Marketing agencies must constantly find ways to add value to their client engagements, and just as importantly, keep profit margins from eroding – or in some cases, disappearing entirely. That’s where partnering with a market research firm plays a key role.
Specifically, here are the 3 reasons why partnering with a market research firm is so valuable to marketing agencies -- not just for short-term success and profitability, but also for long-term health and sustainability.
1. Market research firms help create better client outcomes.
While clients often supply marketing agencies with useful information on everything from marketplace dynamics to buyer personas, the fact is that they almost never supply the full, complete story – simply because they do not have it.
In this way, clients are like patients in a healthcare setting. Yes, patients know their bodies inside and out, and can describe in intimate detail various aches, pains and so on. However, they need a medical team and a range of tests to get a complete analysis of their health status, because what they do not know, far surpasses what they know. This is just how things are and it has always been (and will always be) that way.
Similarly, clients need a marketing agency to dig below the surface and generate quantitative and qualitative data into marketplace dynamics, customer perceptions and behaviors, and ultimately reveal actionable intelligence that can be applied to solve practical business problems, and achieve impressive client outcomes. Since the vast majority of marketing agencies do not have (nor should have) the in-house market research expertise and technology they need for this key piece of the engagement puzzle, partnering with a market research firm makes complete sense for everyone.
2. Market research firms helps marketing agencies develop the account.
One of the most valuable aspects of high-grade market research, is that it sheds light on potentially profitable opportunities for marketing agencies to (ethically and with integrity) develop their client accounts, deepen the relationship, and ultimately generate more revenues and profits.
For example, high-grade market research may reveal that a client’s offerings would be well-received in a non-traditional market. Marketing agencies can report this data to their client, and use it to justify launching a separate campaign to target this additional market.
If everything works out the way that it should, then the client wins because they increase mindshare, marketshare and sales, and their marketing agency wins because they increase the account while delivering more value.
3. Market research firms helps marketing agencies avoid getting saddled with superficial online surveys.
Last but not least: partnering with a market research firm prevents clients from asking (or expecting) marketing agencies to use what are, in essence, superficial online surveys to generate real market research -- which is simply not possible! Some of those tools are fun to use, but they were never built to capture and generate the kind of reliable, actionable insights that businesses need.
The best way for marketing agencies to avoid being saddled with them is to eliminate them from the picture from the outset, and partnering with a market research firm completely achieves this goal.
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