𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗜𝘀 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲 – 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗜𝗴𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁

Today I woke up and thought it was a day for clickbait headings…
However, despite the heading, I believe most research doesn’t think about the full picture. We look at research as a skirmish and not as ongoing effort.

By looking at exactly the same research again over a longer period of time we get to learn much more:
– how consumer preferences change over time, and the relative importance of particular areas
– how consumer behaviour (e.g. click and scroll) changes over time
– the impact of new developments that you’ve launched
– how competitor and market forces change customer perception

A basic action plan to do this is:
– review heat and scroll maps on important pages twice a year
– send a similar survey annually
– ask the same single question surveys every 6 months
– undertake end to end usability testing on you and your closest competitor at least twice a year

We get so caught up in the new that we forget to reevaluate our basic questions regularly and understand customer behaviour.