-By Dr. Kenneth C. Herbst and Harold Lloyd

Harold and I are honored to have the opportunity to be a part of your lives for another year via our column. We hope that 2009 is off to a fast and resolution-filled start. We also encourage you to stay committed to your resolutions so that you can enjoy the benefits they will engender. We have not seen each of your resolution lists, but our fingers are crossed that in this hypercompetitive marketplace, you have made a resolution to conduct research to get to know your customers better.

It happens all of the time. Companies or retailers call me to conduct research in an area that they have yet to examine. The looks on client faces when data are eventually revealed are typically very interesting. We often think we know our customers well, we thus reluctantly elect to invest in market research; and then the findings make us very thankful that we invested in the research process and have new information to utilize when we consider the way we promote and price our products. For instance, one (just one!) customer interaction with an employee is associated with greater spending by that customer; shoppers with lists spend more (not less as some have claimed for years); too many products on the shelf in the same category can be suboptimal (consumers complain about clutter on the shelf); and coupon shoppers estimate that they will spend less, but they actually spend more in your store.

You can make decisions based on gut-feel or impulse. To understand the psychology of shopping behavior, however, we strongly encourage you to conduct research before making decisions. Without data, you walk blindly into market situations. Data give you night-vision goggles to use in what often seems like a pitch-dark tunnel, and they permit you to make moves that are right in line with what your customers want and need.

We see (often repeatedly) food stores not heeding customer change, and in the end, they often pay a price for it. It is not a lack of customer focus that is often the culprit here. It is a lack of data to create awareness of a trend and thus an in-store change to address it. Although research in the short-term is undoubtedly a fixed cost, we are confident that well-planned research collected via store intercepts, focus groups or in-depth interviews will lead to a healthier top line.

It is via research that you can take advantage of demographic, behavioral and psychographic changes occurring in the segments of the population you are targeting. Here are six quick and easy steps to implement market research effectively.

1. Decide which specific (and please be specific!) research question(s) you hope to answer.
2. Decide how best to collect the data in which you are interested (e.g., focus groups, in-depth interviews, store intercepts).
3. Design the questionnaire, survey or other type of data collection instrument.
4. Collect and analyze the data.
5. Organize the findings in a short presentation or executive summary with data tables.
6. Make changes in line with what the data are telling you (too often, people are change-averse because change can feel frightening. If you are not willing to make changes based on the data you collect, don't do the research in the first place). Data-based decisions are more apt to lead you in the right direction because they are based on analyses which represent exactly the way your customers are shopping and deciding.

We hope that you add a market research project (or two) to your list of resolutions, and we encourage you to put it at the top of the list along with, say, a gym membership and nightly flossing. We encourage you to give your store and products (at least) a yearly tune-up in the way of market/consumer research to ensure that your practices and tactics are aligned well with customer needs, preferences, and shopping behavior. The saying that the only thing that remains the same is change is accurate, and at times, I wonder if this statement was made in reference to the way that food shopper preferences fluctuate constantly.

Make 2009 "The Year of Research" and get to know (better than your competition) shopping patterns and customer associations with your store and products. Research is my passion and so perhaps I am a bit biased, but I think that data-based decisions (as opposed to those that simply "feel right" but are not based on data) are the safe and accurate way to operate and manage strategically. The take-aways from the data will keep you informed of the changing palates of your food shoppers, and they will keep you on the cutting-edge of store management.

Here is an easy-to-implement idea to whet your market research appetite: Hand out 1,000 postcards at the exit of your store, and ask customers for their candid remarks. On the postcard, assess gender, age and a host of other questions on a seven-point scale. You can ask for comments as well, but we want to make sure you collect quantitative information so that you can see how the numbers differ. We think you will learn a great deal via data collection, and we strongly encourage you to partake in it -- today!

Data collection and analyses are a tremendous way to bring in 2009, The Year of Market Research! Please contact us if you have questions about how to get started collecting data. We are a phone call or e-mail away, and we are happy to help. From our home to yours, Happy New Year, and we look forward to March when we hope to see you right back here!

Dr. Kenneth C. Herbst is an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. He earned a Masters and Ph.D. from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition, Dr. Herbst earned a B.A. from Wake Forest University.

Dr. Herbst has been interviewed about his food research and industry expertise by, among others, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Ottawa Citizen, the Montreal Gazette, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, and Woman's Day. Recently, he gave a keynote presentation on his in-store food shopper research at Shopper Insights in Action. He has also recently spoken at FMI and IDDBA. In April, at the 2009 NARMS Spring Conference and Annual Meeting in Colorado Springs, Colo., he will present on the profound effect of sampling on purchase. He is also scheduled to present his research findings at various conferences and events throughout "The Year of Research."

Harold Lloyd was the President and CEO of a 14-unit retail organization for 10 years. His practical, exciting ideas and dynamic presentation style have combined to earn him a highly regarded reputation reflected in his top ratings at numerous appearances at such prestigious events as the annual FMI and IDDBA conventions, as well as The Gourmet Retailer's annual Retail 2020 event.

For almost two decades, Harold has worked very closely with small and large businesses to provide a "powerful push in the right direction!" His mission is to provide qualified, executive-level assistance to companies on a "temporary basis," eliminating the need to add permanent top management overhead. To further assist his clients, Harold authored the book It's About Time, focusing on time management.

For more information on customized research or speaking engagements, please e-mail Dr. Herbst at Kenny.Herbst@mba.wfu.edu, call him at 336-758-4215, or visit his Web site at www.mba.wfu.edu/herbst at Wake Forest University.