Our industry has leaned a little too heavily on storytelling to communicate customer insights to stakeholders and decision-makers. Now, there is nothing wrong with storytelling. It is a fantastic tool in many ways, but it lacks dimension. In insights, researchers typically use storytelling to report findings, deliver them, and move on. The customer‘s voice doesn’t infiltrate the organisation’s decision-making, and insights often go unused. Point and case, the 2023 UK Customer Satisfaction Index shows that customer satisfaction has been the lowest it’s ever been since 2014. According to Forrester study, while 74% of companies want to be ‘data-drive’, only 29% actually are.

So we need a better way to raise the profile of insights, to get the visceral experiences of customers into the heart of organisations to drive informed decisions.

It’s my view that we are sitting on a treasure trove on exciting, inspiring customer content, but it’s not sparking the actions it should. So, how can we change that? At the Customer Salience Summit, organised by FlexMR, I had the pleasure of diving into this very topic: how our industry can take a page from Hollywood’s playbook to make customer insight famous.

It’s worth noting, that despite Hollywood’s famed glitz and glamour, in 2023, the revenue of the insights industry in the US was US$77 billion – more than double the $33.4 billion from Hollywood’s box office. Yet, somehow, our industry doesn’t have nearly the same level of visibility. The answer? Fame.

So, what would the dudes over in Hollywood do in our shoes? Run a campaign.

A campaign is a constant, intentional effort to control the narrative—keeping the conversation going around your content, the information you’re sharing, and the customer’s relationship with your organization. And there are six things the insights industry can do to build this approach.

The star: There are no movies without a star. When you think of iconic films, the actors come to mind first. So, when presenting your findings, think about who’s the best person to deliver and represent your message. It might not be the researcher who did the work – you need someone inspiring to captivate, sell the story and bring it home. Find your star, whether that means hiring someone, training a current employee, or incentivising your team.

Better titles (and one-liners): We all judge a book by its cover, even when we claim not to. A brilliant title and one-liner stick to your mind (see: Ghostbusters – “who you gonna call?”). In insights, we’re famously bad at this. Is it any wonder our insights don’t stick when decisions are being made? A 2015 study analysed 69,907 news headlines and found five key elements that grab attention: surprise, curiosity, questions, negativity, and — wait for it — numbers! Lucky for us, we’ve got plenty of those, so let’s use them!

Trailers: These are quick engaging videos which get you excited for the films. With insights, they can spark curiosity amongst stakeholders and help convey key points you want to highlight. For instance, a testimonial or interview with a customer can humanise your data and emphasise the importance of customer voices. It’s time for us to start putting faces (or even animations) to the data.

PR: Internal public relations help you maintain control of the ongoing insights narrative. To ensure that we are driving action from insights, we must leverage all channels and carefully curate messages that will resonate with our audiences. Constant sharing of insights, nuggets or snippets, will help elevate the insights team, as well as keeping customer voices in the forefront of decision-makers’ minds.

Targeting: Just like films, different audiences have different needs – identifying and targeting them is crucial to designing your campaign. Each stakeholder audience will use your findings in unique ways, so tailoring your materials to their requirements will help them better integrate the insights into their day-to-day decision-making.

Premiere: The premiere is where all your hard work comes together. Don’t let it be dull – engage your audience by encouraging them to think about and interact with your insights. This is how you bring your findings to life and make them resonate with the people who need to understand their importance and put them to use. As a researcher it’s all too easy to work flat out until the debrief, and then sigh with relief and walk away afterwards. Remember, for everyone else, the premiere is only the beginning.

Implementing this fame model will not only boost traffic to your platforms or start provoking more strategic questions from your audiences – it will raise your team’s profile and increase awareness within your organisation. You’ll create lasting impressions that bring insights front and centre in your company’s decision-making.

So, why not go Hollywood on your insights? And if all else fails, give us a shout 😉 We’re keen as mustard to help bring fame to your insights.

The post The Fame Formula: Elevating Customer Insights with Hollywood’s Playbook appeared first on Keen as Mustard Marketing.

Decades of experience helping companies grow, tells us that going to industry events is a vitally important way to build awareness and get leads in B2B. As the specialist marketing agency for insights, we get a lot of clients asking us why they should go and how best to make the most of them. We also hear people wondering if it is worth the investment. Here is our step-by-step guide on how to make the most out of events and ensure you return with your inbox stuffed with opportunities – even if you are not on the stage (more on that in another post!).

Before the event

Agree responsibility: each member of the team should know what is expected of them before, during and after the event. You might want a “team leader” to be responsible for keeping the team on track and delivering key learnings and contacts at the end.

Agree your objectives – you are aiming to get contacts, not meetings or immediate sales – though these would be nice, the aim is to meet people, connect and network to raise your awareness and get emails (sales come later). Your objective should be to get to meet and garner the details of as many new people as you can, so you can nurture them for your pipeline, and to build on existing relationships by discussing the event content (not your pitch).

Set individual KPIs so you each have a target of companies or people you will meet.

Block your diary for the time you will be at the event so no other meetings go in. It is a total waste of time and money to be on a call at an event. If you need to be on a call or in a meeting which cannot be missed, send someone else in your place.

Join the event app, look at the attendee list and identify people you really want to meet. You can reach out to them on the app in advance but do not do a generic spammy note (“we do xx, I’d like to talk to you about it”), instead, make it specific to the client and preferably related to the content at the event. “I see you are talking about xxx, this is a topic close to our hearts as we’ve just done a pilot for a new way to do xxx”…and have some great examples of how to make it work. “I’d love to meet to listen to your experience and see how it fits with ours” or something like that. I am always amazed at how many generic and inappropriate emails I get from suppliers just because I attended an event – Keen as Mustard is not a research company and we do not need sample. Do your research, researchers!

Research the agenda (see above) and put in your diary the sessions you will attend in advance – select the sessions by clients you most want to meet or feel you have the most in common with. Divide and conquer, so if there are two of you, do not both go to the same session if you can avoid it.

Flag your attendance on LinkedIn in advance, at least twice, and tag key people such as the event organizers. Say in your post what you are looking forward to (tag the clients presenting) and why.

Use the event meeting system to organize direct 1-2-1 meetings in advance.

During the event

Attend all the sessions you have flagged/arranged to go to (it’s easy to get sucked in and miss them, again, don’t waste your opportunity by having a call instead).

Make notes/take photos during the sessions – key learnings are important (plus anyone sharing their email on slides) – have your camera at the ready to take good photos.

Share key points/learnings on LinkedIn as much as you can during the event, use decent photos and tag the client speaker and the organizers.

Ask a question of the client speaker (you can state your name and company briefly first), e.g. ‘I’m Jane from This Company. I was really interested in what you said about xxx, how do you think AI will impact that?”

If you do not or cannot ask a question (sometimes they are only on the event app but this is worth doing anyway), then go up to the speaker after the session and introduce yourself but specifically talk about the content of their talk, don’t go straight in with your pitch. “Hi, I’m Jane from This Company. Loved your talk. In particular, the bit about xxx which really resonated with me because we find our clients really struggle with that…” or something. Bring in other clients/experience so she knows you know what you are talking about.

If the convo goes well, ask to exchange details. (Events often have a badge ‘Klik’ thing which works well). You can say you have some thought leadership on the topic she was talking about (or a case study), that you’d like to share.

With clients that are not speaking, you need to network and meet as many people as possible. Good ways to do this are in the queue for coffee/lunch/snacks – you can just ask them about the event, what do they think of the content, what have they seen that resonated with them, why? During breaks take the chance to join someone at a table/bench if there is a space and have the above convo with them. If you are sitting next to a new person in the audience, shake their hand when you sit down and introduce yourself. The chances are that a lot of them will be other agencies, but you will definitely meet potential clients this way, just by chance.

Take advantage of all the social networking opportunities – parties, receptions, events etc. In my experience as many business connections are made at these than at the event itself.

After the event

Have a debrief meeting to discuss how it went, evaluate progress on KPIs and share contacts to get them into your database. Share what you learnt with those who were not able to attend.

Follow up with all the contacts you made. This should be a one-on-one email recalling the conversation you had and sharing something – preferably a piece of content that might help continue the conversation. After that it’s over to your sales team to nurture…and I guess you are involved as much or as little as you need to be. (And, if you need help creating content for this, speak to Keen as Mustard!)

Draft some bullet points or write a post about the highlights of the event, which you share on your website and on LI – and tag the appropriate people including all the client sessions you mention or viewed. E.g. What’s the most surprising thing I’ve learnt? What is the session I found most inspiring? What topics were most discussed and why? Any new trends? Any new friends? What can you expect to change in the industry based on what you’ve learnt?

Remember, you are more likely to get on the stage next time (even if you are paying for your slot) if you have built a good relationship with the organisers…so make sure you work with them to ensure each and every event is a success.

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How to make case studies work for you in insights

An insights company without case studies is like Batman without Robin. Demonstrating your value through a case study is fundamental to thought leadership and growth. Plus, there’s the added advantage that most clients are burning with curiosity and FOMO; the number one thing that they want to know is what you are doing or have done for other companies like them. But producing case studies is often a big challenge within MRX and one of the areas our agency or supply-side clients need most help with.

Before we start, we should point out that here at Mustard Towers we know about client confidentiality. We could paper the walls with the NDAs we’ve signed to ensure we do not share the communications work we do with global clients. We feel your pain. But we have also managed to share work we have done with several leading global companies (including Coca-Cola, Bic and Nestle Purina) in the media, conference platforms and, of course in our marketing.

So, here is a quick guide to producing case studies that will work for you.

Three steps to heaven

First of all, it’s worth pointing out that there are three levels of client attribution, and we always recommend a company uses a mix of these in their marketing.  The first is just showing that you have worked with a company by using their logo on your website or in your credentials. I’m not going to go into that here, but our suggestion is always “ask forgiveness not permission”. Put (the correct) client logo on your site and take down if asked. It’s worth pointing out that none of our agency clients in 16 years has been asked to remove a logo we put on their website.

The second level of client attribution is testimonials. By this we mean short, attributed verbatim from named clients. If you cannot name the individual, then at least name the company and give a job title. Without attribution testimonials are of very little value, (we suggest you just make them up and say what you like). For genuine testimonials, just send them a note with a draft for them to edit in whatever way they are comfortable.

Testimonials should be used in lots of ways, dotted on every page through your website (not in a dedicated area, this will be ignored), on social media, in your proposals (again dotted throughout) and in your credentials presentations.

Finally, there are full case studies. These are based on a recorded client interview or written questionnaire, drafted into an article or blog post or recorded as a video interview or podcast. A full case study will be a shorter version of the HBR/business school style case and will generally follow the format of business context and challenge, a description of what you did to help or solve the problem and the results for the client business. The result is never that you presented a report or completed the research, however enormous and hard that was. The result is what the client did with it – the learnings, actions taken and if possible, a demonstration of the positive contribution to the client’s organisation.

Getting results

This is where most case studies fall down. You must have the kind of relationship with the client that allows you to follow up with them a while after the project was delivered to find out how it went. Of course, doing this is a great business development/client relationship building opportunity but one which many insight companies fail to do for all sorts of reasons (ongoing negotiation on other projects not wanting to rock the boat, fear of drawing attention to potential failure, fear of drawing attention to a client’s failures, too junior a team on the project not able to have strategic consulting conversations with the client, attention elsewhere, the list goes on). As we know, MRX companies often hate to do research into themselves. Not being able to follow up with a client is sometimes symptomatic of the type of relationship agencies have with clients – which is why companies dealing with more senior clients often have the best chance of getting good case studies (and hence winning more of the right kind of client work).

You need to know if you have the results before you start the case study process. So, talk to the client, find out what happened and go from there. If you do not have the right, or any, results, then the client is not the right one for a case study. Revert to a testimonial or just using their logo.

If you do have the right relationship, know you have some results to write about, and have secured permission to do the case study in principle, then the best way to craft the content is via a set of pre-approved questions.  We usually craft a discussion guide and supply it to the client before doing a recorded interview, but you could also send over a set of questions on email and ask the client to respond. The first approach is usually better as it’s quicker and easier for the client to just chat for 30 minutes. You then know exactly what they said and can write up the case study using their verbatim as quotes. You can also lift relevant verbatim and use them as testimonials. If you do a video interview then you will need to edit it down to a tight enough format, ditto a podcast.

Once the case study is packaged then we send it over for clearance.

Clients often ask what will be done with the case study before they give permission. Our suggestion is to say at the outset that you will use it on your website and no more. Most clients do not see this as a problem. If the content is really interesting, then you can go back after you have the case published on your site and ask if it would be possible to do more with it. The main point is to avoid your client having to go to their legal team to get permission to publish. Legal teams will give a flat no to any request like this as life is too short for them. However, once a case is published on your site, there is nothing to stop you asking the client if it is OK to share it with more people.

In our experience, the hierarchy for where clients are happy to share a case study is first of all your own website and newsletters (and hence social media), then via an insights industry conference or webinar platform (typically done in conjunction with the client), then in the published media or external platforms.

If all this feels like too big a thing to deal with, remember you only need one good story which you will revisit and re-use in your marketing for years. There will always be people who had no idea you worked with Pepsi, and who would still be interested to hear about it even five years later. Do one case study really well, and you can just rely on logos and testimonials for the rest.

To wrap up, we always recommend partnerships. Network, meet people and then approach a company you want to work with, suggest an innovative new service or idea you would like to trial. Do an experiment with this client on the basis that you will share the results. You may need to pay for the sample, or do the research at cost, but the content will be gold.

The post Get on the case appeared first on Keen as Mustard Marketing.

The challenge to stand out is as important in MRX as it is for washing powder or breakfast cereal. But yet again, in this GRIT Report, we see that researchers don’t make good marketers.

The point of positioning is knowing what you do – and what you don’t do. In past reports, we have seen inconsistency from respondents within supply-side companies as to what their company does. And in this report again, “the employees of many supplier companies aren’t really sure about their company’s position in the marketplace, or don’t know how to describe it consistently… leaders of supplier companies need to clarify their market positioning and communicate that definition effectively throughout their organizations.”

Here we are, busy working for our clients and helping them to make sure their washing powder or breakfast cereal stands out in the market. We, in insights, wrote the manual on how having a core offering based on expertise or a distinguishing viewpoint is fundamental to successful marketing. But we simply do not apply that to ourselves.

There are three core reasons why I think this is such a challenge in MRX.

Firstly, many companies struggle to define their difference in the fear that they will narrow down their pool of potential clients. The ‘do not do’ part of the proposition de-facto rules you out of pitching for a whole lot of work. There’s a fine balance between wanting to be clear about what it is you do, the one thing you want to be famous for, and needing to bring revenue through the door. And that balance has been really wobbling in the middle of a global pandemic.

Secondly, many in insights do not apply the first rule of marketing and communication to themselves – namely ‘know thy audience; know thyself’. I have countless examples of insights companies (and client insights teams) not doing research on themselves – not asking customers and stakeholders what they think, or then integrating those views into their targeted communications, proposition, or service. The irony of this lack of interest in our own research is not lost on anyone.

Finally, suppliers (sometimes perhaps encouraged by the GRIT Report itself), are often distracted by ‘buzz’. We have seen several ‘hot topics; come and go – agile being one. Leaders get distracted by the excitement of a buzzword at the expense of their strategy and focus. As with technology, hopping on a bandwagon is only a good marketing tactic until the next new buzzword, or tech development, comes along. If you don’t focus on your long-term brand messaging and build awareness of why you are different, if you run off to jump on the buzzword bandwagon then you are just copying everyone else, your differentiation is diluted, and fame will be lost.

Being distinctive really matters. As this GRIT Report shows, to survive the pandemic, buyers and suppliers focused on what they did best rather than trying to be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. Being a “one-stop-shop” may be an effective strategy to capture share of wallet, but it’s not an effective way to differentiate organizations in a crowded marketplace – or a long-term strategy for growth.

So, give your clients a break; stop making them work so hard to find out what makes you special. Get your positioning right, get it showcased in all the content your company creates – your mailers, blogs, whitepapers, website, and company branding – and your clients will know who you are and why to partner with you.

Check out the full GRIT report article on GreenBook here:
https://www.greenbook.org/mr/grit/how-to-be-famous

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Are you struggling to get coverage for your studies? Are you reaching out to the media but not getting the response you hoped for? You might think a press release is a simple thing, but there are some important rules for getting it right.

In a fast and practical hour, this interactive digital training will turn your press releases from bin fodder to cordon-bleu. Learn how to craft a title and tell your story, find out what to put in that all important first paragraph and how to get a quote right.

On which note, here is a quote from a satisfied customer:

“I am involved with the communication program of my organisation, but I never felt like I had the right tools to make the difference. This training has been extremely valuable for me and I now feel more confident in identifying news and drafting effective communications. Great experience overall!”

Led by Colonel Mustard Lucy Davison who is a sought-after speaker and workshop leader, this training is essential for anyone working in a marketing or PR role in MRX. It will also build useful learning for other copywriting – such as emails, invitations and web copy.

The training is via MS Teams in groups of two to eight people for a one off fee of £200.00 per person.

To find out more email lucy@mustardmarketing.com

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Colonel Mustard writes for Quirk’s about how insights professionals can ensure their work continues to have influence during a crisis.

You can read the full article here.

The post Three tips for insights communicators in a crisis appeared first on Keen as Mustard Marketing.

I have lost count of the times have I run a workshop with a board of suited, grey, middle-aged, male accountants only for them to insist that they are brimming with passion and it has to be a core value for their organisation? Really?

I don’t know about you, but I like my passion decorated with hearts, along with a bottle of The Veuve and some rather smooth sheets. When on earth did passion creep into the board room and what is it doing there?

The reason I cite this example is because it calls into question what company values are for. Their purpose, in my experience, is to provide a clear set of instructions for organisations to make it easier for people to make choices. If you know where you want to go (you have a vision) and what your purpose is (your mission) then it is supremely helpful for all concerned if you know how you are going to get there (your values). Values should not be abstract ‘things we believe in’ but should be expressed as behaviours – so that all the people working at an organisation, from the CEO to the most junior account executive, have an idea of what to do when faced with choices. So, while you might have one word as a value ‘title’ you should articulate it with examples. If your value is ‘imagination’ you should explain it; ‘we think creatively, we have broad horizons and stay ahead of our competitors’, for example. Armed with that, I know that I should spend an extra five minutes researching a new way to track media coverage, or I should provide support to ensure ongoing learning and development for my team.

Having a good set of values which are articulated in this way is the bedrock of a successful company brand. It means you can build on them to differentiate your marketing messages, it means you are more efficient and cohesive as a team. And it works. In 2006 two studies that linked corporate values and mission statements with financial performance found that the most successful firms mentioned values other than profits. The less successful firms focused almost entirely on profitability (Dess, Lumpkin and Eisner, 2006).

I recommend organisations have no more than four values, personally I struggle to remember more than three. They should be true to the organisation (so should come from the teams and not be imposed), and they can evolve over time (years) as the company matures and its challenges change. And they should be as specific as possible so that they can be described as behaviours. Which brings me back to passion. What does that mean in terms of how I am to behave? I certainly care a lot about the place I work, but is what I feel really ‘passion’? Can you really expect your junior developer to have ‘passion’ for their workplace? Would it not be better for their mental and physical well-being to reserve their passion for their partner, or their marathon running, music, or oil-painting? Even if the idea that work is all there is in life and the most important thing at that, is appealing to boards and business founders, it is very alienating and restricting to anyone else.

Ultimately, it’s time for the grey-suits to get real. Stop trying to impose passion as a company value and come up with something original, distinctive and meaningful. If you want to get the best out of people you need to realise you are competing for time and brain space with the stuff of life – relationships, children, family, travel, food…As a business leader you have to recognise that people don’t want to spend half their lives away from their real passions working in organisations that are not contributing to the world positively. By sharing original and distinctive company values you are taking a step towards sharing your purpose and making a positive contribution beyond profits. As Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce says, “You have the opportunity to set up companies that do good in the world. It’s easy. There’s all this incredible energy in your company and you can unleash it for good. If you’re not unleashing it, you’re missing something”.

Just don’t call it passion!

If you want to find out more, I will be talking about how to use company values to create differentiated marketing at Insights Marketing Day in London on 30 January. Click here to find out more.

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By Lucy Davison (originally posted on the GreenBook Blog and the Business Intelligence Group Blog).

I recently attended one of the more commercial insights industry events.  A lot of the content at these events is ‘pay to play’ – when suppliers and agencies pay a fee to get a slot on the platform.

In essence, I do not think this is a bad idea.  It funds events and conferences, so getting more knowledge out into the industry, and it gives emerging companies an opportunity to share and network.  Often what starts as a paid for opportunity can turn into great presenting experience for the company, this experience can then help pitching to peer reviewed conferences and a great deal of ongoing exposure.

However, given the speaking opportunity is paid for (so comes out of the sales or marketing budget), these presentations are often delivered by a member of the sales team from the supplier or agency in question.  And all too often said presenter sees it as a chance to pitch their company.

This is a bad idea on so many levels I am almost at a loss to know where to start.

First of all, who looks after your client relationships, manages accounts and runs projects?  Who adds value to those relationships?  Nine times out of ten that is not the sales or business development manager.  The audience does not want to hear from the sales team.  They want to hear from the people they will have ongoing relationships with, who they will learn from.

Secondly, the sales team is comfortable with pitching, and they can’t resist selling, particularly if they’re on commission.  But the audience does not want your pitch.  They want knowledge and learning.  If you can’t work out how to tell your company story without describing all your wonderful attributes, you have a marketing problem.  What do I mean by that?  I mean you need to think about the benefits to your clients of working with you, what is the need they have that you are delivering against?  You should then demonstrate that you solve the client’s problem.  So if you are an agency your client might have a need for insight, in which case what you communicate is insight, not how great your agency is and how many offices/services/methodologies you have.  For a supplier your client might need automation, so you communicate great stories about the benefits of automation and how it helped other clients. If any of the information in your presentation would sit in a company brochure, leave it out of the presentation.  Don’t tell them, show them.

Thirdly, a good sales person knows that you cannot sell to a whole room of people.  A great sales person has fantastic personal story telling abilities and the ability to tie their narrative to the individual they are talking to.  You just cannot make that personal connection to a room of 150 people, who will all have different needs and experiences.

Fourthly (yes, it’s a long list!), we are a knowledge based industry.  People are at events to learn.  Yes they are also there to network and get contacts and sell, but the backbone of the event is learning.  In particular in the conference sessions – the audience is looking for insight.

Finally, anyone who has been on the receiving end of a sales pitch instead of a learnings presentation will remember your pitch.  Before you say all publicity is good publicity think about that.  They may well be sure to avoid future conference presentations by your company because they know they won’t learn anything.  They will almost certainly talk about you to their colleagues as the company that did a pitch, and not in a good way.  The chances of you then building a good relationship with them which enables you to work with them will have been greatly diminished.

So next time your sales team buys a slot at a conference think hard about who will present, what they will present about and how to make your session as engaging and entertaining as possible.  Or you might end up doing more damage than good.

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Thanks to e-Tabs, our partners in crime at Keen as Mustard for the Viz-Fest event each year, I was given a ticket to the Quirk’s event in Orange County last week. Given it felt like we had suffered weeks of particularly cold, grey and wet weather here in Northern Europe, needless to say I was overjoyed to take this opportunity to reacquaint myself with the sun. But that was not my only reason for attending. I was interested to experience my first Quirk’s event and scope out the differences.

There were 500 people billed as attending, although the event felt quite relaxed and a bit quieter and more ‘low key’ than other MRX events I have attended – perhaps it was the laid back, Californian vibe. The exhibition area was not big, but everyone was very friendly, and even when they found I was not a potential target, they were still happy to chat (unlike the New York event I went to last year, where in true New York business fashion they cut you off mid-sentence if you were not a client).

Quirk’s pitches itself as being particularly focused on the corporate researcher, and given that getting end clients to events is something that many MRX events struggle with, I wanted to see if there really were more clients in attendance. Dan Quirk told me that 55% of attendees were clients, and I did see a high number of client papers, and a lot of focus on client problems – such as stakeholder communications. It was hard to gauge the real number of clients attending as some had niftily hidden the company name on their badges, or asked for it to be removed, possibly to avoid being stalked. On which note, a corporate researcher I recently spoke to said he no longer attends industry conferences because of the ‘sharks’; the sales teams who smell blood and won’t leave him alone, don’t listen and don’t engage. He had been attacked by a ‘shark’ at one event, who had gone so far as to prepare a fake proposal for him – someone he had never met. This particular corporate researcher stopped going to MRX conferences after that.

So this is a big issue in our industry. Agencies won’t go to conferences because the clients are not there, suppliers only go if the agencies and clients are there. Has Quirk’s cracked it?

According to Quirk’s, 50% of their speakers were client side. The clients speaking or on panels and in evidence were Hyundai, JP Morgan, Cargill, Microsoft, Blizzard Entertainments, and Google, among others. Plus the audiences for client presentations were really big – some of the agencies and supplier presentations did not pull the crowds as well. So overall the event had a higher proportion of clients than others I have been to.

In order to get these clients, the deal that Quirk’s has is this – clients paid only $99 to attend the two-day conference. And they do not pay to speak. However, overall this was still a ‘pay to play’ conference and the fee for suppliers and agencies to take the stage was $2,000 US (to cover costs), plus the event was $799 to attend (which is still a lot cheaper than the MRS or ESOMAR for example). Is this cheaper/more accessible model one that others could, or should, emulate? The speaker pitches, both client and supplier side, were reviewed by the Quirk’s editorial team, so guarding editorial integrity. However, there is not the rigor of an independent and impartial program committee of peers, as with events run by ESOMAR and the MRS for example. And ultimately, while Quirk’s says it doesn’t make money on the event, it is a commercial publishing organisation and it’s tough to run a conference and even expect to break even…I am not sure associations could go this route without a negative impact on the quality of content, or income.

In terms of the event content, overall, I felt that there was a good level of commercialism and professionalism – application of insights, if you will. Researchers in the US do have a more commercial bent, and less of the ‘institutional’ view you get in Europe. At times the more ‘academic’ conferences can feel a bit methodologically focused. At Quirk’s there was a great session sponsored by the QRCA which showed how the insights from a very dynamic qual process were used, and I really enjoyed hearing how JPMorgan delivered high levels of internal engagement with extremely tough stakeholders. Overall, I enjoyed hearing from clients. As is so often the case at these events, I thought the client panel session (chaired by Kathryn Korostoff of Research Rockstar) was a highlight, in this case the head of insights for Cargill and Blizzard Entertainments shared their views on the researcher of the future.

But in spite of the ‘Q-mandments’ which stated clearly not to sell, as often happens with a pay-to-play event, some suppliers still see it as an opportunity to pitch. Now, in my book, that’s a waste of your dollars. Even if you have paid, you do not give a product demo. Instead you share knowledge and provide content that is engaging to your audience. If you are going to give a demo, your talk should be billed as such – which is what Survey Monkey did and their session went down well – they got 150 completes on a survey within the 20-minute presentation slot.

But overall I did not learn anything particularly new or inspiring. I did not feel gripped or driven to run off and proselytize about the fabulous insights I heard or the future for the industry. Maybe I’m getting cynical but I do want the content at these events to rock my boat. Quirk’s Brooklyn is later this month; while they may have the answer to getting clients through the door for MRX events – perhaps the ‘pay to play’ option compromises on some of the quality of content compared to the MRS or ESOMAR Congress – the jury is out.

The post Chillin’ in CA: Quirk’s West Coast 2018 appeared first on Keen as Mustard Marketing.

By Lucy Davison, Managing Director of Keen as Mustard Marketing (originally posted in GreenBook)

Late last year, we at Keen as Mustard Marketing joined forces with FocusVision to find out more about what was going on within MRX marketing. We really wanted to find out what issues agencies and suppliers in market research were facing, what they thought the solutions were, and how much they spent on it. The idea was to turn the mirror to face us in MRX marketing – taking a dose of our own medicine if you will. Market research agencies and suppliers advise clients on their marketing all the time, indeed many are deemed expert at it. But we wanted to find out how much we focus on our own marketing.

161 technology, data, research and insight companies in the US and UK took part, ranging in size from micro businesses to those with over $100,000,000 in turnover.

So, what did we find out? The good news is that 74% of companies who took part think marketing is very important. 63% have in-house marketing teams, and 64% expected to spend more on their marketing in the coming year. And 5% of the respondents already spend more than 15% of their revenue on marketing – a good number which compares well with a B2B Service Businesses average of 10.1%. Indeed, some high growth data and marketing firms, such as Salesforce (not in our survey) invest 53% of their revenue in their marketing.

However, the good news ended there. 75% of the companies we surveyed spend only 0-5% of their turnover on marketing. This means the vast majority are likely to be spending nothing! Plus, only 35% measure any kind of return on marketing investment to understand impact.

10% of our respondents are doing marketing without any sales support, reflecting perhaps the suspicion of sales in the research world – researchers don’t like doing sales or being sold to.

The most valuable marketing activities were cited as branding/strategy (50%), websites (36%) and content marketing (33%). But the biggest problem the companies faced were all around awareness – with examples like: “we don’t get onto pitch lists” or “no one knows about us”, or “clients know about us but are not sure what we do”. Perhaps the problems and the solutions are not aligned – if awareness is your problem, as a marketer I’d say you need PR and content marketing more than you need a new brand.

Indeed, our ad hoc research among insight clients shows that the best way to reach and attract new clients – never mind cement relationships with existing ones – is via PR and content marketing. Here are some examples: “a phone call has maybe a 1 in 100 chance of getting my attention. An email with interesting and relevant content has a 1 in 10 chance” (VP of insight, global media network). “I like to use LinkedIn to find out about new developments and look at groups to follow who is doing interesting work” (Head of insight, financial data company). “White papers, articles, new research and tailored, relevant content – that is how I find out about agencies and suppliers” Insight director, transport company.

However, I think we need to dig deeper. The other major problems our agency and supplier sample cited were around differentiation (“we need to make ourselves more relevant” or “trying to be different and grow our brand in amongst a load of ’me too’ competitors”) and communication (“we need better collateral for the sales team” or “our website is outdated and we need it to work harder” and “we have difficulty generating content ideas”).

Now, differentiation is indeed a branding and strategy problem. And it is a huge problem with data, research and insight firms. Clients struggle to tell one from another. As Paul Buckley, European Insight Director at GlaxoSmithKline points out, for them it’s like shopping in a giant IKEA warehouse with lots of plain brown boxes to pick from. Work out exactly what makes you stand out, and what your story is, and you can build a differentiated brand. Get a differentiated brand and pin down how to communicate it. Communicate and you will build awareness.

So the solution is before us – and it is indeed in using branding and strategy to create differentiation. It just takes a real commitment of both time and money, and willingness to take some of our own medicine.

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