Qualitative Audience Research Improves Your Intuition

Our work often sits at the intersection of public affairs, policy, and marketing, where audience research is a powerful strategic tool for energy and climate-focused organizations that are dealing with novel problems.

Engineer CEOs travel to Capitol Hill to make the case for favorable policy treatment. Power markets experts explain technical safety standards to volunteer firefighters. Companies with innovative technology develop new use cases and market to completely unfamiliar industries.

Most good business strategy comes from combining good data with good intuition. Executives have many options today for collecting and analyzing data, but how can they quickly build intuition when operating outside their areas of core expertise? Qualitative research is a really good option.

Hard data is important. My firm and others like it use targeted surveys and public opinion polls to collect powerful quantitative data that underpin highly effective strategies. But something special happens when executives take the time to watch events like:

- A focus group of potential commercial buyers discussing the company’s value proposition without pressure
- An in-depth interview where a former senior policymaker reacts honestly to an “inside-the-Beltway” communications campaign
- A mock permitting hearing where real people grapple with the pros and cons of a hypothetical local energy project

This type of qualitative research allows executives to internalize the voices and perspectives of the audiences who will determine whether an initiative succeeds or fails. They can rely on the same data and consultant advice, but with greater intuition and a bigger interpretive toolkit.