3 Ways Market Research Can Help You Gain Leadership Buy-In

Market researchers should know firsthand what customers want and where trends are going. After all, they are the ones entrusted with designing research, talking with people to understand customer needs, following trends online and on social media, and reading product reviews. Researchers have great advice to offer—if anyone’s listening. 

But, it’s really up to your company’s senior executives how much is spent on research and what products the company invests in.   

So, how do you get their ear—and keep it? By playing to your strength: using market research to gather data and insights that senior leaders will find compelling.  

Here are three ways you can use market research to win leadership buy-in.   

1. Use Precise Product Consumption Data to Understand Customer Needs and Identify White-Space Opportunities 

Innovation is exciting. Who wouldn’t love to be a trendsetter, discovering the next big thing? Just think: your product could become a household name!  

But boldly going where no one has gone before is risky. New products fail all the time. If you want senior executives to invest in a new idea, you’ll need to convince them that it’s addressing a true gap in the market.  

You could turn to category trend research and social media listening, but these approaches still leave you guessing. They’re also subject to the Say/Do gap, as consumers often overestimate how much they’d use or appreciate a product.  

Fortunately, modern market research technology can give you the hard data you need to win leadership buy-in. Instead of guessing what consumers want, you can show senior executives what’s really happening in consumers’ homes by using smart sensors to continuously collect precise, accurate consumption data. Reliable consumption data lets you see exactly when and how consumers use products—and the white spaces where they don’t, creating opportunities for innovation and fresh thinking. 

2. Use Video-Based Concept Tests to Demonstrate the Viability of Proposed Solutions 

Knowing where there’s a white space in the market is only half the battle, of course. Leaders are interested in problems, but what they really want are solutions.  

That’s where concept testing comes in. By running video-based concept tests, you can gauge consumer interest in a product or feature before wasting valuable time and resources on it—or before damaging your reputation by releasing a half-baked product that doesn’t meet consumer needs.  

Mobile video feedback lets you virtually join consumers during their first experienced moment of truth with a product, so you’ll see and hear their authentic, real-time reactions rather than their recollections. That helps everyone from the product team to senior leaders better understand customer needs, so they can design and support solutions that meet those needs.  

3. Use Qualitative Video Reels to Share Consumer Motivations With the Entire Company 

There’s another benefit to using mobile video to collect consumer feedback: it gives you the raw material you need to create highlight reels that get the real voice of the consumer out to your whole company.  

In this competitive marketplace, many companies are focused on consumer empathy as a way to truly understand the customer experience. How do people think and feel about their products? What motivates their purchasing decisions? What are their pain points, and where do they find moments of joy? 

Companies that want to make consumer-centric decisions need to have the voice of the consumer front and center across the entire organization. Video lets you share not just the words consumers use but the specific and unique expressions, tone of voice, and body language that bring those words to life, so everyone can better understand consumer motivations.  

Modern Market Research Technology Leads to Smarter Business Decisions—and Better Buy-In 

Market research can help senior executives make smart business decisions that are informed by accurate data and inspired by the voice of the consumer. That success improves leadership buy-in for future research projects, creating a virtuous cycle that benefits both the company and its customers.   

QualSights offers market research technology that can provide both hard data and compelling insights. Our consumption sensors passively collect real-time quantitative data by measuring product usage—down to the gram—in real consumers’ homes. And our mobile qualitative video platform lets you explore the motivations and emotions underlying product consumption and share authentic moments with your executive team. 

Ready to learn more? Contact us to set up a demonstration.