If you do basics exceptionally well, then you’re probably going to excel.
This applies to everything you do. Sports, studying, relationships, oh, and market research too.
Despite this we think the basics are a bore, AI, ML and VR are what we seem to adore.
But it’s the so-called ‘boring basics’ that really pay our bills. So this series is about appreciating and upcycling our basic and most important skills!
Objectives. They’re at research’s core. We write, stretch and try to exceed them. Resultantly, handling objectives is a basic and vital skill. But what have objectives got to do with eggs?
They’re both fundamental
Objectives give us direction and measurable outcomes. Both of which are vital to research. Similarly, eggs provide vital nutrients. And while this similarity exists, there’s also a key difference.
Everyone – even me aged 36 with student-level cooking skills – can cook egg-based meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And in doing so reap egg’s nutritional benefits all day. Conversely, objectives often only appear at the start (brief and proposal), and end (debrief) of research.
To egg-cel at handling objectives, like you can include an egg in almost any meal, reference and explain your objectives at every stage in the research process. Every.
- State your objectives in research design documents (questionnaires/discussion guides). This will keep them top-of-mind
- State how your questionnaires/discussion guide’s sections each meet your objectives. This will ensure your client knows you’ll meet them
- Explain your objectives to operational colleagues: programmers, data processors, translators etc. The more they know about your objectives, the more value they’ll add
They come in different forms
All eggs are equal. But some are more equal than others. Ostrich eggs for example are more equal than your regular supermarket eggs. And objectives are the same. But while ten forms of edible eggs exist, objectives only come in three buckets:
- The ostrich egg of the objective world is the business objective. This defines why your client needs research. These are often BIG questions like: how do we sell more? How do we target better? How do we price higher?
- The chicken egg of the objective world – the one we use most – is research objectives. Answering multiple research objectives often results in answering the business objective
- To better manage research objectives though, you need to organise them further into sub-objectives. Do so by bucketing them into relevant marketing areas (product design, targeting, media etc). This will provide further focus and clarity that’ll allow you to egg-cel
Segmenting objectives like this is important. But more importantly, you must connect the buckets together, so they work in tandem. And in doing so, link sub-objectives back to the bigger picture business objectives.
Presentation and structure are key
In the early 1900’s eggs were precariously carried in baskets. That was until Francis Sherman invented the modern-day egg carton in 1931. With its fixed structure and pressed paper pulp, this made eggs safe and secure.
Like the discerning 1930’s shopper wanted safety and security for their eggs, so too does the 21st century research client. You can provide this when communicating objectives by:
- Structuring their presentation in the aforementioned buckets
- Using clear language to interpret them
- Distilling them down to a manageable amount
Many levels of quality exist
Eggs come in different forms. But also, in differing levels of quality. Objectives are the same. The multiple pages of bullet pointed objectives represent battery chicken eggs. Sadly, these objectives too often occupy research briefs.
Your challenge is to shape these into the equivalent of organic eggs: cared for, thought through and fed with commercial context.
If your brief doesn’t do this for you, you’ve got the opportunity to egg-cel by doing it yourself. Why? Because returning what was once a list of randomly ordered bullet points as a segmented, structured set of objectives shows you have interrogated and understood them.
Add extra vale with them
Rocky eats them raw. And Italians put them in pizza. These are two ways egg use has innovated. We can do the same with how we use objectives. But how?
We typically receive objectives and are then asked to meet them. However, if we set ourselves measurable objectives for research’s impact, we’re showing a dedication to creating measurable value. Similarly, we can move from recipient to writer by forming our client’s marketing objectives for them. We can do so in three ways:
- Using predictive analytics to estimate campaign outcomes
- Setting volumetrics-based sales targets
- Identifying purchase funnel improvements
Eggs and objectives are simple things. But badly handled objectives will leave you with what American poet John Ciardi used to refer to theatrical performances where audiences pelted incompetent actors with eggs – ‘egg on your face.’
The key to avoiding this and egg-celling at handling objectives is investing time in understanding, distilling and structuring them.
And while Einstein’s philosophy of ‘if you have an hour to solve a problem, spend 55mins thinking about it’ certainly applies to objectives, the same time span certainly can’t be applied to eggs, boiled, scrambled or otherwise.
