So, you want to measure the ROI (or Business Impact) of your Insights Department, but don’t know where to begin. How about with your agency partner? Your agency partner is a valuable resource you can leverage to help you with the underpinnings of your ROI story. How? I’m glad you asked…
Let’s Begin with a Shared Understanding of the ROI of Insights.
ROI can rarely be boiled down to just one number. At least in the world of Insights, ROI comes in many forms, including financial metrics (e.g. profit or revenue growth), meaningful non-financial metrics (e. g. , incre ases in brand preference, improved NPS scores, or decreases in customer churn) or even positive qualitative feedback on the impact of insights on the business from an important stakeholder.
So, What can Your Agency Partner do for You?
Before a proposal is even contemplated, share the business objectives broadly and completely. And not just the obvious objectives, but the next layer too – how will the decisions made based on this research impact the business? If you’re not sure, find out. That’s critical to the “return” portion of the ROI equation. Then work closely with your agency partner and talk about exactly how the proposed research will provide the input into the specific decisions to be made, or said another way, how the research will deliver the expected ROI. Importantly, this is the time to think about the variables you will use to measure the ROI and ensure the research includes whatever variables you’ll need.
There can be no ROI if there is no action. So, working with your agency partner on a plan and process for communicating the insights is as important, if not more important, than any other component of the research. Communicating simply, in a way that can be acted upon is how we turn data into meaning. Yet, it is too often an afterthought.
So, start with the end in mind (thank you, Steven Covey). Talk to your agency partner about how you intend to disseminate the insights from the research. Perhaps your partner can help you with ideas – ways to communicate meaningfully for action. Allow yourselves to try something different if you believe it will have the impact to influence action.
Finally, set aside time to talk to your agency partners about your goals in measuring the ROI of insights. Develop solutions together.
- Which projects delivered a strong/weak ROI and why?
- On which projects has measuring the ROI been a challenge?
- How should these projects be improved to allow for better measurement?
Measuring the ROI of Insights is not easy. But progress is far more important than perfection: you should fear not measuring ROI far more than whether your measurement is perfectly accurate.
David Rothstein
CEO, RTi Research
