So we recently ran our own research.
What we found was a wake up call of how we had made the wrong assumptions about our own target audience.
What we did
So we ran a survey targetting businesses between 50 to 500 people aimed at getting a certain level of response from people who hold marketing, product, customer, MD, owner-level posts.
The survey was open response and the level of insights gathered and detailed was simply amazing. We then coded the survey responses which helped highlight common themes.
What we assumed
1 Research agencies/ consultancies are approached because of the lack of skills or resources internally
2 Businesses need help with understanding which methods are best to use to help understand certain problems
3 Businesses seek research folk to help produce better-quality research findings
What we now know
People like yourself are much more clued up on the benefits, value and methods to conduct research.
You see the real benefits of using a third party to be:
1 The provision of independent unbiased findings that are not impacted by internal perspectives or influence
2 Provides a fresh perspective that you may not have gleaned from conducting research using an internal team
3 External research teams cans often have better methods, systems, and processes to gather, store and analyze data
4 The key reason for not using third parties came down largely to cost and available budgets. Surprisingly the other objections were minimal and came from a small % of respondents and reality to perceived quality.
Summary
The surprise for us was how badly we got it wrong but further justified in our minds the importance of doing research and why we do what we do for others. Now we will be re-looking at our propositional messaging and content to help steer our growth plans. What a great case study of the danger of assuming you know your audience.
All the best
Lee Runway Co-Founder
We help our clients gather insights to improve their services, marketing, UX, CX and pricing. If you need a hand get in touch and we can discuss your specific problems before getting back to you with a bespoke proposal.
