Episodes

  • Better Market Research Insights through Human Truth

    Better Market Research Insights through Human Truth
    Jul 3 2025
    Why do brilliant marketing strategies with massive budgets still fail spectacularly? On this episode of Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing podcast, host and CEO Priscilla McKinney talks with guest and CEO Alexander Millet about the critical disconnect between what customers say they want and what they want. They explore how Brandtrust uses applied social and behavioral sciences to uncover the more profound human truths that drive real decision-making. Traditional market research often captures what people say they want versus what they do. A perfect example of this comes from Netflix, which promoted Schindler's List to customers as it was reported as people’s favorite. Basing this decision solely on self-reported information, they failed to see what the data was saying– that these customers actually more frequently watched Dude, Where's My Car. When asked, customers answered what they thought was the most respectable answer, and probably even believed they had watched Schindler’s List more often. But the truth was found not in the self-reported actions, but the actual data. Millet explains that this discrepancy reveals the more profound human truth about self-perception, self-reporting and non-conscious decision-making. With this example in mind, it follows that brands should be careful what data is used as a base for marketing decisions. Their conversation reveals how brands can achieve better marketing effectiveness measurement by understanding the emotional and non-conscious drivers behind customer choices rather than relying solely on self-reported preferences. "Business challenges are [the same as] human challenges," Millet explains. "What's not commodified is understanding and asking the better, more beautiful question." Millet emphasizes the importance of moving beyond surface-level market research insights to create strategies that deliver results, sharing how Brandtrust’s approach focuses on asking more beautiful questions that reveal authentic motivations, helping brands align their values with genuine human needs rather than assumed preferences. This methodology has helped clients pivot their strategies significantly, sometimes discovering that customers want consistency and reliability rather than endless variety and options. Sponsors: Looking for those hard-to-reach voices in healthcare research? When you need insights from patients with rare diseases or their caregivers, Rare Patient Voice delivers. Whether you're a healthcare system, policy maker, biotech company, or pharmaceutical firm seeking these critical perspectives, the team at Rare Patient Voice has you covered. They can source both specialized and general audiences for your market research needs. Click here to see how they can support your research, and when you connect with them, thank them for sponsoring this podcast. Ever feel like your marketing plan is just... meh? You've got all the pieces, but are they really working together? We often find that even when companies are doing the right things, they may not be doing them in the right order. The result is, well, no results. Want to effectively evaluate your marketing efforts and gain clarity on your next strategic move? Take our Marketing Assessment Quiz today and discover exactly where you stand – and where you could be going – in just minutes.
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    26 mins
  • Customer Insights Under Threat: The Data Quality Solution

    Customer Insights Under Threat: The Data Quality Solution
    Jun 20 2025
    Can you defend your research insights if stakeholders challenge them? On this episode of Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing podcast, host and CEO Priscilla McKinney talks with guest, speaker and Full Circle Research Chief Product Officer Alexandrine de Montera about the critical shift in market research data quality standards. They explore how industry events have transformed client conversations from focusing on speed and cost to demanding defensible, transparent research practices that can withstand scrutiny, even from stakeholders. Montera shares how Full Circle Research has evolved from treating quality as a back-end function to making it a strategic differentiator. AI presents opportunities and threats in fraud detection, creating data that may look good, but is actually bad, requiring human validation and manual oversight to identify correctly. They explore the challenges of maintaining customer insights integrity while meeting demands for faster research panels and more sophisticated survey design. "Real transparency actually attracts better clients. It reduces friction in QA conversations. It lets you focus on the strategy instead of defending your methodology," Montera explains. "The question is not, should you be transparent, but how quickly can you get there?" The discussion covers the impact of the Department of Justice indictment on industry practices, the rising importance of ISO 20252 certification, and how major brands like Procter & Gamble are now mandating quality standards for their research suppliers. Montera addresses the balance between innovation and integrity, emphasizing that transparency builds long-term client relationships rather than compromising competitive advantage. The conversation underscores how reliable data quality enables better data-driven marketing decisions across global research initiatives. Sponsors: Tired of generic marketing firms that don't get market research? Say hello to Little Bird Marketing, the revenue generation company of choice for the market research industry. Our "peeps" understand market research inside and out. We know your buyers, craft meaningful messages that move them to buy, understand the competitive landscape and where you fit in the market. We get the industry - from qual/quant to emerging technologies. Why settle for getting the job done when you can soar with marketing that drives real revenue? Click here to get started. Ever feel like your marketing plan is just... meh? You've got all the pieces, but are they really working together? We often find that even when companies are doing the right things, they may not be doing them in the right order. The result is, well, no results. Want to effectively evaluate your marketing efforts and gain clarity on your next strategic move? Take our Marketing Assessment Quiz today and discover exactly where you stand – and where you could be going – in just minutes.
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    23 mins
  • An Entrepreneurial Approach to Delivering Customer Insights

    An Entrepreneurial Approach to Delivering Customer Insights
    Jun 13 2025
    Can you grow a market research company to £6 million in just two years? On this episode of Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing podcast, host and CEO Priscilla McKinney talks with guest and Potentia Insight Managing Director Suzy Hassan about building a successful consultative data collection company from the ground up. They explore how Potentia Insight achieved remarkable growth by focusing on human relationships and niche market research solutions rather than relying solely on digital automation, which dominates the industry. They discuss how the key to rapid business growth lies in maintaining personal connections with clients, suppliers, and staff while leveraging senior-level expertise to deliver consultative services. Hassan explains that their approach centers on providing clients with a single point of contact who takes projects from start to finish, contrasting with larger organizations where clients work with multiple team members. The conversation reveals how focusing on hard-to-reach niche panels, such as UK farmers and tradespeople, allows smaller agencies to fill gaps that larger global panel companies often overlook. "We use technology as much as we can,” Hassan explains. “But it was more adding back that human element that sometimes is a little bit lost now in our day and age of technology." The discussion covers practical strategies for business partnership success, including the importance of implicit trust and complementary skill sets between co-founders. Hassan shares how personal outreach, LinkedIn engagement, and strategic event sponsorships have consistently filled their pipeline through effective lead generation strategies while deliberately avoiding blanket email marketing in favor of personalized communications. They also explore how supporting industry networks like Women in Research creates meaningful professional relationships that extend beyond traditional business development, ultimately providing deeper customer insights that drive business growth. Sponsors: Knowing your customer is essential for moving any company forward. Enter market research. But what if that customer is a patient with a rare disease? Enter Rare Patient Voice. They don't just find patients - they bring caregivers and health advocates to the table too. When market research firms, health systems, policy makers, biotech companies, and pharma need these important voices, trust the team at Rare Patient Voice. Click here to transform your patient insights today. Tired of generic marketing firms that don't get market research? Say hello to Little Bird Marketing, the revenue generation company of choice for the market research industry. Our "peeps" understand market research inside and out. We know your buyers, craft meaningful messages that move them to buy, understand the competitive landscape and where you fit in the market. We get the industry - from qual/quant to emerging technologies. Why settle for getting the job done when you can soar with marketing that drives real revenue? Click here to get started.
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    20 mins
  • Practical Advice for High-Quality Shopper Insights

    Practical Advice for High-Quality Shopper Insights
    Jun 6 2025
    What's hiding in consumer blind spots that brands need to uncover? On this episode of Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing podcast, host and CEO Priscilla McKinney talks with guest and President and Head of Client Consulting at Nailbiter, Gram Bowsher, about capturing authentic consumer behavior through their proprietary in-the-moment video methodology, videometrics. They dive into how Nailbiter's approach provides deeper customer insights than traditional survey methods while removing recall bias that often plagues market research. Shopping habits continue to change. Ever wonder how brands stay competitive despite these changes? They discuss how brands face challenges in understanding shopper behavior across multiple touchpoints—from pre-shop research to in-store decisions to online price comparisons. Nailbiter's methodology allows brands to quantify consumer behavior at scale through human coding of video data, offering both the statistical validity of large sample sizes and the rich context of seeing consumers make purchase decisions in real-time. This combination of quantitative data with qualitative depth helps brands address issues from new product launches to packaging problems to retail optimization. "Traditional survey methodologies put a lot of burden on the person answering the questions," Bowsher explains. "We [want] to find a better way to open up that black box that [exists] in the industry." McKinney and Bowsher also talk about the powerful insights revealed when brands see beyond demographics to understand the complexity of human shopping behavior. While age, gender, and income might influence purchase criteria, shopping behaviors and attention patterns are remarkably consistent across demographic groups. Nailbiter's market sizing capabilities help brands understand what's happening in the aisle and why certain products succeed while others struggle. It’s the difference that translates into a competitive advantage. Sponsors: Knowing your customer is essential for moving any company forward. Enter market research. But what if that customer is a patient with a rare disease? Enter Rare Patient Voice. They don't just find patients - they bring caregivers and health advocates to the table too. When market research firms, health systems, policy makers, biotech companies, and pharma need these important voices, trust the team at Rare Patient Voice. Click here to transform your patient insights today. Ever feel like your company is sitting on a goldmine of opportunities, but they keep slipping away? Most companies already have their next big win hiding in their database. Little Bird Marketing's Revenue Sprint is a proven system that works backward from your revenue goals to create a focused plan for building a sales pipeline and predictable growth. No massive budget required—just strategic execution that delivers measurable results. Ready to turn missed opportunities into new wins? Click here and build a predictable pipeline for sustainable growth.
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    26 mins
  • How Inclusive Research Drives Innovation and Marketing Strategy in Healthcare

    How Inclusive Research Drives Innovation and Marketing Strategy in Healthcare
    May 23 2025
    Amplifying patient voices transforms healthcare outcomes beyond what medical professionals alone can achieve. On this episode of Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing podcast, host and CEO Priscilla McKinney talks with guest and Senior Vice President at Rare Patient Voice, Pam Cusick, about the critical importance of including patient perspectives in healthcare research and product development. They discuss how patients with medical conditions are the true experts of their experiences, yet historically, they have been underrepresented in developing products and services meant to serve them. They explore the transformation happening in healthcare research methodology, where the focus shifts from what doctors think patients need to what patients experience. Cusick emphasizes how her company connects researchers with a community of 180,000 patients and caregivers across 1,500 conditions, creating opportunities for meaningful B2B content marketing that genuinely addresses user needs. This partnership approach helps research firms avoid expensive recruitment challenges while ensuring products meet patient needs. "Patients live with their conditions 24/7/365. They are the experts on their condition," Cusick explains. "When something is created with the patient as the end user, you need to find out what the patient needs or wants." The conversation highlights how patient input transforms everything from clinical trial design to product development as a part of niche B2B marketing consulting services. Cusick highlights the importance of inclusive research that considers accessibility needs and the often-overlooked caregiver perspective, which provides crucial insights that patients themselves might not recognize. Cusick shares how participating in research can be therapeutic for patients who rarely have opportunities to share their full experiences. All in all, this important work fits into a well-rounded plan for delivering high-quality insights for products and services that truly change lives. Sponsors: Tired of generic marketing firms that don't get market research? Say hello to Little Bird Marketing, the revenue generation company of choice for the market research industry. Our "peeps" understand market research inside and out. We know your buyers, craft meaningful messages that move them to buy, understand the competitive landscape and where you fit in the market. We get the industry - from qual/quant to emerging technologies. Why settle for getting the job done when you can soar with marketing that drives real revenue? Click here to get started. Ever feel like your company is sitting on a goldmine of opportunities, but they keep slipping away? Most companies already have their next big win hiding in their database. Little Bird Marketing's Revenue Sprint is a proven system that works backward from your revenue goals to create a focused plan for building a sales pipeline and predictable growth. No massive budget required—just strategic execution that delivers measurable results. Ready to turn missed opportunities into new wins? Click here and build a predictable pipeline for sustainable growth.
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    31 mins
  • Algorithms, Influence, and the Illusion of Control

    Algorithms, Influence, and the Illusion of Control
    May 23 2025
    Are you exhausted from chasing algorithm "hacks" that stop working the moment you try them? On this episode of Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing podcast, host and CEO Priscilla McKinney discusses why obsessing over algorithms derails marketing strategies and how to build sustainable social influence instead. She explains that algorithms aren't the enemy or your friend—they're like the weather, shifting unpredictably and requiring businesses to focus on what they can actually control rather than trying to manipulate systems designed to keep users on platforms. McKinney explains that companies cycle through social media managers because they expect tactics that worked in one context to work indefinitely, when algorithms change constantly. She breaks down how each platform prioritizes different engagement signals—LinkedIn rewards dwell time and meaningful conversation, Instagram prioritizes saves and shares, while X favors replies and retweets. She introduces her rule of 15 for consistent posting and her ABH principle (Always Be Helping), emphasizing that genuine human interaction remains the strongest signal across every platform, and that employee advocacy increases brand messaging by 561% when implemented through authentic social selling and networking tools. "When you stop chasing algorithms and start serving people, something remarkable happens," McKinney explains. "The people you're meant to reach start finding you, not because you game the system, but because you became impossible to ignore." McKinney also explores the difference between reach and influence, noting that viral posts don't always convert to business outcomes, while consistent value builds lasting authority and personal brand visibility. She advocates for developing a thought leadership strategy that focuses on four controllable elements: clarity about your audience, consistency of presence through strategic content planning, genuine conversation and engagement, and varying content formats that match message to medium. Sponsor: Ever feel like your marketing plan is just... meh? You've got all the pieces, but are they really working together? We often find that even when companies are doing the right things, they may not be doing them in the right order. The result is, well, no results. Want to effectively evaluate your marketing efforts and gain clarity on your next strategic move? Take our Marketing Assessment Quiz today and discover exactly where you stand – and where you could be going – in just minutes. Ever feel like your company is sitting on a goldmine of opportunities, but they keep slipping away? Most companies already have their next big win hiding in their database. Little Bird Marketing's Revenue Sprint is a proven system that works backward from your revenue goals to create a focused plan for building a sales pipeline and predictable growth. No massive budget required—just strategic execution that delivers measurable results. Ready to turn missed opportunities into new wins? Click here and build a predictable pipeline for sustainable growth.
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    31 mins
  • How to Make Marketing Automation Work with Personalized Content

    How to Make Marketing Automation Work with Personalized Content
    May 16 2025
    Could understanding the non-conscious drivers of human behavior be the key to creating marketing that truly resonates? On this episode of Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing podcast, host and CEO Priscilla McKinney talks with guest, author and Chief Creative Officer at HBT Marketing Nancy Harhut about behavioral marketing. Harhut explains how understanding hardwired human behaviors can help marketers craft more effective messages that drive customer action. They discuss how behavioral science identifies automatic, instinctive responses that influence purchasing decisions, many of which consumers aren't even consciously aware of. Nancy shares how marketers can leverage these insights through testing and experimentation, focusing on buyer psychology rather than simply promoting product features. By understanding what motivates customers on a deeper level, marketers can create personalized content that drives action and builds authentic marketing connections. "If we as marketers can become aware of these factors that influence people's decisions—that they're not even aware of—it can help us craft better marketing messages, more effective marketing messages for our clients," Harhut explains. "We have these hardwired behaviors, these hardwired human behaviors are automatic, instinctive, reflexive responses." Nancy shares a fascinating case study from AT&T that demonstrates the power of behavioral science principles in action. By leveraging autonomy bias—our deep-seated desire to control our own choices—AT&T significantly increased customer retention during a critical transition period. The campaign succeeded by speaking to business owners' fundamental need to make their own decisions rather than having choices made for them. Sponsors: Looking for those hard-to-reach voices in healthcare research? When you need insights from patients with rare diseases or their caregivers, Rare Patient Voice delivers. Whether you're a healthcare system, policy maker, biotech company, or pharmaceutical firm seeking these critical perspectives, the team at Rare Patient Voice has you covered. They can source both specialized and general audiences for your market research needs. Click here to see how they can support your research, and when you connect with them, thank them for sponsoring this podcast. Little Bird Marketing is proud to sponsor the Small Business Coalition Symposium in NYC on June 3rd! This one-day event brings together market research business owners under $10M to connect, collaborate on shared challenges, and develop crucial leadership skills through expert-led sessions. Ready to join fellow entrepreneurs and discover why collaboration is the new competition? Click here to register for this industry-changing opportunity.
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    39 mins
  • Quirks Chicago Conference Flyover Part 2

    Quirks Chicago Conference Flyover Part 2
    May 9 2025
    This podcast mini-series is brought to you by Smith Hanley & Associates, connecting businesses worldwide through specialized recruitment solutions. What makes a market research company truly stand out in 2025? On this episode of Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing podcast, host and CEO Priscilla McKinney delivers Part 2 of our Quirks Chicago Conference Flyover as she catches up with industry leaders about the evolving landscape of market research. This collection of candid conversations captures the pulse of the industry through unfiltered discussions with executives who are navigating the balance between technology and human connection. They discuss how specialized recruitment panels are transforming agricultural and veterinary research, why community building is more effective than traditional panel development, and how behavioral data is becoming essential for accurate insights. From the merging of strategic partners and the development of AI-powered DIY tools to the critical importance of understanding emotions in brand perception, these leaders share practical approaches that deliver tangible results for their clients. "Trust is the biggest factor when it comes to farmers or most folks within the ag industry," Mike Mostransky explains. "We're regularly in touch with those participants within the ag space. If they hear it coming in from us, because we are selective as to who we work with, they trust us." This flyover features in-depth conversations with research professionals from diverse specialties, each offering unique perspectives on the intersection of technology, human expertise, and industry evolution. Despite technological advances and shifting business models, building genuine relationships with both research participants and clients remains the cornerstone of lasting success in market research. Want to connect with any of our guests? Featured below are all of their LinkedIn profiles, and if you decide to contact them, make sure to let them know that Little Bird Marketing sent you their way: Mike Mostransky, Insights Director at Qlarity; Pal Afzelius, CEO and Co-founder at Protobrand; Paul Gaudette, CEO and Co-founder at Dig Insights; Pierson Wofford, Executive Recruiter at Smith Hanley Associates; Ray Fischer, CEO of Aha! Insights Technology; Stewart Tippler, European Representative with Quirks Media; Nicole Potter, Field Manager at Insights in Marketing; Sean McKenna, SVP of Business Development at Luth Research.
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    37 mins