How HIRI Delivers Home Improvement Insights for All Levels of Your Company

Hav­ing data on home improve­ment and insights on cus­tomer behav­ior can help pro­fes­sion­als nav­i­gate a shift­ing and unpre­dictable economy.

The Home Improve­ment Research Insti­tute (HIRI) gives its mem­bers research, sur­vey results and insights on the home improve­ment indus­try so that retail­ers, man­u­fac­tur­ers and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions can bet­ter under­stand the con­sumers that they serve.

But HIRI mem­bers don’t just get newslet­ters, exec­u­tive sum­maries and pie charts (there are quite a few great pie charts, though): Mem­ber­ship with HIRI means that you’ll get access to the raw data that’s gath­ered in the surveys.

Here’s how that kind of research keeps the home improve­ment indus­try going.

Home Improvement Insights: Delivering the Data

If you’re a home improve­ment orga­ni­za­tion or retail­er, do you know how much home­own­ers are spend­ing on DIY prod­ucts? What per­cent­age of the home improve­ment mar­ket are Pros?

The data that comes from HIRI’s sur­vey reports gives retail­ers and busi­ness­es the answers to those ques­tions (and more).

HIRI’s U.S. Size of Mar­ket report is con­sid­ered sec­ondary research and gives indus­try pro­fes­sion­als exclu­sive cus­tomer data: every­thing from pop­u­lar prod­uct mar­kets to prod­uct sales trends. (Pri­ma­ry research, on the oth­er hand, is even more spe­cif­ic, and can include things like focus groups, brand sur­veys and prod­uct use research.)

HIRI’s Prod­uct Pur­chase Track­ing report, for instance, has been con­duct­ed every two years for more than 25 years and is a com­pre­hen­sive sur­vey that looks at pur­chas­ing trends around the prod­ucts, projects and ser­vices bought by U.S. home­own­ers.

That kind of sec­ondary research is crit­i­cal for fore­cast­ing indus­try health and can help exec­u­tives and oth­er home improve­ment pro­fes­sion­als pri­or­i­tize their busi­ness goals in a way that aligns with their cus­tomers best.

HIRI mem­bers also have access to the raw data from that research. While the high-lev­el infor­ma­tion and insights from the reports might help an exec­u­tive team make deci­sions, raw data offers home improve­ment indus­try pro­fes­sion­als addi­tion­al benefits.

HIRI Member Benefits: Using Raw Data

Hav­ing raw data makes it eas­i­er for HIRI mem­bers to dive into the find­ings that HIRI reports deliv­er.

In the sum­mer of 2019, HIRI pub­lished its Online Home Improve­ment Prod­ucts Pur­chas­er report, which sur­veyed 2,295 U.S. adults over the course of almost two weeks.

Some of the ques­tions that respon­dents were asked included:

• What dri­ves you to make a home improve­ment pur­chase online?
• What process do you fol­low when pur­chas­ing prod­ucts online?
• Where do you research the prod­ucts you purchase?
  
  

Hav­ing the aggre­gat­ed respons­es to these ques­tions is no doubt illu­mi­nat­ing for home improve­ment exec­u­tives and deci­sion-mak­ers.

But hav­ing access to the raw data — each respondent’s age, income, pur­chas­ing his­to­ry and more — can help oth­er play­ers on your team, such as man­agers, mar­keters, prod­uct devel­op­ers, web­site devel­op­ers, sales reps, etc., dive fur­ther into the customer’s expe­ri­ence.

That raw data can help your team fig­ure out a few things about the customer:

• Where the cus­tomer usu­al­ly shops for prod­ucts (online or in-store) (great for man­agers and web­site developers)
• How often that cus­tomer shops for prod­ucts (great for prod­uct developers)
• How the cus­tomer learns about a prod­uct (great for marketers)

When your sales and mar­ket­ing teams have access to this kind of infor­ma­tion, they’re able to make more informed deci­sions around a few things: what kind of prod­ucts to pro­mote, when to reach out to cus­tomers, which mar­ket trends to fol­low, etc.

Looking Ahead in Home Improvement: Insights on the Industry’s Future

Hav­ing data at your fin­ger­tips helps home improve­ment pro­fes­sion­als in a few dif­fer­ent ways, but dur­ing uncer­tain eco­nom­ic times, the biggest ben­e­fit to HIRI mem­bers might just be the peace-of-mind that comes with hav­ing indus­try aware­ness.

Busi­ness research and data from HIRI helps home improve­ment lead­ers iden­ti­fy risks and oppor­tu­ni­ties in the indus­try. Hav­ing access to raw data and top-lev­el indus­try insights means your entire team can make deci­sions — about the busi­ness, cus­tomer com­mu­ni­ca­tions, sales efforts, prod­uct pro­mo­tions and more — with more con­fi­dence. And since HIRI’s research is avail­able ²⁴⁄₇, mem­bers can log in and pull that data when­ev­er it’s need­ed.

HIRI is the only non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that offers home improve­ment research like this in the U.S., and mem­bers get exclu­sive home improve­ment infor­ma­tion and raw data to more ful­ly empow­er their busi­ness deci­sions.

You can con­tact HIRI to learn more about becom­ing a mem­ber or sign up for HIRI’s Newslet­ter to stay up to date on indus­try news and events!