinking and doing. We identify preferences and perceptions that drive market behavior and influence decisions.
We get down to the basics. How customers view your brand and how they compare you with competitors. Why they buy from you and why they buy from your competitors. We even identify un-met needs that can open opportunities for you.
We capture hidden and guarded information about your target market.
Competitor Research
Objective and Fact-Based
How do really stack up against your competitors ?
You know all about your competitors, how you're different, and why you're better. But do you really? Most companies look at competition through a filtered lens. The reality is they often lack having valuable information they need about competitors.
When it comes to competitive intelligence, there is a natural tendency to see things as you want them to be, rather than as they actually are. You may be working with faulty or incomplete competitive information. The important thing is to understand that it could be happening and take action.
Our competitor research uncovers crucial competitive data.
We Dive into the Marketplace to Get
Fact-based Competitive Data
Just as with customer research, the starting place begins inside your organization. It's important to first establish a competitor foundation based on the experiences and perceptions your management and market-facing employees have accumulated.
That's the easy part. Next the hard part comes. Jumping into the marketplace to break through the barriers guarding fact-based information about competitiors. What tactics they use, how they postion against your company, pricing models, and how customers view them.
We tackle the hard part to get data you need.
Un-Filtered Analysis
Actionable Intelligence
Does your marketing intelligence end up in a file drawer ?
Collecting market and competitive data is one thing, turning it into intelligence and using it is quite another. What you do with marketing research is exponentially more important than going through the exercise of collecting data.
And further, marketing research isn't necessarily a silver bullet. For some companies, capturing more data points isn't the answer. More information is usually a good thing, but piling on more reports may not necessarily help the end-game. Sometimes the answer can be found by objectively analyzing the data they already have.
What you do with market intelligence really matters.
It's Not Easy to See the Forest for the Trees
Think of us as another set of eyes
When it comes to analyzing marketing and competitive data, we have an advantage. The advantage is that we're not encumbered with routine and day-to-day operations that can obscure vision. We challenge assumptions and sacred cows and are able to objectively assess findings without the threat of being influenced by time developed biases.
With 40-years experience, we eliminate unintended bias
and see things as they really are.