We have reached the final step of the Marketing Research Process. At this point, you have identified the research, designed and conducted your study, and of course, you have analyzed all the data points you received from the study. You are now ready to share your research insights to your client or boss.
Marketing Research is broken down into five steps:
Let’s explore Step 5: Share the Research Insights
Step 5 of the Marketing Research is where you will share your insights into what you have gathered from all the data you received. It is essential to understand the difference between insight and data. You do not want to share a bunch of spreadsheets with the data to your client or stakeholders. You want to have visually appealing insights about what you have gathered from the data.
At this step, the goal is to change the data you received to meaningful and useful information or wisdom that the stakeholders can take action on. After all, the point of the entire research was to change some aspect of the business. However, this is the part where you, as a research analysts or marketing executive, have to tell a story. Not so much saying 56% of people will purchase the product. You need to explain why they will buy the product. What does that 56% really mean? You want to be able to turn the data into useful information that action will be ready to be taken.
Here are some tips for getting the best story out to your stakeholders. You want to present this on PowerPoint or Keynote presentation. You want to make sure you are keeping your story clear, concise, and compelling to your audience.
Tip 1
Keep all your group topics together. Don’t jump around from questions; you want to be able to have a cohesive message that flows well.
Tip 2
Keep it short; you want to make your slides short and straightforward. Be sure to add your graphs that will drive the point home. Don’t put just random information or make the slide too wordy.
Tip 3
You want to make sure your jargon matches the company standard. If you use specific jargon to phrase something, use it, so everyone is aware of what you are trying to say. This will show the report is coming internally.
Tip 4
Be sure to declutter your layout. Your slides should show a graphic standpoint and that it makes sense for everyone to understand. If you have too much going on, the audience will not know where to look on the slide.
Tip 5
Use callout circles or arrows to draw the audience into where to look and see what actionable item is on the slide
Tip 6
You want to use charts or graphics. Excel can turn your data into charts graphics as well as other tools like Tableau.
Tip 7
You can also create an infographic that will chart everything in one place, and it can be used as a leave-behind document. This will show an overview of all the data in a more professional and visually appealing format.
Tip 8
You can also add quotes from the respondents. These respondents’ quotes are referred to as verbatims. It can be impactful for the stakeholders to see what their consumers are saying, whether good or bad, and it will help in creating that story you are trying to portray to the stakeholders.
Tip 9
You want to include at the end of the presentation the “So what” section. This is where you want to go beyond sharing averages and percentages. You want to provide the interpretation of the data and where you want to outline the recommended actions that need to take place after doing such intensive research. Too often, marketers do not add this section in the presentation, which leaves the stakeholders unimpressed and wanting more. You don’t want all that hard work you put into the research to go unused.
All these tips are helpful to ensure that you tie everything back to your research question, that you interpret the results, and help connect the dots so the stakeholders can make a sound decision.