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Let’s face it, most people under the age of 40 probably haven’t had to make tough decisions about budgets in a recession during their career yet.
Those of us who do have a recession or two under our belts know there’s plenty of real world evidence proving the brands who continue to invest in marketing during a recession emerge stronger and grow faster when things improve.
But what about market research? The latest IPA Bellwether report suggests that, on the cusp of recession, whilst marketing budgets are holding up well overall (+11%), market research is looking like an early and significant loser (-8%).
So what should you be doing? Here’s what I think.
1. Don’t cut your budgets – adapt them
When recessions loom, businesses adjust their short term plans accordingly. So it follows that research plans should also be reviewed to reflect any pivots and challenges.
But whatever question is asked of you as a team, don’t let it be how can we do what we’re doing now but for less. Changing circumstances demands new thinking.
2. Start by protecting the big projects that will shape the business’s future
Peoples’ first instinct is often to scrap those big, often expensive, strategic projects that won’t deliver their real impact for a few years. But it’s unlikely that your business’s long term goals will change anytime soon. If you lose momentum now, your competitors who didn’t stop spending on research might get there first.
3. Find new and cost effective ways to monitor how consumers are feeling right now
This doesn’t mean investing in an expensive new tracking programme: there will be plenty of data in the public domain you can tap into for free.
Collaborate with your competitors: after all, you’ll all be asking the same questions. Take inspiration from the cinema industry which did just that and formed Cinema First, a joint industry research collaboration, in response to the pandemic
Start your own informal customer closeness programme: if you’re B2B go and spend the day with a customer once a month or so. If you’re B2C go visit them in their homes. Walk in thir shoes, listen to their stories and share them back to the office.
And, if you have a small amount to spend, a syndicated study like The Score from Kokoro will help you measure the mood of the nation on a weekly basis.
4. Squeeze more value out of what you already have
Most research teams are sitting on a wealth of research, little of which gets used much beyond the debrief. Synthesise what you already know before making a decision to invest in anything new. Whilst it may only be an 70-80% solution, what you have may be good enough to keep the business moving forward so you’re ready for the upturn when it comes (and it will come)
5. Be honest with yourself about the value you get from your continuous research programme - and divert some money into value creating research
Frankly unless your NPS programme is closely tracking your most important business metrics you should have dumped it years ago. But if it is a lead/lagging indicator consider cutting back on the frequency so you can reinvest in research that will support the business’s short term needs.
The same goes for brand tracking: it’s crucially important to track your brand but peoples’ feelings about brands don’t change overnight and the world won’t end if you move your tracking to once a year
6. Don’t make the fatal error of moving research in house to save money
This is probably the single worst thing you can ever do, recession or no recession.
Doing so will merely devalue what you do and risk turning you and your team into a survey sausage factory. Sure, you’ll get lots of brownie points from your CFO for “saving the company some money”. But research teams don’t exist to save money: they are a part of the business that creates value.
Trust me, every minute you spend scripting surveys or moderating online communities is time you’re not spending influencing stakeholders, shaping strategy and raising the profile of your team as a valuable investment in the business.
If you look 2-3 years from now at your skills atrophied team and all you have to show for it are some NPS reports, polls from a customer panel and a happy former CFO, you may find it hard to justify your job let alone your budget when the next recession hits
Further reading
https://ipa.co.uk/initiatives/effworks/effworks-ft-reports/invest-in-recession-profit-in-recovery