Lost in translation: A guide to discussing research with stakeholders

Editor’s note: Matt Newman and Jessica White-Sustaita are senior researchers at marketing research firm Sentier Strategic Resources, Austin, Texas.

Imagine walking into a boutique furniture store where the shop owner immediately greets you at the door by showing you his hand planer. He’s been using the hand planer since before you were born, is the best hand planer for 500 miles and is up-to-date on the latest hand-planing techniques. This pitch goes on for a while and it finally occurs to you that he’s blocking a room full of beautiful craftsman chairs and tables … but he hasn’t said a word about them.

Sounds crazy, right? Yet, as researchers we often make the same mistake when pitching our trade to stakeholders. The core of what we do is to tackle a pressing business question using the most appropriate methodology and translate data back into actionable insights. Research helps organizations make smarter decisions. But when we talk about our work, the tendency is to tout our expertise in individual methodologies.

Researchers are guilty of this on both the client side – we can incorporate benchmarking and driver analysis into the brand tracker; the prototype needs some A/B testing – and the supplier side – we have 20 years of experience fielding international surveys; we collect in-the-moment feedback, integrated with geospatial tagging, via a proprietary mobile platform. Impressive, perhaps, but the methodologies themselves are not nearly as striking to stakeholders as improvements in a product, service or experience. So, before you start talking about tools, highlight the problems you can solve.

In this article, we offer a guide for translating your tools into some of the research questions they can address and the insights they can generate. We’ve organized the discussion around types of stakeholders and the kinds of research that are most valuable to them. Though not exhaustive, this list offers a variety of perspectives to consider when pitching your ideas.

The marketing stakeholder

The marketing organization is focused on creating, promoting and protecting the overall brand of the company. Research helps the marketing team ensure alignment between messaging and brand values, understand the factors leading to customer churn and – ultimately – increase sales. Marketing organizations are often particularly interested in possible segments or subgroups among the broader population of customers.

The product manager

Because product managers are tasked with all phases of a product’s development and launch, they typically have to negotiate competing priorities and constraints among designers, development, operations, marketing, etc. Besides offering them a spa day, researchers should emphasize how we can help reduce time and cost of development (e.g., specifying a minimum viable product or service; engage in RITE or agile research); improve customer satisfaction and acceptance rate; and increase product margins.

The designer

The designer is responsible for the look, feel, usability and enjoyment of the product. Research helps the designer create a minimum viable product, increase customer satisfaction, validate design direction and identify pivot points before cost precludes change.

The executive stakeholder

The good news is that you’ve got the attention of the executive team; the bad news is that the pressure to impress is on. The higher up your audience, the greater potential there is for a strategic partnership with the organization (if you’re a vendor) or the greater budget and scope for your department (if you’re an internal researcher). Ideally, executive leadership is concerned with the big picture and overall direction of the company. It’s important to demonstrate how research helps the executive improve things like brand loyalty, customer advocacy, profitability and efficiency. Many organizations place a priority on improving Net Promoter Scores (NPS), that oft-debated proxy for whether customers will go out and advocate for the company to their friends and family.

Moving past roadblocks

Research may be critical, but we still need to sell people on why it is important. Stakeholders – including designers, product managers, marketers and the C-suite – often view research as a low priority or even as a waste of time. One way to move past these mental roadblocks is to use language that your prospective stakeholders will appreciate. Our goal here has been to get you thinking in these terms and remind you to frame research in terms of the problems it can solve. It won’t impress these folks to brag about your hand planer; tell them instead about the craftsman furniture you can make for them.