Marketing Research is not just an expense; it’s an invaluable investment in the future success and sustainability of your business. Market research informs decision making, mitigates risks, and helps identify opportunities.
As discussed in our previous blog, we covered how you are inherently biased. So when it comes to research, you need a great deal of objectivity, and the best way to achieve this objectivity is to outsource your market research. If you are not in a position to outsource your market research, conduct your own with at least an external objective advisor. But don’t pick and choose only the research elements your team has the time or expertise to execute. It’s more important to complete the research in full than for it to be perfect. You cannot shortcut market research and have any hope of reliably predicting outcomes.
You cannot shortcut market research and have any hope of reliably predicting your outcomes.
Based on my experience over the last two decades, most people reading this blog are wasting 60 percent of their marketing investment a year. If you spend $100,000 annually on marketing, that’s $60,000 being wasted every year, and a $300,000 misspend over five years. You can outsource this entire research protocol for roughly $30,000 to $60,000, and most of it will last you, on average, five years depending on how dynamic your industry is. The bottom line is you can’t afford to skip market research. It’s the primary driver of your ability to drive strong, predictable marketing outcomes.
For most of you reading this blog, you are wasting a full 60 percent of your marketing investment a year. You can’t afford to skip market research. It’s the primary driver of your ability to drive strong, predictable marketing outcomes.
The majority of marketing leaders and CEOs I’ve worked with over the years came to the table skeptical about the need for market research. I’ve heard hundreds of variations of “Why wouldn’t I just put that money into execution?” I get it. If you haven’t seen the power of market research firsthand, disbelief is natural. If you cannot let go of that thinking, however, and embrace quality research as the linchpin to predictable marketing, your odds of success drop substantially.
There are two types of research protocols—qualitative and quantitative—and utilizing both gives you the greatest advantage when building an informed results-guaranteed marketing strategy.
Qualitative research is used to determine the scope of beliefs about your brand and its place in the market that must later be vetted against a statistically valid audience size—which is your quantitative research. This quantitative vetting is necessary to ensure you have sufficient clarity and ammunition to craft a strategy with predictable outcomes. Think of qualitative research as the perceptions, opinions, and viewpoints that must be validated statistically through the hard numbers, which are your quantitative methods. Your research protocol generally should include the following elements.
Qualitative research protocol
- Internal and external stakeholder interviews
- Competitive surveillance including reputation scan and indexing
- Value proposition comparison
- Offer strategy evaluation
- Sales and marketing alignment inventory
Qualitative research protocol
- Quantitative research protocol
- Marketing performance audit
- Customer transaction analysis
- Current, lost, and prospective customer survey
By Lori Turner-Wilson, RedRover CEO/Founder, Internationally Best-Selling Author of The B2B Marketing RevolutionTM: A Battle Plan for Guaranteed Outcomes
Taking Action
Championing market research as a do-or-die investment is one of hundreds of best practices found in The B2B Marketing RevolutionTM: A Battle Plan for Guaranteed Outcomes — the playbook that middle-market B2B CEOs and marketing leaders lean on to scale. Backed by a groundbreaking research study, this book offers time-tested best practices, indispensable KPIs for benchmarking, insights on where your dollars are best spent, and, above all, the proven 12 BattlesTM Framework for generating guaranteed marketing outcomes. The B2B Marketing RevolutionTM is a battle-hardened approach to becoming an outcomes-first leader who’s ready to shake up the status quo, invest in high-payoff market research and optimization, and — yes — even torch what’s not serving your endgame.
