Thinking of implementing a sanitation marketing program? Your first step is market research. Market research dramatically improves your understanding of the motivations and behaviours of consumers, suppliers and regulators in the sanitation market.
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Here are 7 tips on how to design, implement and analyse low-cost market research in partnership with local partners. The tips are based on my experiences working with Environmental Health Officers in three districts in Malawi.
Check out the following links for some great information and details about market research:
Sanitation Marketing for Managers: Guidance and Tools for Program Development.
Human Centered Design Toolkit.
If market research is so important why not hire a professional market research firm to help me out? If you have enough cash and time I say go for it! But remember that engaging professional market researchers can be expensive and they often require long lead times prior to commencing the research. Also getting out there and learning about the market for yourself can offer you with important insights that can’t be presented in a consultant’s report and flashy Powerpoint. Many big companies now encourage their product managers to spend time interacting with their target customers.
So here are my top 7 tips for conducting low-cost, market research:
Tip 1: Literature review - Search, search and then search again for existing data
Prior to designing the research program all relevant literature and datasets must be gathered. This should include national demographic and health surveys plus government and NGO reports. If you have chosen a specific area make sure you visit the local NGOs and government departments. Avoiding replication in data collection can save you time and money, plus more importantly, it prevents the local villagers from getting survey fatigue.
Tip 2: Choosing a suitable partner – who is really working at the village level?
Your next step is identifying a suitable partner to work with you to conduct your research. You may want to identify a government or NGO partner. Or there may be a local community group that could offer support in the research process. A good idea is to go to the village level and ask what organisations are engaged in health- or sanitation-related projects. This will give you a sense of who is really making waves in the sanitation sector at the grassroots level.
Webinar 2: Product and Business Model Design in Sanitation Marketing
Date: Wednesday 21st November 2012
Time: 11am (London); 1pm (Johannesberg, South Africa); 6am (New York); 10pm (Melbourne)
Content
With Jeff Chapin (IDEO) and Danielle Pedi (WASH Catalyst). This session will explore key steps for the design of new products, services and business models. Sanitation marketing is about helping improve access to products that households want and can afford. This means applying design thinking to re-design the user's experience with sanitation, and looking closely at the supply side to make sure new products can be profitably delivered by local enterprises.
Presenter
Jeff Chapin works as a designer at IDEO Boston (www.ideo.com) and has worked on numerous projects focused on WASH in the developing world. He strongly believes in a user-led approach to design; engaging local communities in the research, ideation and testing that leads to new products, services and businesses. His collaboration with iDE on a rural sanitation project in Cambodia led to the design of a precast concrete catchment box that helped catalyze a sanitation marketplace and has led to the sale and installation of 50,000+ latrines and the generation of 40+ new businesses in rural Cambodia. His project portfolio also includes the design of hand-washing stations in Vietnam, mass-produced latrine slabs in Kenya and an urban sanitation services business in Ghana. Jeff frequently lectures on the topics of social innovation, green design, global health and product design, and has taught courses at Stanford University, Harvard University, MIT and Technisches Universitaet (TU) Muenchen. Jeff holds an MS in Product Design from Stanford University and a BSE in Engineering from Princeton University.
IDEO Toolkit for Human Centered Design
Resources
A recording of the webinar and power point slides are available to download. Please click the link below and you will be directed to the Blackboard Elluminate site. From there the webinar will automatically download. The power point slides are available by clicking the icon.
Webinar 2 Jeff Chapin (1400 KB)
Videos
YouTube video of Jeff Chapin on 'Design as a Tool for Better Conversations':
YouTube video of WaterSHED in Cambodia's "Hands-Off" approach to sanitation marketing:
Latest Blog Post
Get your hands dirty - Ben Cole talks sanitation market research
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