Growth hints and hacks for Research & Insight
Paul Griffiths
??Helping Market Research & Insight Agencies increase revenue ?? Proven growth strategies ??Helping Research & Insight Leaders increase research budgets through proven commercial strategies ??
As we step into 2025, I’m excited about the opportunities ahead and the chance to keep connecting with you all. Not that I think this year will be anything less than challenging (the 20s are proving interesting so far!), but I do feel optimistic for the insights industry and so 2025 feels full of potential. On that basis, I'm looking forward to continuing to share growth ideas and advice with you along the way.
To kick this off, I’d love for you to check out my podcast, 'Across the Pond: How to Grow your Insight Agency'.
Together with my friend Steve Henke , Harpeth Marketing , we've been exploring the ins and outs of commercial strategy, marketing and sales, sharing practical tips to help your research and insight agency grow. Six episodes in (and more to come), it’s a conversation designed to spark ideas and drive action for insight leaders, around how best to achieve commercial growth. The episodes are only 20 mins long, so if you speed them up to 1.5x, you'll get through them all in less time than it's taken me to draft this newsletter!
Happy reading AND listening!
A New Reality for B2B Buying
My first post of the year was actually about something that I've been talking about for most of last year, and I predict, will be a topic for most of this new one...
How best to organise marketing and sales in an insight agency. and this article picks out some very interesting ideas to ponder:
1) The sales function needs to change and be more than just chasing;
2) Marketing has more to add to winning leads;
3) To win more work, you need to establish relationships way before the proposal stage;
4) Two-phase buying means that you have to influence way beyond the pitch.
As we slowly emerge from the fog of holidays, if you are a leader in a market research and insight agency, do start to think about this - the race for growth in 2025 is already on!
Playing Chess?
Third day of the year and I brought out the big guns - an article that talks about brand salience and Byron Sharp... I'm not messing around in 2025!
This article suggests, in the intricate game of marketing our insight agency, that there's often a hidden match being played beneath the surface.
While we focus on immediate sales targets and brand building, strategic shifts can occur out of sight, reshaping the entire landscape of our clients and who we are targeting.
These unseen moves can lead to:
???????????????????????????? ????????????????????????: Teams merging to form new centres of excellence
???????????????????? ??????????????: Sudden departures of key figures, bringing fresh perspectives
?????????????????? ????????????????????????: A renewed focus on long-term brand development over short-term gains.
Such shifts can either propel our relationships with clients forward or present significant challenges. To navigate this, it's essential to:
???????????????? ?????????????????? ??????????????: Be prepared to adapt to unforeseen changes
?????????? ?? ?????????? ???????????? ???? ??????????????: Demonstrate consistent performance to weather strategic shifts
?????????????? ?? ???????????????????? ?????? ?????????????????? ?????? ???????????????????? ????????????: Align marketing and client-facing efforts with broader business objectives.
By staying vigilant and adaptable, leaders in insight agencies can turn these hidden challenges into opportunities for growth.
Working Well Together
I saw this new column before Xmas, but I wanted to highlight it now, as we get back into the swing of things.
Danny Russell is a very sensible man (albeit I would never say it to his face! ??). And what he says here, in his new regular piece for Significant Insights, is just spot on.
领英推荐
As an industry, we, both client-side researcher teams and insight agencies, really need to be better at working together. This is where AURA Insight's Working Together Charter comes in.
As Danny so pithy suggests: "Now is the time for us to start showing some common courtesy and treating (agencies in particular) each other with same respect as we would wish to be treated.
My plea to you today is very simple....
If you are a client, then please: – Sign up today – Ask a client-side colleague to sign up.
If you’re an agency, and you haven’t already signed up then please: – Sign up today – Ask just one of your clients to sign up .
That’s not too much to ask for, is it, for the betterment of all?
Do as Danny says - it's an offer you cannot refuse!
Behavioural Economic Tips
Very few research and insight agencies ever admit that their proposals are not good enough. After all, they win work and clients commission them.
But what I often see is the lost opportunity.
Yes, your win rate is acceptable, but could/should it be better - especially if we accept the fact that the cost of sale for new and existing clients is increasing - both in terms of time (to get to the point where you get a chance to be part of the pitch process) and in terms of the how much sales effort and resource (people hours) you need to invest.
On that basis, this article by Chris Harvey is really relevant. It's written in the context of how to more effectively embed insights into organisations and I think it is super helpful and practical for that.
But more than that, I think these three tips can be applied to the writing and crafting of proposals, to improve your win rates.
I know, from the work that I do with buyers of insight that they are calling out for proposals that reflect these three tips:
1.?Beware the tyranny of choice
2.?Simplify, simplify…and simplify again
3.?Avoid unnecessary uncertainty
Next time you or your team are crafting that proposal, and making it too long, too complex and with too many options (essentially hedging your bets rather than making a determined recommendation), think about how easy it is for a client to decide to use your market research and insight agency, vs the competition.
Should your proposals be even better?
Get in Touch with Paul
Helping Research & Insight Leaders be more successful
Mobile:?07711344074
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.clientadvocates.co.uk
I help smart, analytical people present and communicate the value of their work to their clients, prospects, and the industry at large | PowerPoint, video, sketch, explainers, one pagers & more | insightsaccelerator.com
1 个月I LOVE THE WORKING TOGETHER CHARTER! I wonder if agencies might do well to set these principles up as expectations for working with them on every project.
Mobile Ethnography Specialist | Podcast Host | Lecturer | Co-organiser of the Festival of Customer Delight
1 个月This is great, it's so useful to have all this amazing content in the same place. Thank you for sharing!
Business Development Director at Maru UK - A Stagwell Company
1 个月Great newsletter Paul Griffiths! The linked article etc are very salient - I particularly enjoyed Danny Russells column, that subject has been a bugbear for 'years'! Glad there are moves to try to rebalance ??
Nice one Paul and Happy New Year. Thanks for the shout out re the AURA WWT initiative. Still plenty to do, esp in encouraging more clients to sign up