It’s not enough to know what your product does—you have to know how it’s used. For example, we were working with a giant tech company on smart home technology. Because the client thought we could just ask, “What do you need?” we did. Guess what the biggest “pain points” were for smart homes— a. Smoke alarms going off in the middle of the night because the batteries need changing, and b. Lights that are no longer in synch. Not a lot to work with, right? But then we asked respondents to describe a “good day” and a “bad day.” By asking an open-ended, qualitative question, we were able to get a glimpse inside a consumer’s typical day and better help our client understand how to target their advertising toward customers’ daily challenges.
