Key Services

Market Connections offers custom, primary market research services, including surveys, focus groups and in-depth interviews. We specialize in technology and the public sector, especially the federal market.

In a challenging business environment, only the market can accurately answer critical business questions. Custom market research services will put those answers right at your fingertips so you can identify and leverage opportunities, position competitively and win more business.

BRAND RESEARCH

  • Provides understanding of target market perceptions regarding capabilities, products, services and attributes of your business and competitors
  • Gauges level of awareness and important brand attributes of your business and competitors
  • Benchmarks reputation and perceptions among key targets, and measures changes in perception over time
  • Identifies viable channels for advertising, media relations and thought leadership

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION & CONTRACT EVALUATION

  • Tracks performance on key measures of customer satisfaction and loyalty
  • Assesses your customer-facing strengths and weaknesses and benchmark customer satisfaction against competitors
  • Identifies brewing issues before they become problems that put your contracts at risk
  • Builds justifiable measures of past performance that go beyond CPARS
  • Informs process improvements, staffing plans, client communications and strategies for winning new contracts and recompetes.
  • Aids in increasing win rates, recompete wins, revenue and market share

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

  • Assesses what prospects are thinking before they buy, and provides businesses with the chance to change messages, services or touch points based on the feedback
  • Employs a combination of tools to constantly assess the customer experience and inform ongoing adjustments to improve brand perception, win rates and customer retention
  • Tools may include customer satisfaction studies, focus groups, competitor assessments, usability testing, social media monitoring and inbound data analytics

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

  • Positions your organization and SMEs as thought leaders with a finger on the market’s pulse
  • Provides research data to leverage in compelling, creative and resonant content that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise
  • Supports PR, marketing, lead generation and business development efforts with market-validated research and content

NEW PURSUIT & CAPTURE RESEARCH

  • Ideal for strategic, high-value opportunities
  • Informs development of effective strategies, solutions and win themes
  • Identifies agency challenges, needs, requirements and expectations
  • Enables unbiased understanding of competitive landscape

CONCEPT, COMMUNICATIONS,  AD & USABILITY TESTING

  • Informs positioning, communications, go-to-market strategies and win themes
  • Focus groups evaluate messages and value propositions
  • Tests appeal, resonance and efficacy of communications, themes and materials

COMPETITIVE PROFILING

  • Establishes a baseline against which to measure process and product improvements
  • Compares you and your competitors’ current contracts, offerings, pricing, customer base, positioning and market strategies
  • Identifies differentiators of you and competitors

MARKET OPPORTUNITY ASSESSMENT

  • Assesses your customers’ needs, challenges, budgets, investment priorities, purchasing plans and motivations
  • Identifies key evaluation factors when selecting a solution provider
  • Informs development of products, solutions and win themes

MARKET SEGMENTATION

  • Hone in on the discrete segments of a larger market that offer the most promise for segmented marketing tactics and sales growth
  • Identify, profile, and prioritize submarkets
  • Refine and target offerings and marketing messages to better meet market segment needs
  • Improve marketing response and sales close rates

Mergers & Acquisitions Research

  • Helps you understand trends and driving forces in the market
  • Determines market and competitive positioning
  • Identifies growth opportunities such as demand for new products, services or verticals
  • Assesses customer perceptions and satisfaction with target companies
  • Assesses risk and confirm indicators of value and opportunity
  • Screens and profiles M&A targets

NEW PRODUCT & SERVICE TESTING

  • Gather data to support new product decisions and to better understand the market structure and competitive landscape
  • Refine the offering for maximum market appeal and optimize differentiation against competitors
  • Create promotional messaging for the launch that will best resonate with prospects

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION RESEARCH AND SERVICES

  • Provides unbiased introspection into an organization’s diversity and inclusion practices
  • Uncovers potential pitfalls and unconscious biases within the workforce that hinder safe and satisfactory work environments
  • Creates opportunities for safe, third-party dialogue and facilitation of communication in the workplace
  • Provides research-based insight to support business and policy decisions for attracting diverse customers and employees