I recently had lunch with an old friend who shared with me his experiences conducting a listening campaign.
As you can imagine, as a market researcher, analyst, business developer and student of all things related to human behavior I was all ears so to speak.
Although his listening campaign wasn’t conducted within a business context, the lessons he learned and shared with me were both instructive and valuable.
The premise of the listening campaign is that the deepest yet most fundamental of people’s needs are surfaced when they are given a chance to share their experiences and opinions about a subject in a free and slightly unstructured manner.
Unlike traditional structured question and answer market research formats the “interviewed” are engaged in conversations about the topics they care most deeply about.
This process elicits a unique and often times different storyline about a particular subject from the audience’s perspective which by definition is inconceivable from the author’s perspective.
In a business context, the author is the person or enterprise who asks directional market research related questions.
Allowing the audience to provide their interpretation of a topic regardless of what it may be often brings a new dimension of understanding and meaning to the subject at hand.
Integrating domain specific knowledge into future conversations about a subject establishes higher levels of audience trust.
A listening campaign can be both an instructive process and an invaluable tool for any business trying to have their company’s voice heard above the crowd’s.
Tags: Audience Trust, Business Developer, Engaged, Listening Campaign, Market Researcher, Voice Above The Crowds
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January 12, 2010 at 3:30 pm |
[…] The Listening Campaign By Tim Cohn Several months ago I wrote a post called “The Listening Campaign: Getting Your Voice Heard Above The Crowd.” […]