If you haven’t worked in an advertising agency or marketing firm before, let me tell you, it can be a whirlwind. A million moving marketing parts, each with a deadline that hits in about 12 seconds, all in an effort to create a great advertisement or achieve some monumental marketing metrics milestone. It’s a thrill that keeps you on your toes, but it doesn’t leave a lot of room for error. That’s why I wanted to share one of the secrets from some of the bigger marketing firms and even public relations companies – they all get to run their stuff by a market research team!
“Let’s run that by research.” This is a phrase you’ll hear a lot at some of the biggest agencies out there. It’s because market research teams, when in-house, help make everything a little bit stronger, a little bit tighter, and a whole lot more accurate.
I write a lot of articles on here about how to do market research, but this time I wanted to share why so many major marketing masters out there are giving a huge chunk of their research-related work to experienced market research partners and team members.
So, to get us going, I thought I’d share a few common market research-related phrases that marketing agencies with market research capabilities are saying, and why they’re so important for those marketing teams.
“Hey, let’s run that by Research!”
Starting with our title phrase, one of the benefits of market research is that it’s a sounding board for marketing ideas. When marketers develop strategy, they’re often basing it on past experiences combined with current market information. But, as we all know, not every marketing strategy is a home run.
What market research is really great at is verifying that the strategy matches the data. That’s why so many marketing teams choose to ‘run their strategy by research’ before putting it into action.
Researchers will look at the strategy and compare it to the existing insights, secondary research, past performance marketing metrics, and more. They’ll ask ‘what is the market segmentation of this project?’ and determine if the strategy adequately hits the right pain points.
Bottom line, when your marketing team ‘runs that by research,’ they’re doing one final data-driven check to make sure everything is in line with the team’s knowledge of the market.
“Let’s loop Research in on this.”
If you work in marketing, and you’re starting a new project or campaign, it can be stressful wondering if your strategy and insights are based on truth or bias. One of those has the potential recipe for disaster, and I’ll let you guess which one it is.
This is why so many marketers choose to ‘loop in research’ on new projects and strategies. Just like a public relations firm is going to come in prepared with media ideas and information, a market researcher is going to bring to the table a summary of the research, data and insights that matter to the marketing campaign.
They’ll come into the project prepared with insights, and ask the group ‘what is a marketing strategy going to look like based on the information we have about the market?’
Unfortunately, most of the advertising agencies near me, and even those everywhere else, just don’t have that market research resource available on their team.
This is a challenge that many marketers are facing today. Fortunately, as more resources become available to help marketers incorporate the different types of market research out there, slowly but surely more and more marketing team members are becoming the go-to experts on market research in their marketing firms.
Every marketing department deserves access to a market research team. Find out why in this article.
“Be sure Research takes a look at that.”
Why are so many big advertising agencies concerned with the market research team looking over their work? It’s because market researchers are great at fact checking the outputs before they hit the market.
Let’s say you’re an advertising agency putting together a media strategy for your new marketing client. Are you focusing on a one-size-fits-all method, or have you gone the more-effective market segmentation route?
Or let’s say you’re a public relations company looking to share some stats on your client’s big project. Are you sure you understand the story hidden within the data? Do you have a firm grasp of the stats you’re about to pitch?
If you’re like most public relations pros I’ve worked with over the years, having that extra chance to bounce the data-driven story off of a market research team is an amazing final check to ensure accuracy and impact. Not only that, market research teams can also help find additional secondary research data that can bolster your marketing story that much more.
“Was Research involved in this?”
Many masterful marketing minds at major marketing agencies across the globe look to their market research team as a necessary part of any marketing strategy process. That’s because these advertising and marketing strategists understand that market research is a resource meant to make your marketing better.
There’s a great marketing agency near me that’s excellent at this. In all of their brainstorm sessions and nearly every project, they work to involve at least one market research team member, who comes to the party equipped with data and insights. Often, that person will bring some great one-sheets and other market research examples to inspire creativity and get the juices flowing. From there, the researcher keeps an eye on the ideas to ensure they’re in line with the data, keeping the whole discussion grounded in real-world information about the market.
“I’ll bet Research can make sense of this.”
If you work in marketing, you’re coming face to face with mountains of information, much of which doesn’t make a whole heap of sense. Sometimes markets go against the trend, sometimes audiences reject strong ideas, and sometimes data tells a different story than what was originally predicted.
Why does this happen? That’s a great question. But ‘I’ll bet research can make sense of this!’
That’s exactly it. Market researchers are great at solving puzzles, helping to make sense of the weird why’s and how’s that impact our final marketing success. They dive deep, examine market conditions, and figure out exactly what worked and why.
Whether it’s deciphering marketing metrics, understanding KPIs, deciphering market segmentations, or just uncovering new ways to improve marketing strategy, market research is the team available to help make sense of the madness.