The term ‘report’ has very traditional connotations even now. Most people would think of a lengthy written document detailing the minutiae of a situation, experience, process from start to end, with specific analysis and recommendations; that is because we have rinsed the traditional written report for all it’s worth, and now every time we come to it, we can find it bone dry. Its usefulness has run its course.
Creative reporting is probably one of the most underrated significant recent innovations in the insights industry. Hauling traditional reporting into the 21st century has been a huge undertaking, but we have…
Dear Survey, for a long time now, I have felt that something is amiss in our relationship; a nagging doubt that somehow things have moved on, but we have not adapted as much we could. In a way, our relationship has traded on our deep and long-lasting shared history, our shared moments of success. I have enjoyed everything we have achieved. We have been together for so long now and we have achieved so much. I love the numbers, the promise of certainty and the ‘public face’ of our relationship. …
FlexMR has a long heritage informing decisions with actionable insight. In fact, it has been a 20+ year journey. Our methods, the insight industry and the world have all changed a lot in that time. But from the very start, we have always believed in the power of insight, the role of innovation and the importance of forging strong relationships. History has taught us that research is vital to success but often still critically undervalued. So, it has been a source of great joy to witness clients and insight professionals alike grow into increasingly influential positions.
Change has a habit…
Insight teams within an organisation that doesn’t value market research are typically seen as a cost-centre or a money pit. Those insight teams then find themselves in positions where they have to fight for funding, the chance to prove themselves and to make sure their stakeholders are using the insights they pass on. All of this extra work usually brings down the quality of research as the limited time of insight teams isn’t spent as much on the research itself.
So how do insight teams and stakeholder organisations become empowered by insights? What can insight professionals do to help themselves…
It seems with the increasing number of requests from stakeholders for more faster and agile research, that there are ever more insight teams struggling with the decreased amount of time to do quality market research in the insights industry.
As an industry, we are continually innovating research methods and working within the constraints set for us by stakeholders, but there are some that stand above the rest for the truly time-strapped teams:
1. Continuous Insight Generation
While this strategy takes a fair bit of forward planning, but once insight teams establish a successful research community or panel set up and running well then insight…
Stakeholder engagement is a big topic in insights at this moment in time. We are dealing with a myriad of stakeholders and clients who do not understand consumers in the way they need to, and who may not understand the value of market research in getting them across that line so they can start to understand what customers need.
But the insights industry is here nonetheless, pushing through and working to connect stakeholders and customers closer than ever before. …
The latest data from the Greenbook GRIT Report suggests that 60% of research teams are using online insight communities — also known as research communities or MROCs. A further 22% are considering the popular method. Why? Well, in the age of competitive customer-closeness, they offer some distinct benefits.
Communities act as an agile interface between a brand and their customers. Advanced communities may even segment members into different categories — including ordinary customers, loyalists, specific target audiences and more. These groups can usually be accessed quickly and easily. In fact, the hallmark of a successful insight community is the degree…
How far does the influence of insights stretch within your brand? If the answer is not far, then you might need to consider recruiting Insight Advocates into teams within your organisation.
Scaling the influence and reach of insights is a key challenge that insight professionals have been struggling with since the dawn of market research. While we have innovated a myriad of aspects of the research process to do with insight generation, the activation stages leave a lot to be desired.
We still refer to ideas like data warehouses/insight inventories, and complete stakeholder engagement in insights as the ‘holy grail’…
Reporting is one of the most important stages of market research, and isn’t really given the attention it deserves in favour of the arguably more exciting data collection and analysis stages. However, in the past few years, the evolution of research in the aim to become more engaging for stakeholders has meant that curating methods have had a few injections of innovation to make sure our efforts in insight generation aren’t in vain.
1. Regular Insight Newsletters
Curating insights isn’t just about the big report at the end of a project, if the research strategy is a longer-term or continuous research experience then one…
As researchers, it’s our job to explore a range of different approaches and methodology for any given project. We do this to choose an approach that will get us the best, most relevant data available. Experimenting with different techniques is essential to determine which approach best suits a brief.
I’ll be honest, human experience research is something I’ve only recently been introduced to. After looking into this emerging field of research I hope I can provide you with a brief introduction to what it is and how it differs from the more widely used approaches.
So, let’s start right at…
FlexMR
FlexMR is The Insights Empowerment Company. We help brands to act decisively, stay close to customers and embed agile insight at the heart of every decision.
