How do you drive culture change with market research?
1 Answer
Do you mean in terms of getting people to buy in to market research as a valuable practice in the company? Or in terms of using learnings from market research to drive culture change?
If you are interested in how to get people to buy in to market research as an important practice in the company:
I feel like a lot of the push back on market research comes down to a few key issues:
- A lack of awareness of market research and the benefits it provides
- A bias towards quantitative vs qualitative approaches
- Bad experiences in which market research didn't feel practical or applicable
- A lack of resources to invest in market research
In these cases, what I've seen work well:
- Finding a champion or sponsor who sees the value in research and work with them to build advocacy and support in the company
- Spend some time raising awareness of what market research can provide in terms of benefits and highlighting when qual vs quant is valuable
- Be really explicit in how the research will get used - what decisions this will help make, what clarity this will provide
- Have a plan for what happens after the research is completed - I've seen researchers run workshops to facilitate product roadmap brainstorming based on research as well as have had product managers run with the findings on their own. Absolutely spend time socializing the findings and going on a road show of the work.
- Start small! Focus on smaller studies so you can show and deliver value faster.
If you are interested in how to use market research to drive culture change:
A lot of the steps are likely very similar to what I'd outline above. I think the differences I'd add is:
- Try to find more than one advocate or sponsor if you can. Focus on people who are influential within the company. Try to get top-down buy-in.
- Talk about why the market research is credible and should be trusted.
- Outline the impact or benefits this culture change can have.
- Be patient - culture changes take a really long time to enact, especially if people are hestitant.
- Start small - a step towards the change you seek to see is still progress, and it's easier to push people along in increments. It makes the change less scary.
- Take time to listen and understand what pushback may exist and why. Sometimes people aren't opposed to change, but there are a bajillion other factors that make change hard.
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