A New Approach to Market Research Reports?

A recent research project we had in-house for a national not-for-profit presented a number of unique challenges, both in scope and in the style of suitable presentation. While we know each project we take on will be unique in many ways, we are usually assured of a number of commonalities among them – statistical significance, willing participants (be they customers, suppliers/vendors, or prospects), and a data analysis and report writing process that has been internally standardized. Unfortunately, nothing really could prepare us for what awaited.

We very loosely looked at this project, at least from our sixth floor office in Reading, PA, as a Market Opportunity Assessment (MOA), with a few interesting twists to it. Data collection was an interesting process via telephone calls in and of itself (the details of which this writer will spare you, the reader), and yielded a total of approximately 80 interviews, simply because there were no other possible interviewees. As the package of reports we were intending to deliver included eight individual reports, each focused on one state, and an overall data summary, we realized rather quickly that we would have to alter our typical MOA report style, lest we have a report with two observations and another with twenty-three.

After careful consideration during the data collection process, we decided to be focused less on charts, graphs, and tables and more on telling the “story” of the interviews—a goal for which we strive anyway, regardless of the number of observations. Eric Whipkey, in May 2014’s edition of Quirk’s Marketing Research, makes the case that journalists can teach a valuable lesson to those of us engrained in the “traditional” market research report writing process.

“Executives increasingly do not care for nor expect research to meet the standards set by science (e.g., statistical significance for every finding). […] The new expectation is that market research has a business mind-set intent on providing quick and actionable insights that add to the bottom line, rather than one focused on hypothesis testing, test-and-retest and taking three to six months to complete a project.”

To do this, Whipkey calls for writers who are able to “craft compelling nonfiction stories…[that look] very much like old-school investigative journalism or, more specifically, progressive journalism or computer-assisted journalism.”

At the end of the day, the finished product was, visually, unlike anything we had delivered in recent memory; but it did contain everything for which we have been known for over twenty years—actionable research and analysis that will help our client gain and sustain a competitive advantage in its market. We were able to step somewhat outside of our comfortable “box” and enter a realm into which none of us had ever ventured, while providing the valuable information we were tasked to obtain.

Market research comes in many different shapes and sizes, and we have also learned it comes in many different tones and presentation styles, too. Whether it’s a quantitative data-driven report or a qualitative-laden/observational “story,” Tweed-Weber has the research solution that will help you Know More so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com, and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

About the author: Michael Thompson has been with Tweed-Weber, Inc. since 2008 and serves as Project Manager. He handles all internal aspects of market research projects, including implementation, database creation, data analysis, and report writing.