I want to talk about “time to insight” as a concept in operationalizing market research. First off, I love this as a conceptual focus because I think it focuses on both the timely application of insights as well as the reality that not all data is already in “insight” form (i.e. that whatever comes back must be an “insight”).
You can reduce time to insight on the “insight” side with rich behavioral analysis that’s provided/driven by actual behaviorists (people with social science mindsets from fields like anthropology, sociology, and psychology). But deep doesn’t mean it can’t have speed. For over a decade we’ve been showing how we can do large-scale projects AND apply that same process for daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly reporting. Whether for product development, marketing, or crisis public relations, you can have rigor and still have speed. (The hidden key to frequency will be how you are operationalized internally to act on the insights found.)
All of this said, we tend to focus on the “time” aspect with our budgets and it means we get more obsessed with dashboards and the FTEs to use them. Too often we’ve been asked to come in and provide deep insights to a team that thought that was what they were paying for in a dashboard license or three, plus an in-house interpreter, all these years. While having an open mind on dashboards is important, what I’d encourage is that you look farther down the well: Be channelagnostic and not just tech agnostic. All dashboards struggle with channels that have nonstandard (or no) API’s. (An example: the local cancer forum a hospital needs to know about that is exclusively populated by their target demographic.) Be open minded enough to look past your own habits, and the official channels of your brand, and follow all the breadcrumb trails of your target audiences no matter where they lead. Being honest about where they are and what they say – with the help of some actual behaviorists – will truly reduce the “time to insight.”
– Dean Browell, PhD
If you’re interested in learning more about your audiences, reach out and we can customize a research plan and approach that works for you: Dean @ discoverfeedback.com .