Needs Assessment
Whether it's launching a new product or uncovering ways your brand can better meet consumer expectations, you need to know how to get there from here. Knowing your market's needs and how well those needs are currently being met provides you with key information that is essential in developing your marketing plan.
Needs Assessment/ Analysis is used to compare wants, needs, and expectations to your brand’s or category’s perceived delivery or performance. Using a technique called an Unmet Needs Gap Analysis, respondents are first asked to indicate the degree to which they desire a particular characteristic or feature in a given product category, and then to rate the degree to which they believe a brand currently delivers with respect to that attribute. The two rating questions are asked in tandem so that the “want” rating is used as a performance standard against which the “performance” rating is given.
Simultaneously assessing expectations and current performance in this manner across all respondents will reveal the most compelling gaps (“deficiencies”) for your brand – where perceived performance is falling below expectations for larger percentages of respondents. The average size of the gap between the “want” and “delivery” among those indicating a deficiency is also analyzed.
For some examples of our thinking and work relating to Needs Assessment please click on the hyperlink below (to view in PDF format):