A recent post from my colleague made me think about the power of face-to-face meetings. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to customers. In research, you do qualitative projects like focus groups, and you do quantitative projects like polls. But you rarely get into a car and drive out to the country, where farmers are cutting hay and ranchers sell calves to each other at the local IHOP. As a point of disclosure, I am a city person. The prospect of the “country” requires some purchases, including Sudafed for enhanced allergies and Dramamine for all the senseless driving around since there are no street signs in the country. (Thank goodness there was a pink tractor that could be used as a landmark!)

But there’s a lot to learn out there. If you look at the U.S. adult population in MRI, nearly a third, or 60+ million people, live in C & D (mostly rural) size counties. That means that if you are a retailer, a third of your customers live in a mostly rural environment. And when I say rural here, I mean really rural — cows, horses, red barns and silos. People shop differently in these areas. People relate to each other differently.

So how do you learn more about folks in outlying areas? The old-fashioned way: you sit down and listen over a meal. These people have a lot to say: most of these folks have never been listened to by any national brand in a meaningful way. You get insights you would never learn in a focus group in one of 10 major cities in the country. Or in a 1,000 complete quantitative survey.

You know what else you get from these customers? Loyalty and advocacy. In a small community, people talk. I know that the 10 people we spoke with that morning in a small country town in Texas will all tell at least one person about the group and how it made them feel. I would bet they tell more people about the group because the president of the company rolled out for this group and really listened to them. This particular face-to-face dialogue is a rare opportunity in my line of work. It gives new meaning to the notion of qualitative research.