How do you win new customers? Ask your extreme loyalists

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Top Highlights

• Part of the problem is our obsession with big data and representative samples.

• Purposive sampling challenges a researcher to seek out specific consumers that exhibit specific traits, which often fly in the face of general representation. Such sampling can also be very fruitful.

• Heavy users: bad! Light users: good! True, most of the time. But the argument against outliers only works when applied to business growth. It’s not such great advice when it comes to insight and diagnosis. That’s a place where heavy users can light the way for the rest of the market. A focus on heavy users may not be how brands grow, but it can provide a big insight into how you can make that growth and penetration happen.

• listening to and learning from loyalists is right up there with secondary data and founder research for powerful insights into what the brand offers and why consumers will buy it.