Rules of Success for Market Research Agencies
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What are the rules of success for marketing research agencies?
I listened to an ESOMAR webinar last week lead by Cambiar's Simon Chadwick on this topic. He listed four things that in his experience lead to success:
- the core business model: a sharply formulated proposition of "why" clients should choose you
- a very clearly differentiated offering
- an inspiring employer brand, with notably strong leadership
- strong marketing - utilising content, Social Media and involvement with industry organisations.
All solid stuff, nothing particularly provocative.
But is it enough given what the folk from Greenbook currently describe as a collision course between MR and newer tech/analytics companies?
I'd add a few aspects from my own experience that seem equally important:
1. Do Great Work!
I think this part is underrated in an era of efficiency and agility.
Much of contemporary MR is - according to such luminaries as Ray Poynter - tactical. Up to 90% I think was his estimate. So things like packaging and concepts tests, automated pre-testing and more.
And we're all under the cosh to deliver twice the impact at half the price and half the time. Thanks for that, btw ;)
The scope to really deliver and capitalise on "great" work in this environment is narrow.
But it's not impossible - and extremely important for reputational build.
My sense is that every MR agency in the world is sitting on a heap of projects waiting to be turned into great stories. The greatness in them just needs teasing out.
But what's great?
Well, projects that stick in clients minds - ones that are somehow special, different, or even outstanding. And it can be in the service area.
It could be because the project manager went more than twice the extra mile. Or because the way the insights were translated into a powerful story leading to actions, impact.
Or because the design was so unusual in approach, but still lead to a great outcome.
The likelihood of clients remembering these projects across their career is high. Making sure that this kind of work is celebrated, fostered, at the very least captured other than in a project file on the server is extremely valuable.
Even if the available PR effort to submit to conferences, write papers, articles is limited, great work tends to become a force of its own in the marketplace.
2. Foster the Power of Recommendations.
The power of 3rd party enthusiasm is a huge business builder.
Any new movement or successful trend is probably triggered not by the actual innovator, but the first genuine follower - who then spreads the word.
The same applies in the world of B2B - recommendations in particular.
Sure awards, quality accreditations are great re-assurers, but it's often word-of-mouth that works best: personal, highly credible and targetted.
Clients (and employees for that matter, partners and suppliers too) who move on in their career carry their own mental "supplier structure" and experiences with them.
The memories they have are hard-wired and powerful business drivers - also for those moments where a new colleague might ask them if they know an agency. Or someone.
Many researchers know this, but find doing something about this a bit embarrassing or intangible, long-term.
It needn't be. What's worse, getting on someone's nerves when they are too busy to talk, or allowing them to forget you?
Which leads to my next point.....
3. Keep the Conversation Going
In the daily routines of pitching, managing and finalising projects, it's easy to forget people who aren't immediately on your active to-do list.
The amount of time that lapses between the last moment of contact is an important variable - the R in RFM (Recency. Frequency. Monetary Value) is perhaps not first in that acryonym by accident.
Six to twelve months of hearing nothing from a client could mean any number of things - new role, budget pause, re-organisation. Leave it longer - you're in danger of losing touch, of clients becoming lapsed.
The worst thing I found as a clientside researcher was for suppliers from a previous company not to bother contacting me in my new position.
CRM systems can be pretty useful in reminding you of customers you've forgotten, so that you can think back to the last conversation, what the personal and professional topics were.
Extending this kind of thinking to partners and suppliers is also invaluable. Markets talk, recommendations - or the opposite - come from all directions.
Concluding....
The final thing I'd add is perhaps the most difficult to execute: reaching out and trying to win new clients is essential for any business to grow.
If my understanding of Professor Andrew Ehrenberg (and Byron Sharp) is correct, this is a key part of a healthy and growing brand.
It takes a while, is more challenging in digital-first times, and who-only-knows how many points of contact.
But without new users, brands must surely peak and eventually fade.
That's it from me. Curious, as ever, as to others' views.