Getting more Satisfaction out of Market Research
How often do you step back after you've completed a time- and work-intensive research project and wondered how much impact it had? Felt a slight but nagging sense of frustration at not being fully in the picture on next steps, implementation plans?
I'm sure it's a feeling many of us are familiar with. Researchers are very often task-fulfillers, we are judged on executional excellence and project management, invariably with pressures on price and speed of turnaround.
There's a clear danger that a too large part of our work is regarded as necessary but not highly valued or strategic. Tactical in a word.
For many projects that may well be the way it stays - there simply isn't the budget or the remit to shine. But is that the future of MR? Is it attractive work, motivating, rewarding, fun? To what extent does a MR mix that is heavily tactical or repetitive provide sufficient satisfaction?
Satisfaction - with a project outcome, with one's role, one's career path - is in my view likely far higher if we can see, understand, maybe even witness how our insights have impacted, made a business difference.
It's also important if we are to maintain our value in a "data-everywhere" world - we need to be constantly aiming to be valued, strategic data partners.
Big ask? I'd suggest not. Here are a few suggestions on how to be more strategically impactful - eminently do-able, without any major retraining exercise.
1. Aim for early involvement - it's when design questions are being raised, hypotheses formulated. If you join a project that's already moving, take time to loop back with key stakeholders on the background, existing knowledg base.
2. Spend time in the shoes of the target consumer - use the product yourself, talk to friends about their experiences, get the shopping experience in key channels first-hand, record the positives as well as elements that seemed barriers to you.
Share this feedback with project owners - see if it adds to their existing hypotheses.
3. Look for at least two data points and two stakeholder POVs.
Delivering insight value invariably involves taking multiple datastreams into account rather than just relying on one data source.
Despite often not being part of an ad hoc research brief, a MR project is almost certainly richer and likely more robust if it references additional data - sales, share, competitive activities, megatrends, channel data....whatever is most apt and available. Time-consuming but valuable.
Securing the timely input and view of more than one client stakeholder will also help give research findings more weight - onerous organisationally, perhaps, but again probably valuable.
4. Bring stakeholders close-up-and-personal to the consumers.
Ad agencies have known this for ages - hearing and seeing consumers talk about a brand or a product has far higher impact on executives than having a MR staffer report on it. It brings findings to life, lends authenticity, and helps avoid a read-out being dry.
If organising face-to-face stakeholder encounters isn't possible or desirable, then use technology - video exercepts; vox pop quotes, show individual people's reactions as they are delighted or horrified. This shouldn't be the domain of qual. research - percentages and numbers need to come to life.
5. Plan for iterations - part-read outs, re-checks.
Opinions differ here, but I would make the case for a collaborative and iterative approach on both fieldwork and particularly reporting over a "wait-for-the-full-picture-and-presentation" approach.
So if for example it becames crystal clear after say the first half of fieldwork that concept A is an outstanding winner, then see if additional add-ons could make that even stronger. This potentially means modifying the concept, looking at part-samples, worrying about about statistical validity - yes, it introduces complexity but also possible added value.
If the above sounds like a chaos-style horror scenario, I'd counter - sure, stick to the overall project charter, deliver the outcomes, but show how you can enrich the outcomes as the project unfolds.
There's plenty more that Researchers can do to grab the strategic head-room immediately above them, and take ownership of a space that other consultants are all too happy to grab.
Yes, there are time and cost implications - but also value ones too.
And coming back to the starting-point: by adding more strategic value, MR can create higher satisfaction for pretty much everyone involved, not the least of whom being the paying customer and equally important the project manager responsible.
This kind of approach should - if pursued sustainably - generate a higher value perception over time, resulting in more business, greater acceptance of MR per se, and who knows maybe even higher price points.
We may not as an industry be on a par with the rock band Rolling Stones in any sense, but perhaps we can aim to get satisfaction where they supposedly didn't ;)
Curious, as ever, as to others' views.