Understand your audience with catholic market research
A vinea Research White Paper
Who do you serve? And how well do you know them?
Have you ever crafted a brilliant presentation, sent a clever email, printed a snappy bulletin ad, or had a seemingly engaging conversation . . . only to see it fall on deaf ears? You get blank stares, low clicks, only a few signups, and you're not sure you will ever see that person again.
Honestly ask yourself this question, how well do you know your audience? The people you serve have their own unique struggles, dreams, and needs. Our apostolates, ministries, and parishes can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach.
The biggest mistake Catholic organizations and apostolates make?
Making assumptions. Relying too much on experiences. Applying learnings from a small set of feedback or experiences far too broadly, when they really serve several unique audiences.
If you want to meaningfully support and nourish your people, first you have to get to know them even better. That means:
recognizing their attitudes,
studying their behaviors,
understanding their spirituality, and
uncovering their motivators.
Of course the message of the Gospel never changes. But in order to make it resonate, we first have to look. We have to listen to our audience. We have to know their desires, their trials, their hearts. When you know what and how your audience thinks, you can better connect with them and serve them.
That's where Catholic market research comes in.
Catholic market research helps Catholic organizations and Church leadership better understand those it serves through expert market research and insights.
What is market research?
Simply put, market research is a structured, data-driven way to gather information about a company's target market. You can determine the viability of a new service or product, and you can test the impact of existing products, programs, and services. All by talking directly to your existing or potential customers.
What are their pain points? What are their problems? What solutions are they looking for? Market research helps you find out where your target audience is currently looking for solutions, and what influences those decisions.
Market research typically serves one of three primary areas within an organization: internal people and resources, existing and prospective customers, and the general market.
Internal People & Resources
Optimize your processes and resources based on market needs, plan effective internal strategies, and engage your employees and stakeholders.
Existing & Prospective Customers
Get to know your customers so you can meet their needs, and resonate with them in your marketing, programs, products, and resources.
General Market Information
Accurately predict the probability of the success of your product or service with market and competitive research.
Vinea Research focuses its efforts on the first two areas.
There are typically two categories of market research: primary market research and secondary market research.
Primary Market Research
Primary market research connects directly with existing or prospective customers with both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Research can be either exploratory or solutions-oriented. Exploratory research explores and identifies problems, using more detailed interview formats. Solutions-oriented research attempts to solve the problems.
Qualitative Research = Breadth
Qualitative research, which includes focus groups and one-on-one interviews, defines the breadth of the issues being explored. It answers the question, “Why?”
Quantitative Research = Depth
Quantitative research, primarily online surveys, questionnaires, and polls, provides the depth and projectability. It answers the question, “What?”
Secondary Market Research
Secondary market research leverages external data sources to explore general market information. Sources include public and government libraries; commercial sources like newspapers, magazines, journals, and television media; and educational institutions.
When you speak to someone in their language, they tend to understand.
Why do market research?
Marketing isn’t simply about sitting in a room and thinking carefully about how best to promote our positions—whether on the importance of Christ, the importance of giving to the poor, or on social issues. Maybe it used to be.
But in today’s environment, we need to understand what motivates each group we are trying to reach. We need to learn about key aspects of our audiences, from how they form their opinions and views on related subjects, to the impact of their past experiences and family dynamics. Only then can you develop alternative ways of framing points to see what best resonates with each segment.
Whether you are a parish, a diocese, advocacy group, educational institution, or a ministry, you can learn essential information about the people you serve.
Market research delivers action-oriented insights and recommendations into audience behaviors and underlying motivators. When you know what and how your audience thinks, you can:
more effectively reach, engage, and motivate your audience,
create more effective messaging,
implement social outreach with greater impact,
sustain and grow memberships and program participation,
build stronger relationships with the community,
increase participation and volunteerism,
demonstrate the impact of programs and products,
create a compelling case for donors and investors
make fully-informed plans for the future.
The impact of Catholic market research
Your mission is our mission. We don't just care about making you successful because you are our customer. Vinea dreams of seeing the Church achieve its mission of evangelizing everyone.
We are thoroughly invested in our faith. Each step of our process is grounded in market research best practices and strategically informed by Catholicism. Our approach is uniquely high-caliber and thoroughly Catholic. Vinea is built on a team of experienced market research experts and deep knowledge and understanding of Catholicism.
Understanding your mission, your audience, what you're trying to achieve, why you do what you do—it's essential to a successful research project. It influences the type of research we select, the questions we craft, the way that we approach people. You will not get the best results if your researchers are not well-formed, knowledgeable Catholics.
3 steps to get started with market research
The best way to do Catholic market research is to consider a formal project. We firmly believe the Catholic Church can and should be leveraging market research tools.
We have to be good stewards of our resources, especially donor dollars. Market research is worth the investment, and it will help you maximize your other resources. Why are commercial businesses so successful at selling their products? Because they prioritize getting to know their customers. You can sign up for a free consultation to see how market research can help your organization.
All that being said, there are a few steps you can take to start making improvements and prepare yourself for a more formal project.
1. Clearly Define Your Target Audience
Developing personas is a great place to start. You can formalize a sketch of your key target audience with basic demographics and known behaviors. Common elements include age, gender, location, job title(s), marital status, family size, income, and major challenges. This helps inform your strategies, discussions, messaging and more.
2. Identify a Challenge
What problem do you want to focus on? Being clear about your priorities is essential. Low Mass attendance? Donor retention? Ineffective programs? Low lead conversions in advertising? Write down everything you know about it. Do you have any existing data? Have you received any feedback?
3. Do Competitive Research
Who is doing it well? Why? What do you like about their approach? Learn everything you can from someone who is successful in your space, whether another parish, organization, or competing advocacy group.
Your mission demands excellence. Consider a market research project with Vinea.
Who is Vinea Research?
Vinea Research was founded with the goal of applying proven, business-based market research methods to helping Catholic groups get the information they need to further the New Evangelization.
Vinea Research offers a full range of market research techniques to deliver critical customer insights that can help transform the way Catholic leadership, parishes, apostolates, and advocacy groups reach and motivate the people they serve.
Vinea Research is built on a team of experienced market research experts and deep knowledge and understanding of Catholicism. Our mission is to support Church leadership, apostolates, parishes, and other organizations by helping them better understand those they serve through expert market research and insights.
