Picture the last time you were driving in foggy conditions. You probably slowed down, became more alert to your surroundings, checked your mirrors more often and really focused on the road. These are all prudent moves to respond to unknown and potentially dangerous driving conditions. In thick fog, you simply don’t know what’s coming up ahead – you just don’t have clarity.
To guide us through the fog of COVID, In Partnership With discussed the pressing need for clarity in this chaotic time with Raj Kuchibhatla. Raj is the Global Head of Research & Insights of Key Media, award-winning global media company providing industry-leading B2B publishing services.
As a researcher with nearly 20 years of experience, Raj has seen the industry evolve through constant shifts to engage with customers to glean greater clarity and insight. By discovering what motivates, influences and inspires, it creates opportunities for B2B marketers to connect with customers to meet their needs in a relevant way. Today, understanding their changing attitudes and perceptions has never been more important.
More Questions Than Answers Right Now
Raj has observed that any time where you have the presence of the unknown, or even chaos, people have a lot of questions to ask. And they have a lot of questions they need to answer to get clarity.
The marketing research industry is one of the few industries that really thrive when you have a lot of uncertainty.
Up until about six months ago, there was a pretty safe path for a lot of brands as it relates to who they’re trying to engage with. Then, all of a sudden, this pandemic hit. Now, Raj sees that a lot of decision-making priorities have shifted. Brands that understand these changes better are the ones that are going to be successful. That’s where leveraging insights from your audience – or from your customers – either on the B2B or B2C side – is critical.
Marketing strategies have also shifted and brands need to know what messages now resonate and which ones are obsolete. It’s imperative to adjust your strategy based on what people are thinking now. From an insights perspective, conducting research programs is only good for a certain point in time. If you’re not tracking through these types of events, it’s very problematic, Raj notes.
Needing Clarity While Finding Efficiencies
Unfortunately, if a marketing research budget is slashed, as it often is during a crisis, you are going to pay the price in the long term. Raj has seen this repeatedly.
Now’s the time where you really need to get clarity on what your customers are thinking about your brand and what your competitors are doing.
Raj encourages you to consider: How is your brand position and your competitive position holding up right now? In what way has technology affected customers perceptions of your services? What communications platforms are now being adopted more so than before?
There’s no shock that print has been on the decline over the last 15 years with the rise of digital. Clearly, people are leaning towards video and social media content. But you can’t expect that your messaging is going to be universal across all these different platforms. Conducting platform-specific research upfront and testing out some of your strategies is critical. Otherwise, what ends up happening is you are using a sword when you should use a scalpel.
Historically, most research starts with quantitative data capture through online surveys. Email invites go out to audiences to participate, or panels are leveraged. Raj sees that continuing. The interesting thing is on the qualitative side.
Now that everyone is doing Zoom calls, conducting qual research digitally is being adopted more far, far more now.
Live focus groups just aren’t as necessary (or workable) anymore. Not to mention that they’re more expensive to do in-person. Now, video discussions are just standard protocol and there is a significant opportunity for efficient data gathering going forward. Raj sees that it certainly wasn’t the case six months ago.
COVID Creates New Opportunities
Some research firms decided to pause data collection efforts at the beginning of the pandemic. However, Raj recalls that by the spring, his team was conducting research surveys. If anything, people had a bit more time because they found efficiencies in their day-to-day schedule. The other thing Raj found is that respondents enjoyed the research process as a distraction, especially when related to their industry.
There was an understanding amongst practitioners that they need to engage with their own category research since it was going to help them get clarity on what is going on.
Tapping into that human nature was helpful because it satisfied the need to enable adaptability. When you’re asking good questions and your invite language to the survey is clear and empathetic, it creates a good case for why someone should participate.
Clarity for Marketing Strategists
For marketers building out their brand strategies during a pandemic, it’s important to maintain an advertising presence. Customer engagement is still highly, highly sought after. Raj acknowledges everyone is trying to figure out where to put dollars effectively. Remember, being able to educate, create thought leadership and provide value is something that is going to pay massive dividends when executed properly.
Leveraging customer research to tell a brand’s story is critical since it informs effective storytelling – which takes defences down.
When dealing with audiences – and especially on the B2B side – they’re seeing content that reflects their industry’s perspective on any given issue. They’re being educated and they’re being engaged. Raj sees that engagement play through in both SEO and web metrics.
Storytelling through content and science is a very powerful tool, and when done properly can provide massive ROI.
Raj understands that having a consistent level of storytelling capability across all platforms is imperative. And only by conducting customer research can you gain an anchor for a message to ensure you’re engaging with your customers. Sharing the same piece of information on all platforms so they all tie together sounds basic but it hasn’t been done all the time and it should be. Leveraging your market research team, or third-party market research partners, to inform these types of strategies is critical.
Outsourced or In-House Marketing Research?
Tempted by shortcuts to reduce marketing research efforts to save costs – even in these lean times – just isn’t worth it, according to Raj. There is no way you’re going to be able to effectively engage with your customers. That’s just a recipe for disaster. You need to have an unbiased perspective, and that’s why third-party research firms are more effective than in-house research brokers. Decision makers need the unvarnished truth with what’s really going on out there.
The only way to be an effective B2B marketer is by leveraging research in an appropriate, unbiased and strategic way.
When Raj started in the industry 20 years ago, he was working for large fortune 50 companies that had massive research teams internally. We know that has been reduced over time since third-party research firms have shown a tremendous amount of value. They have the tools and they have the training that really keeps them on the cutting edge. Plus, they’re incentivized to make sure that they’re constantly delivering the highest quality research for their clients. There is no room for complacency since you’re always servicing the client.
In-house brand research teams have the strongest pulse on five year trend lines on a brand when they’ve lived and breathed the space for a long time. They know their brand. However, the challenges with in-house research teams is that they – to a certain degree – will take direction from their marketing teams. These teams will have a hypothesis or a predisposed perspective on what their brand should be and then will seek to prove it, even if it’s not validated in fact. Raj believes that this calls for caution.
Guidance for Business Leaders Seeking Clarity
If you’re going to create a research team internally, they need to have some independence.
A Chief Insights Officer reporting to the CEO is often the solution.
This creates the opportunity for an honest dialogue and for collaboration instead of simple reinforcement of current perceptions on what’s working or what the opportunities are. Raj believes it’s a very important distinction from what we’re seeing right now. Of course, there are organizations that have CIOs, but not as many as there should be. It’s an incredible opportunity to help clear the fog and conquer the chaos it causes.
In Partnership With
Raj Kuchibhatla is the Global Head of Research & Insights of Key Media, an award-winning global media company providing industry-leading B2B publishing services. During his career spanning nearly 20 years, Raj has founded multiple insights firms, including ON-RMP and RKI Partners. Additionally, he has led customer-focused initiatives for Northstar Research Partners and Rogers Communications.
Tim Bishop, CM is a multi-disciplined executive with a proven record of optimizing strategic efforts to expand the influence of leading organizations, such as the Canadian Marketing Association, Cineplex Entertainment, Lavalife.com, IMI International and Northstar Research Partners. In Partnership With is his latest focus to curate Canadian marketing experts to celebrate the power of strategic partnerships in a perspective-based content series.