Communicating the Value of Preservation: A Playbook (2012)

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54 Chapter 6. Market Research 6. Market Research Market research, the fourth building block of effective communication, is really more like the mortar that cements together the audience identification, message design, and message delivery blocks. It would be poor practice for a DOT to use new preservation or maintenance materials or techniques without having first researched and tested their application and put in place a plan to monitor their performance over time. The same is true for communication — to plan and execute any important communication effort requires some level of market research and testing if you hope to cut through the communication clutter. The survey of DOTs shows that transportation agencies, which are driven by data and research, have been slow to embrace the idea of using customer research to inform their communication efforts, as shown in Figure 8. The top three market research tools used by DOTs — although cost efficient — often miss opportunities for gathering deeper insights into customers’ thoughts or feelings and do not allow for interaction or dialogue. Without those insights, it is very difficult to craft specific and effective preservation/maintenance messages. Market research is a broad term that can be defined as the gathering of audience or stakeholder data, input, and feedback, ranging from simple comment cards used at a public meeting for measuring audience response, to elaborate focus group efforts or polls used to test words that work across a wide variety of audiences. Market research can be helpful at all stages in a communications campaign, including the formative phase of developing messages, during pre-testing of proposed messages, and in evaluating effectiveness of messages and message delivery. This chapter explores market research practices that you can easily integrate into your highway system maintenance and preservation communication efforts. Figure 8. Methods DOTs Use to Track Stakeholder Opinions (Number of Responses per Method Type) 22 20 20 12 8 7 6 4 4 4 4 Website comments News clip tracking (Subscribe to clip service or gather clips) Public hearings or meetings Satisfaction surveys (usually phone or mail surveys) Focus groups Opinion polling Comment cards Online communities Road rallies Don't know Do not track stakeholders opinions

Communicating the Value of Preservation: A Playbook 55 Market Research 101 Market research can be broken into three categories: • Formative Phase Research — This is market research conducted in the early stages of preparing a communication campaign. It is used to help form communication strategies. It focuses on identifying audience barriers and motivators. Phone interviews, online surveys, and existing data are all techniques for conducting formative phase research. Examples of how it could be used include to assess issues such as the reasons why citizens do not want to pay more for improved preservation, or reasons why good roads are important to people. • Pre-test Phase Research — This is market research used to test strategies and tactics prior to producing and delivering messages and materials. Focus groups and surveys are the primary pre-test market research techniques. Examples of how pre-testing could be used include to reveal if messages about the higher cost of vehicle maintenance resulting from poor preservation are more effective than talking about protecting the state’s investments. • Monitoring/Evaluation Phase Research — This is market research used to gauge performance of communication efforts and make any necessary course corrections midstream such as to measure change in public opinion via surveys or the number of positive stories in the media. Market Research Techniques Many market research techniques are available for gathering data and feedback from stakeholders. While the list in this section is not exhaustive, it is representative of the techniques currently being used by DOTs or that would be useful for DOTs to use in developing a comprehensive preservation and maintenance communication plan. In-person interviews are probably the most effective market research technique if your goal is to establish or improve your communication efforts so that stakeholders better understand preservation and maintenance efforts. However, if your objective is to create a compelling call to action and motivate stakeholders to undertake some action, then you will likely need a more extensive research effort, which could include conducting statistically valid surveys and/or focus groups. Representative market techniques include the following: • Stakeholder In-Person Interviews — This research tool is the most flexible method of market research. It can be labor intensive, but it often provides valuable information. It removes concerns about group influence (that can exist with focus groups) and provides greater opportunity for in-depth questioning. · Prepare for Stakeholder Interviews — You’ll likely want to tap specific DOT staff who have relationships with individual

56 Chapter 6. Market Research stakeholders as interviewers. In general, seek out interviewers who are good listeners, are able to remain neutral, can focus on communication issues rather than technical issues, and are willing to “go off script” and ask more probing questions if a response is unclear. Scale the number of interviews you plan to undertake to reflect the number and size of segments your team identified during audience brainstorming (See Chapter 3). Don’t plan to interview just one representative for each segment because members of a segment rarely hold exactly the same views, react consistently to the same words and delivery channels, and provide the same insights and recommendations for communication efforts. You should prepare and use an interview script to ensure consistency across conversations and interviewers. An example script is provided in Appendix C. You may want to conduct additional, follow-up interviews based on interviewee recommendations or if you uncover issues or concerns around which you think additional information would be helpful. If possible, contingent interview time should be set aside so that additional interviews can be conducted based on suggestions and data gathered in the initial interviews. Of course, constraints like access to stakeholders, time, and staff availability may limit the number of interviews that can be conducted. · Conduct Stakeholder Interviews — Using the recruitment script, contact stakeholders to set up interview times. To the extent possible, face-to-face interviews are preferred, but time and location don’t always allow for face-to-face interviews. Phone calls are certainly a good way to gather input efficiently and should not be discounted. To the extent possible, try to conduct interviews in a reasonably short amount of time. It’s possible for an interview effort to extend over several weeks, but to keep momentum going for your effort, try not to let the interview schedule extend beyond a month. There’s a balance to be struck here and you probably won’t gather significantly more or better insights beyond a month. If you haven’t mustered the momentum or resources necessary to complete interviews within a month, you should carefully examine whether you have enough resources to make significant and sustained improvements to preservation and maintenance communication efforts. • Focus Group Research — This research tool provides insights into customers’ thoughts, feelings, and even recommendations for potential communication strategies. Your DOT likely already knows key stakeholders and other participants who could provide valuable

Communicating the Value of Preservation: A Playbook 57 feedback through an informal focus group session. Some important steps to follow for successful focus groups include the following: · Determine goals and objectives: What do you want to know from your stakeholders? How will their feedback guide your decisions moving forward? · Identify needs: What specifically do you need answered by participants? What do you know and what do you need to know to shape your process moving forward? · Determine the make-up of groups: How many participants will you engage? Where will you host them and in how many sessions? Who is your target audience and what kind of participant will best be able to provide you the information you need? · Develop a guide for the discussion: Are any materials needed to provide information or stimulate discussion? · Identify a moderator: The moderator should know the objectives and goals of the sessions but remain objective in questioning and guiding the group. Depending on the desired outcome of focus group sessions, DOTs may wish to hire an outside moderator. An outside moderator will help ensure objective collection of information and will free up DOT staff to observe sessions and gather information. • Mail or Telephone Surveys — Mail surveys as a research tool are cheap and can result in large amounts of data being collected. Response rates, however, are often very low. Phone surveys are a good approach for gathering information quickly and usually have a higher response rate. However, with widespread use of caller identification and no-call lists, response rates are declining. Mail and telephone survey approaches are commonly combined. When looking for statistically valid results, you should consider hiring a professional firm that specializes in market research. Professional surveys typically take 6 to 10 weeks to complete, from the start date to receipt of results. Questions to consider include: Do you have a list of potential participants or is it necessary to purchase a contact database? How many questions do you plan Building Block Tie-In: Audience Identification Use In-Person Interviews to Affirm Audience Segment Assumptions — Audience segment interviews and other market research will reveal issues, concerns, and suggestions that are not known or understood by DOT staff and clarify assumptions made about audience characteristics.

58 Chapter 6. Market Research to ask? Each of these factors will affect the budget and shape the process moving forward. • Online/Internet Surveys — This research tool is among the fastest growing research approaches, with sub-options including sending surveys via email, including questionnaires on a website, and introducing questions in a chat room or online community. Although relatively inexpensive and fast, responses can be small and skewed. Options include services such as Survey Monkey and Zoomerang. • Intercept Interviews — This research tool involves stopping people in places like shopping malls and airports and on street corners. Though less expensive, respondents can be hurried and extra care is needed so that respondents aren’t biased in some way. • Web Metrics — This research tool allows DOTs to learn more about individuals by following how they click through agency websites and move on to others. While this information can provide interesting statistics, such as how much time a person spends on a specific page, assumptions must be made about the meaning of such data (e.g., time spent on page is a proxy for level of interest in a topic): · Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics) provides near real-time information relating to all elements of your website including number of visitors, time-on-site, number of pages visited as well as many more. It’s a free service and simply requires creating a Google account. · CrazyEgg (www.crazyegg.com) is a tool to improve the micro- conversions on any page or web application. Unlike Google Analytics (which tracks general page views), CrazyEgg can look at a single page and plot exactly where users are clicking on it. This ultimately allows for a better understanding of how users are engaging with your site. It also facilitates continual improvements to the usability of your page through ongoing improvements and testing. Beginning at $9 a month, CrazyEgg can be a useful tool for understanding what users are doing on your site. • Website Comments — This research tool is a very low-cost way to collect information from customers; however, it is often difficult to generalize the comments to any larger group. Rather, this information should be viewed as more anecdotal. A comment section can be set up on your DOT’s website and automatically linked to send inquiries and feedback to one or more email addresses for real-time monitoring and prompt response as appropriate. • Comment Cards — This research tool is usually used to collect information from stakeholders who attend a public meeting. While very low cost, the responses are often skewed.

Communicating the Value of Preservation: A Playbook 59 • News Clippings — This research tool is helpful for identifying trends in the attitudes of community members and can be used to assess awareness of an issue. Many DOTs already monitor online and news coverage; however, if your DOT has not done this in the past, it’s simple to implement. For online placements, various keywords and search terms can be set up through Google Alerts. In addition, a quick daily search of online news sites important to your DOT can provide information such as topics being covered, key media contacts, and trending stories. Depending upon budget, your DOT may wish to subscribe to key print publications in order to monitor the print version or have increased access to the online site as well (e.g., local business journals). Professional media-monitoring services are available from companies such as Media Library, Cision, and Critical Mention, though your DOT will likely find other methods of monitoring to be more cost efficient. Professional services can be helpful for advance planning of broadcast monitoring — such as requesting coverage of a planned news conference featuring a major announcement — and typically cost between $65 to $400 based upon number and type of clips. By gathering news clips and continually monitoring media, your DOT can track how effective your message is in cutting through the clutter, and whether it’s resonating with your target audience. Market Research Conclusions Market research — particularly primary research that connects DOTs directly to what stakeholders are thinking, feeling, and saying — is the mortar that holds the building blocks of good communication together. It can be helpful at all stages in a communications campaign, including in the formative phase of developing messages, during pre-testing of proposed messages, and in evaluating messages. Tremendous opportunity exists for DOTs in the area of market research. If your DOT is willing to add this tool to your arsenal, you will be able to target audience segments with custom messages that build support at all levels for your initiatives.