18 September, 2024

Market research

Maximizing Market Reach with TURF Analysis: A Comprehensive Guide for Real-World Application

Whether you’re looking to add a new product to your product mix, rationalize your service offering, or tweak your messaging approach, a TURF analysis is critical to understanding how those potential changes will affect your business’ performance in the market. By testing the impact of different combinations of products, services, and messages on consumer reach and purchasing frequency, businesses are empowered with the data they need to make confident, successful adjustments to their offering that are guaranteed to boost sales and capture market share.

In this article, we take a closer look at TURF analysis, including what it is, how it works, and how it can be applied to real-world scenarios to supercharge strategic decision-making.

Let’s dive in!

What is TURF analysis?

A TURF analysis, or Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency analysis, is a statistical methodology applied to consumer market research data to determine the optimal combination of products, services, features, and messaging that will appeal to the greatest number of unique customers while minimizing redundancy. Using TURF analysis, companies can optimize their product mix to ensure it appeals to the maximum number of potential customers, driving the maximum number of possible sales across the range.

It is important to note that in the vast majority of market research applications, the approach being used is more akin to “TUR” analysis, since the project objectives typically have an optimization focus and the “F” (Frequency) is often handled, when needed, in later stages of research including volume forecasting.

In practice, one of the things a TURF analysis may reveal is that customers are happy to replace a mandarin juice option with an orange juice option, but are unlikely to buy both. In this instance, having both mandarin juice and orange juice in the range is redundant. Removing mandarin juice and replacing it with a juice that customers are likely to buy in addition to orange juice – apple juice, for example – will drive more sales, while possibly appealing to a wider customer base.

Let’s take a look at another example.

turf_analysis

This diagram shows the reach of three different products. The business in question wants to know which two products will deliver the maximum reach in combination. At first glance, it appears that products A and B, when added together, would deliver the most reach, at 73%. A TURF analysis reveals that, in reality, there is a significant overlap of demand between products A and B. This means that the same consumers want both products (duplicate reach), and that they are likely to make an either-or choice between them. Having both A and B creates redundancy – marketing one may cannibalize the consumer base of the other, and the combination is not going to attract new consumers to the brand – and the combination of product A and product C is the better path to take, as it should maximize both reach and demand.

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3 real-world examples of TURF analysis in market research

TURF analysis can answer some critical strategic questions, including things like:

What happens if we add 1 or more products to our current line?
What happens if we replace a product in our current line with something else?
How many products should this line include?
How should we choose the best version(s) for line extension?
How should we choose the best option(s) for brand extensions?
What combination of benefits is accepted by the largest percentage of consumers?

Let’s take a look at how CRG has applied TURF analysis to real-world market research in various industries.

Food and beverage

In the food and beverage industry, determining the best combination of flavors, variants, and product types in a particular brand’s range is a make-or-break issue. CRG used TURF analysis to help a frozen food brand optimize its range of frozen meal products to appeal to the widest consumer base, helping to determine which meal options would drive the most demand while appealing to the broadest possible consumer base. In another example, we helped a cookie manufacturer identify the ideal mix of flavor varieties for their range.

Beauty

In the beauty industry, fast-moving trends and consumer preferences mean that companies need to be agile, flexible, and informed with regards to shifts in demand. TURF analysis is particularly good at revealing which combination of products will deliver the most reach at any given moment, as well as how the addition of new products will affect reach and sales performance. For example, research may reveal that consumers in the beauty industry are increasingly drawn to ingredients with holistic benefits, such as rice, turmeric, and honey. A TURF analysis would be able to determine whether developing and adding a product that aligns with this trend will increase reach, or dilute it, and therefore whether investing in R&D of a product designed to exploit this particular trend is likely to deliver sufficient ROI.

Pets

The pet industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the decade. In another example, CRG helped one pet brand determine the optimal mix of pet treat forms to maximize reach and demand.

When to use a TURF analysis

TURF analysis should always be used when embarking on the following:

Launching a new product line

TURF analysis should be applied early on in the strategy phase when launching a new product line to ensure that resources are directed at developing a winning product mix. TURF analysis can ensure new products added to your line are reaching new customers to expand your market share.

Optimizing product assortments

TURF analysis should be used when rationalizing and optimizing a product assortment to ensure that the final product line-up maximizes unique consumer reach and demand.

Bundling services or products

When bundling services or products, it’s critical to understand which bundle combinations will drive the highest demand among your target audience by testing various combinations with TURF analysis.

Optimizing marketing channels

TURF analysis can be used to determine which combination of marketing channels will maximize impact relative to various business objectives (awareness, sales, etc.).

During the R&D process

During the R&D process, you can use TURF analysis to identity which combination of features within a particular product will be most appealing to your target audience.

How to conduct a TURF analysis: a basic overview

Conducting a successful TURF analysis is a six-step process:

1. Define your objective

The first step is to define, clearly and succinctly, the objective of your analysis. What question are you trying to answer? Your objectives should be specific and aligned to your broader business objectives.

2. Collect data

The success of a TURF analysis depends heavily on the quality of the data to which the analysis is applied. Choose an experienced market research partner with a range of survey and predictive intelligence methodologies available to ensure that the data you collect is accurate and as free from bias as possible. CRG, for example, uses a predictive intelligence platform to enhance the TURF analysis process by predicting the impact of various combinations, three years out and beyond.

3. Identify variables

Identify the products, features, services, or variants under consideration. Each option becomes a variable for testing in the analysis.

4. Create combinations

Next, create the combinations you’d like to test for reach. Some products or concepts in a combination will be “fixed”. These are products or concepts that are already available in the market, or are pre-ordained launch products which are non-variable.

5. Run the analysis

Once you’ve determined the combinations for testing, it’s time to run the analysis, testing how much reach and frequency each combination delivers to determine the optimal option.

6. Make data-driven decisions

Next, you can leverage the results of your TURF analysis to identify the best combination relative to your business objectives for confident decisioning.

Leverage CRG to perform TURF analysis

For over a decade, CRG has been helping businesses gain the accurate insights they need to win in the marketplace. Using the advanced predictive intelligence platform, HUUNU, CRG can help predict the potential impact of different product or service combinations for both market reach and purchase frequency with proven 90% in-market accuracy.

Optimize your product, service or messaging mix with TURF analysis by CRG today.

FAQs

What industries benefit most from TURF analysis?

While TURF analysis can be useful for almost all industries, it is particularly useful for the CPG industry, where extended product ranges are the norm. TURF analysis can help identify the best combination of products, services, features, flavors, variants and more to ensure product assortments are completely optimized.

How do I collect data for a TURF analysis?

The accuracy of TURF analysis results is determined by the quality of the data to which the analysis is applied. While traditional market research methodologies are still in common use, they are prone to bias which skews results. Predictive intelligence methodologies, such as predictive surveys or prediction markets, are the recommended approach for more accurate TURF analysis.

How can TURF analysis improve marketing strategies?

TURF analysis can be applied to determine the best mix of messaging and marketing channels to ensure optimal reach. After testing messaging among the target audience, companies can test messaging and channel combinations to identify which would have the highest impact.