What has your research done for your business lately?
Too often, the possible contributions of market research are not fully realized. It may be assumed when a project kicks off that it will help inform important decisions across the organization, but if you are not intentional about driving that impact, chances are the findings will not be adopted for widespread use. This common scenario translates to limited business impact—far less than is feasible.
Maximizing impact must be intentional
So, how can you ensure the widespread use of research?
Insights Activation
You need a plan, a process, and committed resources to bring insights to life. Who will use the insights and how cannot be an afterthought. Without forethought, some teams that could benefit from your study’s data will never access it and could be planning an overlapping project for their purposes. Or, it forces internal groups to collect what’s already been done and find ways it can add value to their work. In either case, a lack of planning and inclusion of all teams reduces efficiency and heightens internal costs. Including cross-functional stakeholders from the start, including all parties in the planning, and making sure the insights you are gathering are working their hardest for all teams ensures a broader view and buy-in throughout the company (and beyond).
What is Insights Activation?
Once insights are gathered through the best market research approaches for the project, it is taking those insights and “going beyond.” The application of insights should be broad, using uncovered consumer truths to power all stakeholders. That means working with product development and research teams, as well as marketing, creative, strategy, and innovation teams.
The ultimate in collaboration
Insights Activation highlights the necessity of working collaboratively across internal teams—with deliverables designed for use and reference across all departments. So, in addition to the usual market research package of data, insights, and recommendations, it adds an extra layer that allows the research to have a much greater IMPACT. And, in turn, internal teams can work in a more congruous fashion, sharing efforts across departmental lines.
Full utilization of research efforts
Another advantage of an Insights Activation mindset is the full utilization of the market research insights, which increases cost-effectiveness. In other words, you’ve got the data, use it! And, if departments need slightly different data to support their goals and initiatives, building on a current study instead of launching a duplicate or new one saves time and money in the big picture.
Return on investment is also enriched. Rather than working in a siloed fashion, companies benefit from full utilization of a unified project encompassing all the consumer data they need to help them deliver on their goals. In this way, not only does this approach improve departmental results, it grows the broader business goals that departmental objectives are fueling—delivering exponential impact.
What the future holds
As companies continue to look for more efficient and effective ways to innovate and deal with limited internal resources, Insights Activation is becoming key to driving the greatest impact and return on investment. At InsightsNow, we can partner with you to ensure activation and departmental inclusion at the start—and deliver and disseminate the right insights to the right places for the right kinds of activations and usage. Ready to broaden your market research for greater effectiveness, usage, and efficiencies? Reach out to us!
