A research question needs a strategic partner when the hard part is deciding what the evidence should settle, as much as gathering it. When the question is clear and the job is to measure something well, excellent fieldwork and clear reporting may be all it needs.
The difference shows in what happens after the results arrive, and it is worth knowing which kind of question you have before choosing who works on it.
Evidence and the decision can drift apart
In a Gartner survey of 377 marketing analytics users in 2022, respondents said analytics were “responsible for influencing just over half (53%) of marketing decisions.” The same release describes decision makers who “cherry-pick data” to support a view they already hold.
Analytics is one kind of evidence, and research faces the same test. It changes a decision when the question it answers is the one the business faces, put in terms the people deciding will accept.
Settled questions and open ones
Some questions arrive ready to answer: how many people in a market fit a profile, or which of four claims is understood best. Others arrive as a decision still taking shape: where to grow next, which customers to put first, whether a market is worth entering at all.
With the second kind, the first job is agreeing what would change the plan, who has to be convinced and what the evidence can and can’t tell them. That job is part research and part strategy. It needs people who can design qualitative research, quantitative research and data science together, and who will say plainly what the evidence supports.
When the plan can’t wait for the research
A travel company had to commit part of its fleet to future seasons on a fixed date, with no time to finish the research first and plan afterwards. Itinerary research with travelers in the US, the UK and Australia ran alongside working sprints with its deployment and insight teams, so appeal to guests was weighed with operations, flights and finance.
Because the planners had built the options with us, the leadership session could go straight to the choices that remained. Part of the fleet later ran seasons the itinerary research had assessed. The work is described in Weighing where a travel brand’s fleet should go.
The question decides the partner
A settled question rewards excellent fieldwork and clear reporting. A decision still taking shape rewards a partner who will help frame it, design the evidence around it and stand behind a recommendation your leadership can act on.
Many programs move from one kind to the other as they go, which is why our strategic research brings qualitative research, quantitative research and data science together with the strategic thinking to turn the evidence into your next move.