Catherine Gutierrez–Providing Better, Faster Research to Clients

An App That Gives Market Researchers Real-Time Representative Feedback

A few businesses thrived during the pandemic. This week, we’ll look at MFour Mobile Research.
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In Rediscover Marketing, we met with Catherine Gutierrez. She’s been the Vice President of Marketing at MFour Mobile Research in California, since 2019.

We asked Catherine about major advertising channels and what’s changed.

According to Catherine, it’s all about your needs. Her role is in business-to-business (B2B) marketing. There, she says, it's hard to rely on major channels to create sales leads. Instead, her team creates value-driven content — quadrupling marketing-driven revenue in the last two years.

But, how?
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Well, at MFour, they do market research for some of the biggest brands in the world.

So, every week, MFour sends out free research reports. Their consumer insights help brands like Target, Walmart, and Samsung learn about their buyers – and sell more of what people want.

All through an app.

In the app, consumers share their feedback with the companies that need input, via a survey. In return, they earn cash. It’s why the brands that use MFour see:

●       50% participation rates within 24 hours.

●       95% completion rates on 20-minute surveys.

That's 10x higher than sending out an online survey. This mobile research is better, faster, and more accurate. It’s leaving traditional market research behind — and reshaping a whole industry.

Now, let’s learn some things from Catherine, herself.
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Get To Know Catherine Gutierrez:

Catherine started her career in 2005 as a senior marketing director in Orange County.
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An alum of Cal State Long Beach, Catherine completed both her MBA and her B.S. in Marketing at The Beach — ultimately doing a thesis on consumer behavior, that she says led her to MFour.

Before MFour, Catherine served as the Director of Corporate Accounts at Parsec Automation Corp, in both sales and marketing. She was also the Global Marketing Manager at Avetta: 2011 to 2014.

‍A Tailor-Made Website and an App That Pays Cash:

Surprisingly, Catherine credits COVID to proving the value of MFour’s unique value.

She shares her thoughts on why, below.

At MFour, the most high-quality leads come from emails and organic web traffic. When COVID-19 hit, it became essential to help researchers understand what was changing in market research — and fast, so they could adapt their brands.

For Catherine, and her team, that meant doing weekly research for clients. Each week, they’d survey the nation’s largest, highest-rated consumer panel — on their app, Surveys On The Go®.

Then, they’d share their consumer insights on the website and via email.

The pandemic proved just how valuable that kind of in-the-moment research is. When the entire world shuts down, you can’t wait weeks to survey — you need to know what’s changing and adapt.

So, when the pandemic hit, market researchers struggled.

They couldn’t just walk up to anyone and ask them to take a survey. But, MFour could — because they had an app. Consumers were already engaged on it, and it was social distancing friendly. Clients quickly saw how valuable it was to research in real-time and watch as behaviors changed.

Research & Valuable Content Goes Hand In Hand:

What Catherine shared with us next, is mind-blowing.

It all comes down to timing.

In February of 2020, as the world was facing a pandemic, MFour’s marketing team was ready. Catherine and her team saw an immediate need to study consumers in an unprecedented moment. They started by tracking foot traffic to airports, and noted a 38% decline. That was the beginning.

It was the first market research on the pandemic.

What followed was 17 months of COVID-19 consumer behaviors. Everything – from the stockpiling, to the shift in online shopping, to the emergence back to ‘normal’ was all documented.

The company helped clients gain their footing on what was happening in COVID, how it was impacting big-box retailers, what consumers were doing, and why they were doing it. These insights were extremely helpful for brands. And it’s exactly what she and MFour will continue to do.

A Word of Wisdom from the Vice President Herself:

As we always do in all our interviews, we asked Catherine for her advice for all the marketing leaders out there. She had four beautiful points to share:

1. Get outside your comfort zone.
2. Be aware of how things have changed.
3. Accept that what might've worked before, won’t necessarily work in the future.
4. Always be willing to try something new, it’s worth testing on a small scale to see if it works.

It was a lovely interaction with Catherine Gutierrez, and we hope this week's marketing column and her interview inspires you.