Research & Analysis

The HCP Associates research team provides a critical, unbiased, third-party perspective. A thorough understanding of the market can drastically improve one’s probability of success. Through primary and secondary research, HCP Associates can discover fundamental customers, potential customers, and competitive information crucial to short-term and long-term growth. These discoveries help HCP Associates determine the most effective strategy for achieving your goals, rooting our recommendations in hard data and facts instead of preconceived notions or conjecture.

Advertising Testing

Advertising Testing

With all of the money, time, and talent that goes into developing your advertising, it is important to have measures in place that help you understand how your target audience(s) responds to that advertising. Before the actual launch of any advertisement or campaign, HCP Associates can help by conducting focus groups or panel research that offers live feedback on your proposed or existing advertisement or campaign.

You may also need an advertising pretest/post-test. For this testing, we develop a survey that is disseminated before any advertising exposure and following the exposure. We can determine significant changes in awareness, advertising recognition, and key components to the advertising message with this data.

Analysis of Prior Qualitative and Quantitative Studies

Analysis of Prior Qualitative and Quantitative Studies

We frequently discover that companies have a good amount of archived research on hand. That’s the good news. And the even better news is that instead of letting this information collect dust, HCP Associates can review and analyze this data treasure and develop recommendations for actionable steps. Whether the study was qualitative (i.e., focus groups, interviews, intercepts, etc.) or quantitative (i.e., online, direct mail, or telephonic surveys, etc.), we can review the entire data collected to gather additional insight and craft strategies moving forward.

Brand Awareness and Equity

Brand Awareness and Equity

Brand awareness studies serve to reveal knowledge of and familiarity with your brand as a whole. On the other hand, brand equity studies closely examine the attributes you feel your brand possesses. Many brand awareness and equity studies also include questions regarding competitors, which gives you competitive insight into how your company fares against your business rivals. At a minimum, an annual measure of awareness helps you keep tabs on your brand’s recognition among your target prospects as you work toward becoming top of mind in your industry.

Business Potential

Business Potential

Before branching into a new geographic region, product concentration, or service, it is vital to know whether or not your business will encounter a viable opportunity. We design studies that help you gather representative data from target users of your product or service to gauge interest and projected frequency of usage. We then use secondary data to determine the size of your potential user base. In collaborating, we determine average customer expenditures. With this information in hand, we can then develop revenue projections based on the expected user base. This gives you a snapshot of business potential within new geography or vertical.

Citizen

Citizen and Consumer Polling

Although polling tends to go hand in hand with politics in most of our minds, it also serves a business purpose. Businesses, organizations, and municipalities can use polling feedback to gauge consumer and/or citizen sentiment on a specific topic on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or as-needed basis. Polling can occur in a variety of different forms:

• Phone calls
• In-person intercepts
• Direct mail
• Online surveys

Questions are typically brief and quickly get to the point. Given a broad enough and representative sampling, the feedback received can contribute to organizational, governmental, and even policy decision-making.

Competitive Research

Competitive Research

Before you venture into an expansion—whether into a new vertical or through additional locations—you must have a clear understating of the competitive landscape. To help you with this endeavor, HCP Associates takes a look at your company, products, and/or services. We familiarize ourselves with what makes you unique. We then explore competitors that you have identified and often come across additional competitors that fulfill a similar need. We examine how they are marketing themselves and determine their unique selling propositions. From this point, we pass along to you the details, including any potential verticals for you to explore that are not currently being addressed and any areas that set your company apart from the competition that you can emphasize. This research may also reveal areas you are currently focusing on that tie up resources better spent elsewhere.

Customer Satisfaction

Customer Satisfaction

Your current customers can offer some of the best insight into ways to improve your operations. By reaching out to your customers and clients, you are not only receiving their perspective; you are simultaneously showing them that you value their opinions, further strengthening their sense of loyalty to your company. Your clientele can share aspects of your business that they value and things that they would like to change and offer their perspective on any competitors that they work with currently or have in the past to give you an idea of how your company compares. Don’t allow your customers and clients to remain untapped resources.

Employee Satisfaction

Employee Satisfaction

Companies often fail to realize the value of the insight that their own employees can offer. Happy employees can be one of the best assets of your company, i.e. natural business ambassadors who can spread the word. Those who work day in and day out “in the trenches” can often provide valuable feedback on how to operate with maximum efficiency. Showing that you are interested in hearing what your employees have to say carries significant weight in employee loyalty.

Market Research and Business Growth

Market Research and Business Growth

Research that delves into your current or prospective marketplace is priceless. Through an analysis of industries, competitors, customers, events, and much more, we help you achieve a deeper understanding of the nuances of your current or prospective marketplace by conducting market research. With this additional information at hand, you can better understand the full business potential and viability for market expansion and business growth.

Media Performance and Financial Audit

Media Performance and Financial Audit

Media expenditures can draw heavily on company time and financial resources. Whether you purchase your media internally or through a third-party agency, HCP Associates can work with your team and all involved media buyers to determine whether your company is making the most efficient buy possible. In certain cases, if media or vendor expenditures are high, HCP Associates will recommend alternative ways to achieve exposure for your company at a lesser cost.