The Five Things You (Really) Need To Know About Insights Marketing

By Lucy Davison                                              

A little while back I sat down to think about what I’ve learnt while working in marketing for data, research and insights.  I realised that over 15+ years there were five things that crop up repeatedly –  and are particularly problematic to marketing and communications within the MR industry. Probably even better, when I thought about it I had five realistic solutions for these problems.

Although only five things doesn’t sound like much after 15 years (maybe I am a slow learner) these things are specific and crucial to successful insights marketing. However, if they are solved, we are well on the way to becoming much better marketers and communicators.

Thing One: differentiation

“One fish, two fish, no red fish all blue fish!” This is what I say about the MR industry. Everyone thinks they are truly original (we’ve never had a client think otherwise) but in reality they all look and sound exactly the same. We did an analysis of the visual identities of the top 35 global MR companies and found they were overwhelmingly grey and blue – and square. No wonder the industry has a reputation of being boring and unimaginative. When we looked at their straplines the words were remarkably similar and descriptive (‘Data, Intelligence, Global, Research, Insights’). This extends to the language on websites and the way the drop down menu is the curse of MR sites. Everyone says they do everything, just in case they come across a client that wants that one thing they forgot to list.

It is all generic, undistinctive and, yes dull. How can clients easily ‘shop’ the MR sector if all the packaging looks the same?

So what should we do about Thing One? Well, it’s long been my view that people in the insights industry should take a dose of their own medicine and apply their knowledge and understanding of brands to their own company brand. They should do research, find out what their clients and customers think of them, and carry out competitor analysis (beyond a cursory glance at their websites). Then research companies should build on that knowledge to find what we call their ‘secret sauce’ – the thing that makes them distinctive. It’s about crafting a story around your secret sauce, and going beyond your USP and Value Proposition to make it really come to life. For example, here at Mustard we founded the agency on the idea that mustard brings out the flavour of food (our clients) and spices things up a bit. We focus on the language of Mustard in our writing– ensuring we communicate our distinct personality.

Thing Two: time and money

Most people would say they often juggle time and money at work and this is typical within the insights industry. It seems to me that we spend too much time focused on the process of research and not enough time planning the outcomes. Also, as researchers are particularly good at multi-tasking – indeed it’s a core part of the role to be able to design studies, hypothesise responses, ask questions, analyse data, write reports and give presentations, etc., etc. So, most researchers are not fazed by the idea of doing their own marketing. The problem is that they go into it with unrealistic expectations of what they can achieve in the time and with the money available.

For example, we had a call from a fast growing MR agency which was turning over $12 million a year and wanted to sustain 50% growth. They invested over $2million in a new online portal system and wanted our marketing support. But after asking for their budget, we discovered they had set aside the princely sum of $12,000. Companies frequently expect to generate sustainable growth while throwing pennies into the marketing fountain.  What’s just as bad are those who want the new website, like, last week.

What’s the solution to Thing Two? Do your research and set expectations! If you are interested in working with an agency ask them to supply examples of past work with fees attached. The same goes for timing – just ask how long projects have taken. Then communicate your goals internally and add at least 25% to both the time and the budget. That way when you bring it in on time and on budget, you will be a hero.

Thing Three: briefing and managing creative work is different

We often get briefs that are either ridiculously vague (‘feel free to be creative’) or annoyingly specific (‘use this font, this size, this title, this Google image, and if you send me the file my son can use Photoshop’).

The problem is that most people are focused on the outputs of a marketing project (a new brochure), instead of the outcomes (e.g. more business from a new target sector). I like to think about the core outcome as concentric circles in which the outer ring is ‘what?’ the next ring is ‘how?’ and the inner ring is ‘why?’ MR companies are good with the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ (e.g. listing techniques like mobile, neuro, qual + quant). However, not many companies ask ‘why?’ they are doing any given marketing exercise.

The solution is to use a creative brief. The best way to get to ‘why?’ is to get total agreement on objectives, budget, tone of voice, personality and actionable outcome from the audience before you start. You need a single, distinct, over-riding message to communicate. You get this by writing a creative brief, which is something all creative agencies do. Creative people need a really focused brief to respond to and to be given all the information leading up to that. Don’t tell them what the output should be but ask them how to achieve the outcome and let them advise you. No creative brief, no creative work. Full-stop.

Thing Four: insights communication is long and cluttered

This is a massive problem for the industry as it means the research we labour over is not used and has no impact, and therefore our efforts are wasted. We tend to behave with a supplier mentality often responding immediately to client requests without thinking about objectives and outcomes, and for example adding unnecessary questions to surveys or extending conversation guides. In addition many researchers still think it is not a good idea to express an opinion and researchers should merely present ‘the facts’.

Failure to focus on the active outcomes of a project means we deliver data – not stories. But story telling is the solution to Thing Four. A story framework should be used to build reports and presentations. Of course we still want to deliver data, but we must only present the data that tells the story, leaving the rest to an appendix. We always focus on getting a journalistic ‘hook’ for any report or presentation, and apply that across all the materials – more like a communications campaign than a research deliverable. In fact, by thinking of the communication of research as a campaign – the start point of change – we deliver much stronger stories and research that has impact.

Thing Five: marketing insights is random

Because of Things One to Four, we don’t approach marketing in a strategic way. We get an opportunity and just do it randomly so ‘at least we are doing something.’ But the energy spent doing random marketing is better spent focusing on what is relevant and appropriate for your business.

The solution is to ‘Be more Napoleon’ – think and plan like a master strategist, imagine the big picture and focus on the end goal. We use several practical frameworks for planning our clients’ marketing to see where we should put our energy in order to deliver better results. With content marketing that often means using the same idea angled in different ways for different audiences and channels.

So there we have it. The five naughty things running around in the world of marketing for insights that I would like to wave goodbye to. If you’re interested in learning more about improving your marketing, we’ve teamed up with the leading industry blog GreenBook to bring the 2016 Insights Marketing Day to London on 9 May.

A day of presentations and panels, tailored to the specific marketing objectives of data, research and insight companies. For more information please visit http://imd.insightinnovation.org.

By Lucy Davison, Managing Director, Keen as Mustard Marketing