Why ResearchTech is the Next Big Thing in the MarketingTech Stack

To say today’s chief marketing officers are under pressure is an understatement. Under siege is more accurate.

On one hand marketers face fragmented audiences demanding ever-higher levels of personalization and service from the companies they do business with. On the other is an anxious C-suite facing significant pressures of their own and demanding clear ROI from their marketing investments. And amidst it all, CMOs find themselves in a field evolving at breakneck speed while trying to formulate that next attention-grabbing campaign.

Combine all this with consumers who have endless product choices and rapidly declining levels of trust in brands across the board, and it’s easy to see why being a marketer has never been harder.

It’s not all doom and gloom, of course. The intense competition has led to an exciting new generation of marketing technology solutions. This growing martech stack offers marketers powerful capabilities unheard of even five years ago. And of all the challenges they face, CMOs can make the fastest gains – and enjoy the quickest wins – by strategically embracing these technologies.

Of particular importance to data driven CMOs is research automation, otherwise known as ResearchTech.

The data-driven CMO

One of the many findings in the AMA’s CMO Survey is that the C-suite is increasingly looking to marketers to act as the voice of the customer, and use that power to keep the organization on course. This expectation isn’t necessarily new. The success or failure of brands has always hinged on how well they understood the needs of their customers.

But what has changed is the depths to which marketers are expected to have their finger on the pulse of their customers and prospects, and how they must be able to back those insights up with hard data.

Everyone talks about the power of data. Collecting data is the easy part. Far more difficult is making sense of that data once it’s collected. Analyst firm Forrester found that while nearly three quarters of firms say they want to be data-driven (74%), only 29% admit to be good a turning market research into action. For companies that do, the possibilities are endless. Organizations that use data to underpin their business decisions are more likely to outperform their competitors—and more than seven times more likely to sell to existing customers, according to research from global consulting firm McKinsey.

The rise of the agile marketing process

What’s made this issue even more urgent is the evolution of the marketing planning process. For years it was linear and very predictable. Start with a big idea, test and adapt it against focus group research, invest heavily in execution, and cross fingers that the results matched expectations.

Not only is the linear approach slow and expensive, it’s also risky. Everyone is left to make big bets with relatively little assurance of success. Now savvy companies rely on a process known as agile marketing – a nimble approach focused on a steady stream of small strategies fed by constant insights and adjustments. Essentially, planning is always on.

As each mini strategy develops, the same questions arise: Will the creative connect with customers? Have teams anticipated everything that could possibly go wrong? What elements of the campaign will actually resonate with the target audiences? And perhaps most important of all, if it doesn’t resonate, when will they know and what will they do about it? 

The power of ResearchTech

There is a new generation of research automation platforms that are fundamentally changing the relationship between research and marketing’s “big idea, test, adapt” approach. Automation has created an opportunity for research professionals to transform themselves into digital strategists who constantly collect and analyze data in digestible, actionable chunks.

Then there’s the speed factor. For instance, ResearchTech serves up tailored focus groups taken from a brand’s social community who can be mined for insights in hours, not weeks. Not only does that provide a constant source of fuel for marketing campaigns, it also allows for near real-time testing of creative elements before they go to field, when it’s too late to make changes. Put another way, it enables marketers to plan and build at the same time. This builds a layer of trust and confidence into marketing, and provides CMOs with assurances that the dollars they spend are being used wisely and with an eye to the ROI the C-suite craves.

ResearchTech in action

Among the many companies that have seen the benefits of research automation is J.P. Wiser’s, one of Canada’s best selling whiskey brands. The company needed help designing and refining one of the most hyper-personalized campaigns ever launched in the alcohol industry—Hold it High, which gives people the opportunity to toast each other in a massive way. So they used the research automation platform Methodify throughout the campaign planning process for testing and optimization. The research acted as an accelerator rather than hinder creative development. Since results were delivered within one to two days, each agency partner involved in the creative development process was able to integrate consumer feedback immediately into their plans.

As a result, some of the most meaningful campaign results come from the personal stories and impact the brand has had on people’s relationships, including a proposal on a billboard to a live cross-border toast to the American-Canadian friendship.

In another example, British supermarket retailer Asda integrated Voxpopme video into their traditional CX survey to bring the voice of customers into the C-suite. Thanks to existing CX data, a high-level understanding of customer challenges and preferences was already available. However, Asda needed video to add depth, emotion and authenticity to their feedback to reveal the “why” behind shoppers’ perceptions and opinions. The insights gathered via video open ends enabled Asda’s senior team to focus their 165,000 dedicated colleagues on delivering exceptional customer experiences across all touchpoints.

What It All Means For Researchers

As researchers it is paramount that we start thinking more like marketers and adopt a more holistic view of the data ecosystem. This also places increased importance on technology partnerships and marketplaces and creates more opportunities for collaboration rather than competition. Focusing on collaboration and partnerships creates opportunities to more rapidly experiment with new research solutions, while putting the onus on each firm to identify its own unique competitive advantage, and therefore able to thrive in an environment where “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

There is so much power in data to speed up and improve the marketing process by adding insights to every marketing initiative. But perhaps even more importantly, research technology has the power to unify previously siloed departments, creating new opportunities that drive customer experience.