Tackling 4 Obstacles to Meaningful Market Research

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:05.340 --> 00:00:08.920 welcome back to be to be growth. I'm Logan Lyles with sweet fish media. I'm 3 00:00:08.920 --> 00:00:13.450 your host for today's episode. I am joined today by eric thomas. He is 4 00:00:13.460 --> 00:00:17.100 manager construction, thought leadership and content marketing at 5 00:00:17.110 --> 00:00:21.720 auto desk. He's also the host of a great podcast, the digital builder 6 00:00:21.720 --> 00:00:26.370 podcast sponsored by Autodesk. Eric, Welcome to the show today, man. Thanks 7 00:00:26.370 --> 00:00:30.130 Logan. I'm happy to be here awesome. We're gonna be talking about something 8 00:00:30.130 --> 00:00:34.080 that you are pretty passionate about. You know, you've had an interesting 9 00:00:34.080 --> 00:00:38.240 route into B two B marketing. I'm sure we'll touch on that throughout today's 10 00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:42.800 conversation, but essentially you have noticed that really market research is 11 00:00:42.810 --> 00:00:46.870 under utilized by B two B marketers and we're gonna be talking about why that 12 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:50.860 is and what to do about it. But I love to get to know our guests a little bit 13 00:00:50.870 --> 00:00:54.860 aside from you and I haven't worked together for almost a year now. Tell 14 00:00:54.860 --> 00:01:00.150 listeners what was your AOL screen name. So I have a couple that come to mind 15 00:01:00.150 --> 00:01:03.600 because there was an iteration phase where I would change it into something 16 00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:09.760 new and exciting. So the first one I had was probably back in 1992 or 1993 17 00:01:09.840 --> 00:01:14.670 and it was cool. E W T one as a, you know, a seven or an eight year old 18 00:01:14.670 --> 00:01:18.750 would come up with back when they all come on a floppy disk. And then the 19 00:01:18.750 --> 00:01:26.490 last one I had, I think was good with a fork. And the the ideation behind that 20 00:01:26.490 --> 00:01:30.950 was simply driven by the fact that so many interesting screen names were 21 00:01:30.950 --> 00:01:36.230 taken. I was struggling to come up with a new one. There was a fork on my desk 22 00:01:36.230 --> 00:01:39.450 and I just said, well the hell with it, let's go with God with a fork and here 23 00:01:39.450 --> 00:01:45.700 we are. Mhm. Good with a fork man. Um I think as we email back and forth, I'm 24 00:01:45.700 --> 00:01:49.840 going to just drop that in whenever I whenever I can I was with you, I 25 00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:54.360 rotated a few times. Can't remember A. O. L. Specifically, but I know that my 26 00:01:54.370 --> 00:01:58.630 msn messenger names were around some of my favorite baseball players at the 27 00:01:58.630 --> 00:02:02.790 time. Chipper jones of the Atlanta Braves and Roger, Clemens boston new 28 00:02:02.790 --> 00:02:07.950 york, a couple different teams there. But remember having the Rocket 12 and 29 00:02:07.960 --> 00:02:12.960 ch jones 10, something like that. So I was with you. I iterated a few times. 30 00:02:12.970 --> 00:02:16.330 But I think you're good with a fork. There's just so many things. There 31 00:02:16.340 --> 00:02:21.440 might be a future podcast name, we don't know, but eric this is fantastic. 32 00:02:21.440 --> 00:02:24.840 I'm sure we're going to talk a little bit about what you're doing at auto 33 00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:28.790 desk in in your current role throughout here. But I'd love to kick it off with 34 00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:34.000 why you believe that market research is really being under utilized by a lot of 35 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:38.550 your peers and B two B marketing. Yeah, it's it's an important question to ask 36 00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:42.870 because like market research is something we all leverage when we're, 37 00:02:42.870 --> 00:02:46.090 you know, going to market to do research to validate things with 38 00:02:46.090 --> 00:02:52.780 customers. But the ideation behind it is inherently complex and it does take 39 00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:57.780 a lot of effort in time. And I think people oftentimes simply don't know 40 00:02:57.780 --> 00:03:02.530 where to start or they recognize that some of those costs are going to be a 41 00:03:02.530 --> 00:03:07.080 bit higher than they might be willing to put out up front. So oftentimes a 42 00:03:07.090 --> 00:03:10.310 market research project could take upwards of a year from the moment you 43 00:03:10.310 --> 00:03:15.540 go, hey, we have a hypothesis or an idea to actually releasing report out 44 00:03:15.540 --> 00:03:20.550 for your audience. And of course, since that cost is high, it's sometimes 45 00:03:20.550 --> 00:03:24.580 really difficult to qualify internally to your peers and others that your 46 00:03:24.580 --> 00:03:29.000 organization that okay spending this money upfront might be a little bit 47 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:32.810 painful, especially for smaller organizations. But you know, the R a y 48 00:03:32.810 --> 00:03:36.880 at the end of the day for your team is pretty significant. And then getting 49 00:03:36.880 --> 00:03:41.240 the amount of response is necessary to have a report that people consider to 50 00:03:41.240 --> 00:03:46.320 be credible or valid is often times a little bit disappointing in the first 51 00:03:46.320 --> 00:03:49.820 iteration. If you get, you know, 100 responses. Sometimes people don't look 52 00:03:49.820 --> 00:03:53.590 at that and go, oh, this is information that has any real merit, which isn't 53 00:03:53.590 --> 00:03:58.090 actually necessarily the case. And that of course, you you need the resources 54 00:03:58.090 --> 00:04:02.220 to analyze that data that you do get and then uh, something in place to 55 00:04:02.220 --> 00:04:05.720 actually distribute the results in the report that you put together. So 56 00:04:05.730 --> 00:04:09.140 there's just a lot that goes into these projects and if you don't have any 57 00:04:09.140 --> 00:04:12.220 experience with it, sometimes it's hard to pull the trigger on saying yes, 58 00:04:12.220 --> 00:04:15.570 that's something we should focus on. Yeah, absolutely. It seems like there's 59 00:04:15.580 --> 00:04:18.820 okay, there's the cost of doing it, there's the time investment, there's 60 00:04:18.820 --> 00:04:22.850 that if we invest the time and the money, are we actually going to get 61 00:04:22.850 --> 00:04:27.410 enough responses for this to be legitimate? And then do we have the 62 00:04:27.410 --> 00:04:31.750 systems to actually execute on using that that research content? That makes 63 00:04:31.750 --> 00:04:35.360 a lot of sense why it's, you know, scaring a lot of B two B marketers off. 64 00:04:35.370 --> 00:04:39.660 But as we transition there, um I do want to circle back later in the 65 00:04:39.660 --> 00:04:43.650 conversation about how you guys have executed. It may be on, you mentioned 66 00:04:43.650 --> 00:04:47.300 there there might be a bit of a misconception on how many responses you 67 00:04:47.300 --> 00:04:50.940 need given what is it that you're researching, What is the size of the 68 00:04:50.940 --> 00:04:53.470 market, That sort of stuff. And we can maybe come back to that as we talk 69 00:04:53.470 --> 00:04:58.010 about the how. But let's talk a little bit about the upsides on the other side, 70 00:04:58.010 --> 00:05:02.550 why is it worth, you know, tackling the, the time, the investment, pitching it 71 00:05:02.550 --> 00:05:05.700 to your team, getting all of those responses? What are some of the 72 00:05:05.700 --> 00:05:10.770 benefits you guys have seen out the other side by investing in more ongoing 73 00:05:10.770 --> 00:05:16.000 market research? There's so many important notes to unpack here is you 74 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:20.680 consider what value these types of projects actually bring to your team. 75 00:05:20.690 --> 00:05:25.270 And first and foremost, you have a really incredible opportunity here to 76 00:05:25.270 --> 00:05:29.890 listen directly to the customers that you serve. So you've got a chance to 77 00:05:29.890 --> 00:05:34.280 build out a questionnaire that lets them tell you what they're struggling 78 00:05:34.280 --> 00:05:38.620 with and why. And they can also give that feedback to you in an anonymous 79 00:05:38.620 --> 00:05:42.620 fashion, meaning that they may be willing to share more of their opinion 80 00:05:42.630 --> 00:05:47.060 a little more openly than they might have been in a one on one sales 81 00:05:47.060 --> 00:05:51.320 conversation or other types of exploratory research opportunities that 82 00:05:51.320 --> 00:05:55.530 might have come up. So in addition to that, you do get to kind of test your 83 00:05:55.530 --> 00:05:59.470 hypotheses about the customer challenges that you're seeing. So you 84 00:05:59.470 --> 00:06:03.440 might have an opinion and you've got a team that comes from industry or might 85 00:06:03.440 --> 00:06:07.890 be various levels of informed about your customers experience in journey. 86 00:06:07.900 --> 00:06:13.150 But at the end of the day, you're having this chance to now ask those 87 00:06:13.150 --> 00:06:17.660 customers if what you're feeling is their challenge is actually true and 88 00:06:17.660 --> 00:06:22.430 realistic. And then from there, once you do actually build out that analysis 89 00:06:22.430 --> 00:06:27.390 and create that report that you bring to market, you get to establish some 90 00:06:27.390 --> 00:06:31.290 real serious credibility with your customers and the industry at large 91 00:06:31.290 --> 00:06:36.040 that you serve by creating a helpful content and delivering insights that 92 00:06:36.040 --> 00:06:41.210 help them do their jobs better. So I think an important thing to note here 93 00:06:41.210 --> 00:06:48.780 too is true. Market research in this report format should always at the most 94 00:06:48.780 --> 00:06:53.580 important focus, should be product agnostic. So you're not coming out in 95 00:06:53.580 --> 00:06:57.710 surveying your customers about how they feel about your product, how it fits 96 00:06:57.710 --> 00:07:01.520 their workflow, you're kind of stepping one click up and addressing the 97 00:07:01.520 --> 00:07:05.530 industry at large, and the content that you produce in response to those 98 00:07:05.530 --> 00:07:09.850 questions in those discussions ultimately helps guide and inform the 99 00:07:09.860 --> 00:07:13.930 industry in a way that helps them resolve their problems and is very 100 00:07:13.930 --> 00:07:18.540 impactful for your audience. So you have to really keep in mind that the 101 00:07:18.540 --> 00:07:22.890 product driven customer research is a very different conversation from this 102 00:07:22.890 --> 00:07:26.760 thought leadership driven market research. So if you keep that product 103 00:07:26.760 --> 00:07:31.350 diagnostic focus and some of your team members may push back on this because 104 00:07:31.350 --> 00:07:33.840 they go, oh, this is a great opportunity to talk to all of our 105 00:07:33.840 --> 00:07:36.880 customers, ask them a bunch of product questions, so push back on that and 106 00:07:36.880 --> 00:07:39.930 stand your ground if you have the opportunity. So if you have too much 107 00:07:39.930 --> 00:07:44.220 product talk in your report, you ultimately reduce the credibility of 108 00:07:44.220 --> 00:07:47.570 the asset and the eyes of the reader, because now they see this as a sales 109 00:07:47.570 --> 00:07:52.520 pitch, they don't necessarily see this as a product agnostic discussion about 110 00:07:52.520 --> 00:07:57.440 the challenges that they serve. Yeah, absolutely. One thing I would encourage 111 00:07:57.440 --> 00:08:01.670 people to to hit the back button a few times to go to what you called out 112 00:08:01.670 --> 00:08:06.210 there earlier. Eric is you get to test your hypotheses, but you also get to 113 00:08:06.220 --> 00:08:09.370 hear directly from customers and that's just something we throw around and B 114 00:08:09.370 --> 00:08:12.350 two B marketing. Yeah, hear from customers get the voice of the customer. 115 00:08:12.360 --> 00:08:16.470 But literally when you're getting these responses you're finding they use this 116 00:08:16.470 --> 00:08:21.650 word, not that word and that word is all over marketing, copy in in emails 117 00:08:21.650 --> 00:08:25.320 and on our website and on this landing page. But we need to stop doing that. 118 00:08:25.320 --> 00:08:30.920 So that can be, you know, a really high value. So to go back, you talked about 119 00:08:30.920 --> 00:08:35.559 some of the reasons, some of the challenges in doing market research. It 120 00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:40.820 requires a lot of effort. It requires. Oftentimes a significant, no matter 121 00:08:40.830 --> 00:08:44.920 your size somewhat significant, it's not nothing, you know, monetary 122 00:08:44.920 --> 00:08:50.550 investment. You need a system to gain a lot of responses. We'll talk maybe a 123 00:08:50.550 --> 00:08:53.780 little bit about how you set the bar and how you, how you reach that here in 124 00:08:53.780 --> 00:08:58.570 a bit. And then it requires time and resources to analyze the data, identify 125 00:08:58.570 --> 00:09:02.970 trends and then it takes time and resources also to then distribute that 126 00:09:02.970 --> 00:09:06.510 because as you and I both know has experienced B two B marketers. Content 127 00:09:06.510 --> 00:09:11.070 creation is only half the game, content distribution is the other half and and 128 00:09:11.080 --> 00:09:14.960 you can't have one without the other. I'm not going to try and sing but those 129 00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:18.320 are really the five challenges as you've laid out. There are reasons to 130 00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:23.000 address those. Now let's talk a little bit about how you can overcome some of 131 00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:27.000 those challenges. Let's talk first about the high investment. What what 132 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:31.190 have you done to overcome that hurdle in the market research that you've 133 00:09:31.190 --> 00:09:35.540 helped lead at autodesk and throughout your career. ErIC yeah, I think you 134 00:09:35.540 --> 00:09:40.750 really need to step back and sell your team at large on the power of thought 135 00:09:40.750 --> 00:09:45.130 leadership style content. So I know sometimes this is more difficult for 136 00:09:45.130 --> 00:09:49.090 smaller organizations, especially startup level because there re sourcing 137 00:09:49.090 --> 00:09:52.620 for marketing is a little bit narrower. And so getting that product focused 138 00:09:52.620 --> 00:09:57.570 content out to market to really establish your brand is is kind of that 139 00:09:57.570 --> 00:10:02.240 first step. But once you get to a position where you're able to widen 140 00:10:02.240 --> 00:10:07.050 your content marketing machine and really focus on thought leadership, it 141 00:10:07.050 --> 00:10:12.140 gives you that chance to come back and say, hey, we're not just a software 142 00:10:12.140 --> 00:10:18.320 provider, we're not just a a service provider, we're here to help you do 143 00:10:18.330 --> 00:10:22.950 business more successfully. And we have strong opinions on how you can do that 144 00:10:23.040 --> 00:10:27.130 regardless of if you're consuming our product or not. And so these reports at 145 00:10:27.130 --> 00:10:31.420 the end of the day that you're creating should hopefully be consumed by 146 00:10:31.420 --> 00:10:36.020 customers and non customers alike. And they also serve the additional purpose 147 00:10:36.020 --> 00:10:39.690 of potentially capturing more leads and getting more attention once you're 148 00:10:39.690 --> 00:10:42.930 driving more awareness to the challenges and solutions to the 149 00:10:42.930 --> 00:10:45.250 problems that your customers are actually facing. 150 00:10:46.340 --> 00:10:50.670 In addition to that with that high investment, you you really do need to 151 00:10:50.680 --> 00:10:55.800 pick the right partner with the right capabilities for your project. So you 152 00:10:55.800 --> 00:10:59.710 can kind of go to different directions with this. When you're selecting your 153 00:10:59.710 --> 00:11:04.030 research partner, one is a general market research entity and there are 154 00:11:04.030 --> 00:11:07.880 many of them that can serve many different markets and have a very wide 155 00:11:07.880 --> 00:11:11.600 reach globally. And the other option, which sometimes might be a little bit 156 00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:16.310 more expensive, is selecting a partner that focuses specifically on the 157 00:11:16.310 --> 00:11:21.420 industry that you serve. And at the end of the day, it really gives you the 158 00:11:21.420 --> 00:11:25.920 opportunity to bring somebody in who helps manage a lot of that load. So if 159 00:11:25.930 --> 00:11:30.870 your hesitancy towards investment and jumping into market research is we 160 00:11:30.870 --> 00:11:35.290 don't have the bandwidth to do all these things. In addition to a solving 161 00:11:35.290 --> 00:11:38.940 the cost challenge. When you pick the right partner, you can push a lot of 162 00:11:38.940 --> 00:11:44.330 those action items onto them in a way that lets you be that high level idea 163 00:11:44.330 --> 00:11:48.310 later and driver of the conversation without forcing you to actually be in 164 00:11:48.310 --> 00:11:52.560 the weeds on writing out every single step of the way. Yeah. What would you 165 00:11:52.560 --> 00:11:58.490 say eric in making that determination of going towards someone who's good, 166 00:11:58.500 --> 00:12:03.570 well versed in general market research versus someone who's more niche in your 167 00:12:03.580 --> 00:12:08.140 industry? Is it always a matter of what can you afford? Because with the the 168 00:12:08.140 --> 00:12:11.380 ladder you're gonna you're gonna get more and and maybe the quality is gonna 169 00:12:11.380 --> 00:12:16.200 be higher, I think it's a little bit of cost and also just what the end product 170 00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:19.630 is going to be. So if you're leveraging or if you're intending to leverage your 171 00:12:19.630 --> 00:12:23.250 research partner for things like the authorship of the report and the 172 00:12:23.250 --> 00:12:27.020 analysis of the data and things along those lines. Having a partner that 173 00:12:27.030 --> 00:12:32.070 understands your market without having to educate them during the discussions 174 00:12:32.070 --> 00:12:37.100 in the ideation phase pays so many dividends at the end of the day and 175 00:12:37.100 --> 00:12:41.060 then also really reduces the burden on your team when they're going through 176 00:12:41.070 --> 00:12:44.810 and handling the copy editing and managing all of the processes 177 00:12:44.810 --> 00:12:49.700 associated with the report itself. So the challenge there sometimes of course 178 00:12:49.700 --> 00:12:55.960 is not all industries might have a firm that focuses on their specific market 179 00:12:56.040 --> 00:12:59.790 in construction here at ah no desk of course, I'm fortunate to have a number 180 00:12:59.790 --> 00:13:04.110 of partners that I leverage on a repeat basis that do focus on the industry and 181 00:13:04.110 --> 00:13:07.130 I'm thankful for it because I don't think I would be able to handle the 182 00:13:07.130 --> 00:13:12.030 volume of reports that I handle concurrently if I didn't have such 183 00:13:12.030 --> 00:13:15.330 solid trusted partners that I can count on to bring good deliverables at the 184 00:13:15.330 --> 00:13:19.860 end of the day. Yeah. Can you speak at all eric to how many, how many reports 185 00:13:19.860 --> 00:13:23.300 are you guys doing a year that feed into other content marketing 186 00:13:23.300 --> 00:13:27.990 initiatives? Just for an idea of the size and scope for your team. For me 187 00:13:27.990 --> 00:13:32.130 it's grown every year which has been exciting and also terrifying at the 188 00:13:32.130 --> 00:13:36.020 same time when I look at how much is involved in every single projects. So 189 00:13:36.030 --> 00:13:39.930 I've got three or four that are going on concurrently right now and all of 190 00:13:39.930 --> 00:13:46.790 them are very large global projects. So it does require a lot of time if I were 191 00:13:46.790 --> 00:13:50.900 selecting partners that weren't so industry nuanced, I think I would be 192 00:13:50.900 --> 00:13:55.370 setting myself up for failure simply because I wouldn't be able to manage 193 00:13:55.380 --> 00:14:01.770 and keep as close of of of an eye on the detail part of these projects as uh 194 00:14:01.780 --> 00:14:05.050 as I do with with a trusted partner that I know is gonna bring results 195 00:14:05.050 --> 00:14:10.730 every time. Yeah, I'm curious. Eric with 3-4 Market research projects going 196 00:14:10.730 --> 00:14:16.510 concurrently with various partners, do you at times pick and choose different 197 00:14:16.510 --> 00:14:20.440 things to outsource and different things to keep on your plate or your 198 00:14:20.440 --> 00:14:24.610 teams play depending on what the research is and what the end product is 199 00:14:24.610 --> 00:14:29.240 or have you found, I always kind of outsource you know, these eight things 200 00:14:29.240 --> 00:14:33.360 and I keep, you know, one or two that I really need to do or does that look 201 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:38.700 different on a case by case basis? It's different case by case. So we do know 202 00:14:38.700 --> 00:14:43.410 our partners can deliver different types of assets and different types of 203 00:14:43.410 --> 00:14:48.060 analysis and so were intentional about selecting the right one at the right 204 00:14:48.060 --> 00:14:51.770 time for whatever market we're trying to serve at any given moment, but in 205 00:14:51.770 --> 00:14:55.460 addition to that, some of the organizations are able to deliver 206 00:14:55.540 --> 00:15:00.630 really robust reports. Some of them are more focused on the analysis. Some of 207 00:15:00.630 --> 00:15:05.050 them offer a bit of a blend and so depending on the scope and scale, we 208 00:15:05.050 --> 00:15:09.340 ultimately select the right partner for that particular project based on that 209 00:15:09.340 --> 00:15:14.270 scope. And so you can really kind of choose many different segments to 210 00:15:14.270 --> 00:15:18.460 outsource starting with your questionnaire and survey designs. So, 211 00:15:18.840 --> 00:15:22.110 questionnaire design is super complicated because if you do it badly, 212 00:15:22.120 --> 00:15:27.600 you don't get any results that are actually providing any insight that you 213 00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:31.510 can turn into a report at the end of the day. Yeah, that's a really good 214 00:15:31.510 --> 00:15:34.560 point. I I hope you don't mind, but I want to double down there real quick 215 00:15:34.560 --> 00:15:37.380 since you've done a lot of these, you're doing a lot right now and you 216 00:15:37.380 --> 00:15:42.190 call that out as a potential pitfall. Can you speak to some of the common 217 00:15:42.190 --> 00:15:46.060 mistakes you see marketing teams make or maybe you've made in the past and 218 00:15:46.060 --> 00:15:51.300 learn from in that questionnaire designer, there are top 123 mistakes 219 00:15:51.300 --> 00:15:56.780 that you want to share with listeners to help them try and avoid those. Yeah, 220 00:15:56.790 --> 00:16:00.390 for the first couple that we started, we were all kind of flying by the seat 221 00:16:00.390 --> 00:16:03.440 of our pants and had very little experience on these. And so the 222 00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:09.130 questionnaire design was extremely stressful and ultimately didn't end up 223 00:16:09.130 --> 00:16:13.530 being as nuanced as we would have liked. And that was because we didn't have a 224 00:16:13.530 --> 00:16:19.960 very good idea of what the end product was going to look like. And so once we 225 00:16:19.960 --> 00:16:24.710 asked all these questions, we got to a point where we went, okay, we have this 226 00:16:24.710 --> 00:16:31.140 analysis, we have this data, like what story do we want to tell. And so as 227 00:16:31.140 --> 00:16:34.490 we've kind of gotten further along in our strategy and learning from those 228 00:16:34.490 --> 00:16:38.650 early reports that we worked on, we know what our reports are gonna look 229 00:16:38.650 --> 00:16:44.450 like in structure and what gos they serve in a bunch of other nuances that 230 00:16:44.460 --> 00:16:48.010 we most certainly didn't have a clue on when we went into that first project. 231 00:16:48.020 --> 00:16:52.070 And so now it allows us to do that survey. And questionnaire designed with 232 00:16:52.070 --> 00:16:56.010 a lot more intentionality to ask questions that will very specifically 233 00:16:56.010 --> 00:17:01.410 bubble up insights and research in about topics that our customers care 234 00:17:01.410 --> 00:17:05.060 about. And then also we as an organization who serves those customers 235 00:17:05.060 --> 00:17:10.720 are concerned about and interested to know more about as well as a marketer, 236 00:17:10.720 --> 00:17:14.690 you're probably brainstorming outside the box ideas to engage your prospects 237 00:17:14.690 --> 00:17:18.109 and customers working remotely. And you've probably thought about sending 238 00:17:18.109 --> 00:17:21.950 them direct mail to break through the zoom fatigue. But how do you ship 239 00:17:21.950 --> 00:17:25.890 personalized gifts to remote decision makers When you have no idea where 240 00:17:25.890 --> 00:17:29.720 they're sitting at B two B growth, we use the craft and platform to send 241 00:17:29.720 --> 00:17:33.830 hyper personalized gifts to anyone working from anywhere. Crafting makes 242 00:17:33.830 --> 00:17:37.020 it easy for your prospects and customers to pick and personalize their 243 00:17:37.030 --> 00:17:42.080 own gift in real time and offers highly secure data capture. So decision makers 244 00:17:42.080 --> 00:17:46.050 feel comfortable submitting their home addresses for shipping purposes to get 245 00:17:46.050 --> 00:17:51.230 your own personalized craft and gift go to craft um dot io slash growth to 246 00:17:51.230 --> 00:17:54.480 schedule a demo and receive a complimentary personalized gift from 247 00:17:54.480 --> 00:17:58.860 craft. Um, to claim your personalized gift, go to craft um dot io slash 248 00:17:58.860 --> 00:18:04.800 growth. Are there any things that you have consistently seen in that 249 00:18:04.800 --> 00:18:08.760 questionnaire design? Going back to your earlier comment to make sure that 250 00:18:08.760 --> 00:18:13.700 your creating content that develops thought leadership, which really as you 251 00:18:13.700 --> 00:18:18.340 defined it, is content that helps your end market, do their job better, 252 00:18:18.350 --> 00:18:22.890 doesn't necessarily tied directly to your product. Are there some tweaks 253 00:18:22.890 --> 00:18:26.960 there in? Hey, we had this question and it was a little bit too product focused 254 00:18:27.040 --> 00:18:31.150 and we shifted it this way and it gave us better information to create thought 255 00:18:31.150 --> 00:18:34.440 leadership content, any, any examples there that you could share best 256 00:18:34.440 --> 00:18:38.420 practices for folks. Yeah, I think there's two things that come to mind 257 00:18:38.420 --> 00:18:42.830 here. The first one is make sure when you're crafting your questions, you're 258 00:18:42.830 --> 00:18:48.010 not unintentionally leading the respondent in one direction or the 259 00:18:48.010 --> 00:18:52.200 other. So it's very easy to get a little bit biased by accident simply 260 00:18:52.200 --> 00:18:55.830 because you're very excited about a particular topic or it's the thing that 261 00:18:55.830 --> 00:19:00.050 you want to know more about and the framing and phrasing of that question 262 00:19:00.060 --> 00:19:04.060 might unintentionally cause the reader to answer the same way every time, 263 00:19:04.060 --> 00:19:08.370 regardless of you know what that output should have been. So be, be super 264 00:19:08.370 --> 00:19:12.740 mindful of that as you create those questions. So the other thing to 265 00:19:12.740 --> 00:19:17.830 consider is as you build out these surveys, of course there is tie into 266 00:19:17.830 --> 00:19:22.630 your product. It just shouldn't be a very heavy handed thing because at the 267 00:19:22.630 --> 00:19:25.820 end of the day, you are trying to sell more software. These reports are 268 00:19:25.820 --> 00:19:31.650 greatly drivers the insights that you gather can help inform product roadmaps 269 00:19:31.650 --> 00:19:35.180 or help adjust features and things along those lines within the product 270 00:19:35.180 --> 00:19:39.190 that you create and ultimately bring to market. But the way the question should 271 00:19:39.190 --> 00:19:42.650 be phrased shouldn't talk about your products at all the way that the 272 00:19:42.650 --> 00:19:47.820 analysis on bubbles should not be focused on your product and the 273 00:19:47.820 --> 00:19:51.260 takeaways and the key action items where you, at the end of the reports 274 00:19:51.260 --> 00:19:53.940 say this is what you need to do to solve the problems that we've 275 00:19:53.940 --> 00:19:59.900 identified should not say hi come by our product because this is the the 276 00:19:59.910 --> 00:20:03.780 thing that solves all the problems even if it does and it might, which is great 277 00:20:03.780 --> 00:20:09.030 like it does, but it still shouldn't be a very heavy handed come on down and by 278 00:20:09.030 --> 00:20:13.370 Toby software because it's not going to come across this authentic at the end 279 00:20:13.370 --> 00:20:17.840 of the day for your reader Toby Software who's good with a fork. Um I 280 00:20:17.840 --> 00:20:20.950 love that. ErIC. So we've been talking a little bit about that first challenge 281 00:20:20.950 --> 00:20:24.590 of the high investment which can be addressed by choosing the right partner, 282 00:20:24.590 --> 00:20:27.370 working with them the right way and making sure that you craft your 283 00:20:27.370 --> 00:20:32.910 questions in a way that the investment is going to yield the right sort of ri 284 00:20:32.910 --> 00:20:37.860 So let's talk about the high volume of responses we alluded to it earlier, you 285 00:20:37.860 --> 00:20:42.680 mentioned that you need a certain threshold of responses for people to 286 00:20:42.680 --> 00:20:47.210 find the analysis and the trends that you pull out of market research reports 287 00:20:47.220 --> 00:20:51.920 valid. However, setting that bar might be a little bit different on a case by 288 00:20:51.920 --> 00:20:55.540 case basis and some of us might be inadvertently setting the bar too high 289 00:20:55.540 --> 00:20:59.750 for ourselves and talking ourselves out of leveraging good market research 290 00:20:59.750 --> 00:21:03.770 practices. So talk to us a little bit about how to set the bar and how to 291 00:21:03.780 --> 00:21:08.240 execute here some of the things you've learned doing lots of these and have 292 00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:13.850 several in the hopper right now. Yeah, this is such an important point. And 293 00:21:14.340 --> 00:21:18.260 having thousands and thousands of responses for your market research 294 00:21:18.260 --> 00:21:23.310 obviously is exciting and like an end goal for big projects and it does add a 295 00:21:23.310 --> 00:21:28.070 lot of validity and credibility to your project, but at the end of the day, 296 00:21:28.080 --> 00:21:32.210 smaller initiatives, depending on how big of a research or a region you're 297 00:21:32.210 --> 00:21:36.410 serving and how big of a net you're trying to cast Still do provide value 298 00:21:36.410 --> 00:21:40.480 at the end of the day. So if you've got two or 300 respondents depending on the 299 00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:43.720 scope of the survey that you're creating, that might be enough to have 300 00:21:43.720 --> 00:21:48.000 a valid analysis and actually bring some insights to market. If your 301 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:53.360 intention is to give a global perspective on a particular topic, 100 302 00:21:53.360 --> 00:21:57.550 or 200 responses probably isn't going to be sufficient to lend credibility to 303 00:21:57.550 --> 00:22:01.360 the analysis that you're doing. And so that's when you really try to upscale 304 00:22:01.360 --> 00:22:05.060 and bring that metric up into the thousands. And then just from a very 305 00:22:05.060 --> 00:22:10.320 high level like cursory glance at the report, if somebody sees 4000 306 00:22:10.320 --> 00:22:14.210 respondents or 10,000 respondents, obviously they're gonna go, okay, this 307 00:22:14.210 --> 00:22:18.800 this insight has some more meeting than 50 regardless of if that's, you know, a 308 00:22:18.800 --> 00:22:23.440 valid reaction or not. And so there's a lot of things you can do to really 309 00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:28.550 drive those numbers higher as you build out your survey. And the first one of 310 00:22:28.550 --> 00:22:33.270 course is that market research partner that you choose, especially if they're 311 00:22:33.270 --> 00:22:37.940 an industry focused one that supports the market that you serve. They likely 312 00:22:37.940 --> 00:22:42.700 have a very robust contact database that they can include in the survey 313 00:22:42.700 --> 00:22:46.960 distribution. And you should wrap that up in the contract when you start this 314 00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:50.260 conversation so make sure that they're committed to a certain number of 315 00:22:50.260 --> 00:22:56.230 responses in every single region or country that you're surveying. And in 316 00:22:56.230 --> 00:22:59.900 addition to that of course you can leverage your own database but you need 317 00:22:59.900 --> 00:23:05.210 to do so in a really careful fashion. So if you're distributing surveys with 318 00:23:05.210 --> 00:23:08.050 a partner organization of course you want to make sure you're protecting 319 00:23:08.050 --> 00:23:12.230 your customer data. So you don't want to just pull your database, dump it 320 00:23:12.230 --> 00:23:16.320 over to your market research partners. I email all these people they're in our 321 00:23:16.330 --> 00:23:19.520 database and they are going to be interested because that's one I don't 322 00:23:19.520 --> 00:23:22.710 think it here's to anything G. D. P. Are related or any of the best 323 00:23:22.710 --> 00:23:28.250 practices when it deals with uh coming to customer data. And then to you're 324 00:23:28.250 --> 00:23:31.470 probably gonna make your customers a little unhappy if they see just random 325 00:23:31.470 --> 00:23:35.240 emails coming from other organizations knowing that you shipped their contact 326 00:23:35.240 --> 00:23:40.580 info over to that different organization. And the cool thing here 327 00:23:40.590 --> 00:23:45.350 is you can also incentivize the database of your own or your partner 328 00:23:45.350 --> 00:23:49.810 organization in a way that really does drive um some additional engagements. 329 00:23:49.810 --> 00:23:54.210 So you can offer a pool of gift cards to a certain amount of respondents. 330 00:23:54.220 --> 00:23:58.520 Sometimes you can offer like a donation to a charity that's tied to the 331 00:23:58.530 --> 00:24:03.320 industry that you serve for every response that is completed. Make sure 332 00:24:03.320 --> 00:24:07.690 you talk to your legal team when you're doing survey distribution. Especially 333 00:24:07.690 --> 00:24:12.960 if there are incentives like gift cards or awards or anything along those lines. 334 00:24:12.970 --> 00:24:17.100 And one thing stands out when I think about this that surprised me when I 335 00:24:17.100 --> 00:24:21.510 started engaging with autodesk legal team is in Canada. There's a very 336 00:24:21.510 --> 00:24:26.840 strange law that I admittedly don't understand in full where if you are 337 00:24:26.840 --> 00:24:31.480 doing a sweepstakes and that's how they classify offering gift cards to 338 00:24:31.480 --> 00:24:39.970 respondents of surveys. The respondent has to take a easy math problem via 339 00:24:39.970 --> 00:24:45.900 telephone in order to qualify for the fulfillment of the gift card. It's the 340 00:24:45.900 --> 00:24:49.480 most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. And so and you have to facilitate that 341 00:24:49.480 --> 00:24:53.470 you have to facilitate test over the phone. Oh my gosh, yeah, I'm fairly 342 00:24:53.470 --> 00:24:57.160 certain it's over the phone. Either way they have to take this, this math 343 00:24:57.160 --> 00:25:01.580 problem and if they don't do it legally you can't you can't give them the gift 344 00:25:01.580 --> 00:25:05.540 card. And so I walked through the nuances of this with my legal team. 345 00:25:05.540 --> 00:25:08.820 They're like, do you really want to do gift cards in Canada? And I'm like, no, 346 00:25:08.820 --> 00:25:12.530 I do not. I'm assuming you decided. No. Okay. You answered my next question and 347 00:25:12.530 --> 00:25:16.830 it's like, no, because I don't want to call 50 strangers to Canada and say, 348 00:25:16.830 --> 00:25:21.450 Hey can you? So all of this. I can only imagine that would be a great podcast 349 00:25:21.450 --> 00:25:25.530 series though. You know, admittedly we're calling Canadian recipients of 350 00:25:25.530 --> 00:25:30.580 gift cards and giving them a math quiz. Well aside from that, which is a great 351 00:25:30.580 --> 00:25:34.840 tidbit to to know, especially if Canada is within the geography you serve. 352 00:25:34.850 --> 00:25:38.900 We're talking about, you know, needing high volume of responses. Make sure you 353 00:25:38.900 --> 00:25:43.210 leverage your partner's network. I like what you said there, get a commitment 354 00:25:43.210 --> 00:25:46.380 from them so that you can hold them to a number there as far as those 355 00:25:46.380 --> 00:25:50.180 responses leverage your own database, but do it carefully and then think 356 00:25:50.180 --> 00:25:54.170 about where when and how you're going to use incentives especially in Canada. 357 00:25:54.180 --> 00:25:58.500 Um anything else on getting that high volume of responses before we move to 358 00:25:58.500 --> 00:26:03.210 that third challenge on your list. Eric of the resources to bring the content 359 00:26:03.210 --> 00:26:08.290 together and do the analysis. Well, yeah, absolutely. You can also discover 360 00:26:08.300 --> 00:26:13.400 other partner organizations that can help with the survey distribution even 361 00:26:13.400 --> 00:26:17.570 if they don't necessarily serve your immediate market. So we do partner with 362 00:26:17.570 --> 00:26:22.160 a couple different organizations that have contacts that serve the 363 00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:25.990 construction market specifically, even though they're not a construction 364 00:26:25.990 --> 00:26:30.030 focused organization that would bring the report to the table that we'd be 365 00:26:30.030 --> 00:26:34.060 looking for or that. And now you guys end up finding some of those not so 366 00:26:34.060 --> 00:26:38.970 obvious partners. So they're a very large research firm that's based out of 367 00:26:38.970 --> 00:26:43.630 a media called Census Wide and they just have a robust network and can turn 368 00:26:43.630 --> 00:26:47.440 around survey responses and an incredibly impressive amount of time. 369 00:26:47.450 --> 00:26:51.600 Um, There is a cost associated with this of course. So it's an overlay on 370 00:26:51.600 --> 00:26:56.330 top of what other entity you're contracting with to help you with that 371 00:26:56.330 --> 00:27:00.100 survey distribution and the questionnaire genesis. And then of 372 00:27:00.100 --> 00:27:04.780 course that report draft and things along those lines. So you do have to be 373 00:27:04.780 --> 00:27:09.030 mindful of the cost and the wider the net, the more the more you're going to 374 00:27:09.030 --> 00:27:14.500 spend officially Yeah. Where you going to spend? Yeah, it's a balance there. 375 00:27:14.500 --> 00:27:17.810 But if you're really looking to have a meaningful number, especially on a 376 00:27:17.810 --> 00:27:21.730 global basis, finding the right organizations to partner with on this 377 00:27:21.730 --> 00:27:26.890 aspect, we'll pay dividends as well. Yeah, absolutely. So we've we've talked 378 00:27:26.890 --> 00:27:31.660 about how to tackle the high investment both time and monetary or at least 379 00:27:31.670 --> 00:27:36.880 perceived in in some cases how to get a larger number of responses, at least 380 00:27:36.880 --> 00:27:41.070 outside of Canada. Now, we want to talk about your last two challenges that you 381 00:27:41.070 --> 00:27:45.010 can overcome because of all the benefits we talked about in market 382 00:27:45.010 --> 00:27:48.060 research, feeding your content, marketing and your thought leadership 383 00:27:48.070 --> 00:27:52.410 efforts. Those are having not having enough resources to bring the content 384 00:27:52.410 --> 00:27:57.550 together and then uh, needing enough resources to really distribute the 385 00:27:57.550 --> 00:28:01.300 content afterwards. Let's tackle number three and talk about bringing the 386 00:28:01.300 --> 00:28:05.280 content together, pulling out the trends. What are some of the lessons 387 00:28:05.280 --> 00:28:09.830 that you've learned here? Eric and if there's another funny story on Canadian 388 00:28:09.840 --> 00:28:14.720 legal impact on this process, we're open to it as well, man, we'll see if I 389 00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:18.890 can't pull something out for you. But overall, uh, it really does come back 390 00:28:18.890 --> 00:28:23.270 to the partner that you choose as far as the outsourcing. So the first 391 00:28:23.270 --> 00:28:26.920 project that I ever worked on back when we were still plan grid before getting 392 00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:33.170 acquired by autodesk, I wrote a lot of that report. So we got a first draft 393 00:28:33.170 --> 00:28:37.020 from our partner organization, which was fantastic, but we were a bit more 394 00:28:37.020 --> 00:28:40.900 resource constrained and weren't entirely certain what that final output 395 00:28:40.900 --> 00:28:45.390 is going to look like. And so I spent hours poring over the copy, making sure 396 00:28:45.390 --> 00:28:49.740 the phrasing was correct, making sure that the story that we were telling was 397 00:28:49.740 --> 00:28:54.260 going to actually resonate with our customers and our, our market. And it 398 00:28:54.260 --> 00:28:57.440 was a really great experience because it really showed me what's involved in 399 00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:00.500 bringing something like that to the table, but not something that's 400 00:29:00.500 --> 00:29:04.500 repeatable at scale if I have responsibilities other than that one 401 00:29:04.500 --> 00:29:09.160 single report every single year. So from there, you really get to step back 402 00:29:09.160 --> 00:29:13.610 and evaluate the internal resources that you have. So yeah in there from 403 00:29:13.610 --> 00:29:18.330 there, you can go and decide what the research partner or other contractors 404 00:29:18.330 --> 00:29:22.950 can come in and do to share that load. So starting with the initial hypothesis 405 00:29:22.950 --> 00:29:27.020 and ideation, if you do have an industry focus partner, they understand 406 00:29:27.020 --> 00:29:31.850 your customers and so they're going to help be a participant in deciding what 407 00:29:31.850 --> 00:29:34.780 you're going to talk about and then ultimately building the questionnaire 408 00:29:34.780 --> 00:29:39.780 and survey from those initial strategy Ization conversations bringing in as 409 00:29:39.780 --> 00:29:43.040 many stakeholders into those discussions internally. That makes 410 00:29:43.040 --> 00:29:46.100 sense. Especially people that understand your target market. Well, 411 00:29:46.110 --> 00:29:52.540 it's much harder to course correct the resources and the survey creation later 412 00:29:52.540 --> 00:29:56.400 in the stage than it is to get that insight early on, especially if 413 00:29:56.400 --> 00:29:59.640 somebody comes back and says, oh, this is wrong. It's not, it's not a good 414 00:29:59.640 --> 00:30:03.780 feeling that it slows the project down pretty dramatically from there. You 415 00:30:03.780 --> 00:30:07.940 also will want to leverage your your partner entity for the distribution of 416 00:30:07.940 --> 00:30:12.200 the survey if possible. If you are using your own database of course, like 417 00:30:12.200 --> 00:30:16.220 I mentioned earlier, you want to be mindful of how you go about doing that. 418 00:30:16.230 --> 00:30:21.120 Typically you can pass uh you I. D. S. And tokens back and forth between the 419 00:30:21.130 --> 00:30:26.860 the entity to identify which customers have actually answer the survey and 420 00:30:26.860 --> 00:30:30.100 then remove them from future distributions and such. And I won't get 421 00:30:30.100 --> 00:30:33.100 into the weeds here because I'm admittedly not a marketing operations 422 00:30:33.100 --> 00:30:36.690 person and only exist on the fringes when we're doing this part. But I do 423 00:30:36.690 --> 00:30:40.720 know it's inherently pretty complicated to pair those two and make sure you're 424 00:30:40.720 --> 00:30:44.770 doing it well without unintentionally sharing any customer information. But 425 00:30:44.780 --> 00:30:49.050 um leaning on your partner or is definitely that first step, especially 426 00:30:49.050 --> 00:30:52.290 if you don't want to hit your own database at all in in that outreach. So 427 00:30:52.290 --> 00:30:56.050 it really depends on the market are the numbers that you're looking for two. I 428 00:30:56.050 --> 00:31:01.650 am not a data guy, admittedly I was in engineering briefly in college and I 429 00:31:01.650 --> 00:31:04.680 abandoned them for communications very quickly because my brain doesn't work 430 00:31:04.680 --> 00:31:10.260 that way. And so I am thankful every day for the partners that we select for 431 00:31:10.260 --> 00:31:15.090 these projects because they do the entire analysis and then we get to come 432 00:31:15.090 --> 00:31:19.450 in as subject matter experts within our industry. Because I did work in 433 00:31:19.450 --> 00:31:23.690 construction for many years before joining on your desk to actually, you 434 00:31:23.690 --> 00:31:27.780 know, ask some questions, poke holes in the analysis and then make sure that 435 00:31:27.780 --> 00:31:31.420 we're adjusting the story and the narrative to serve the original 436 00:31:31.420 --> 00:31:34.740 hypothesis that we were looking for. And then also deliver something that's 437 00:31:34.740 --> 00:31:40.000 useful for the readers at the end of the day. And if I were the one that was 438 00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:43.040 trying to do the analysis, I don't think we'd have a good report ever 439 00:31:43.040 --> 00:31:46.120 because it's just not my strong suit. So it's uh it's a great thing to be 440 00:31:46.120 --> 00:31:50.330 able to leverage leverage and other organization for that. And then from 441 00:31:50.330 --> 00:31:55.690 there, if you don't pick a partner that can author of that report for you, if 442 00:31:55.690 --> 00:32:01.230 they're not an industry focused organization or say adding that report 443 00:32:01.240 --> 00:32:08.010 onto the whole survey package cost too much. You can take that analysis and 444 00:32:08.010 --> 00:32:12.390 find a contractor to come in and author of that report for you. So it is an 445 00:32:12.390 --> 00:32:16.750 option to reduce the costs in a pretty dramatic way, but do keep in mind that 446 00:32:16.760 --> 00:32:20.770 the quality that you're going to get from, that industry focused partner in 447 00:32:20.770 --> 00:32:24.510 drafting that report is likely going to be very different from taking the 448 00:32:24.510 --> 00:32:28.950 analysis that you were given and having an uninformed third party turn that 449 00:32:28.950 --> 00:32:32.840 into the narrative that you were looking for. Any tips for listeners 450 00:32:32.850 --> 00:32:37.940 there eric if by choice or just by circumstance, they have to find another 451 00:32:37.950 --> 00:32:42.860 author, another agency or another contractor to pull that together and 452 00:32:42.860 --> 00:32:48.890 and author the findings from the report. Any thoughts there on finding the right 453 00:32:48.890 --> 00:32:53.840 person? Any do sir? Don't that you've experienced? Yeah. And I think most 454 00:32:53.850 --> 00:32:58.460 marketing orders at this point in time leverage contractors in some capacity 455 00:32:58.470 --> 00:33:02.630 to help, you know, fill their content funnel. There's just so much demand and 456 00:33:02.630 --> 00:33:06.390 it's hard to have enough FTE s to really, you know, just push the amount 457 00:33:06.390 --> 00:33:10.850 of assets out the door that you need to, you know, continue meeting the demand, 458 00:33:10.940 --> 00:33:15.370 you know, to share your story and sell your message. So, if you have 459 00:33:15.370 --> 00:33:19.330 contractors that you already know and trust that are at least loosely 460 00:33:19.330 --> 00:33:22.460 familiar with your product or your industry, obviously that's, that's the 461 00:33:22.460 --> 00:33:25.530 best place to start because you've proven them already, you know, that 462 00:33:25.530 --> 00:33:28.860 they can at least bring something to the table that fits within the 463 00:33:28.870 --> 00:33:34.020 expectations are looking for. The other thing to consider is trying to find 464 00:33:34.020 --> 00:33:38.530 contractors that have served your market in the past. So a lot of the 465 00:33:38.530 --> 00:33:44.280 time, a good content author is going to have experience from that specific 466 00:33:44.280 --> 00:33:48.700 industry, which helps them right, more authentic, incredible content for 467 00:33:48.700 --> 00:33:52.200 whatever organization they're helping out from a contract basis. And so 468 00:33:52.210 --> 00:33:55.660 seeking out people who do have some of that industry knowledge, even if it 469 00:33:55.660 --> 00:34:00.410 might not be within the realm of what your specific report might be speaking 470 00:34:00.410 --> 00:34:05.590 to will really help bring things across the line in a more credible way. And 471 00:34:05.590 --> 00:34:09.909 then the third thing I think about is if you're working with a more general, 472 00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:15.530 um, content organization, sometimes they will have smes that lean towards 473 00:34:15.530 --> 00:34:19.570 one particular topic or market or another one. And so have some really 474 00:34:19.570 --> 00:34:23.699 intentional conversations as your contract with them to say, okay, you 475 00:34:23.699 --> 00:34:27.090 might not tell me who the author is and I understand you do that for a reason, 476 00:34:27.239 --> 00:34:31.340 but can you show me things that these particular authors have written in the 477 00:34:31.340 --> 00:34:35.600 past, specifically for the market that I'm serving. So I can have a better 478 00:34:35.600 --> 00:34:39.530 sense than if I want them to work on this project or not. That makes a ton 479 00:34:39.530 --> 00:34:42.810 of sense eric. And it, you know, reminds me of part of our evolution 480 00:34:42.810 --> 00:34:48.400 here at Sweet Fish in the early days. You know, we had a pool of, of contract 481 00:34:48.400 --> 00:34:51.730 writers that were turning podcast episodes in the blog post is we've 482 00:34:51.730 --> 00:34:55.960 grown and scaled we've brought more of those folks in as full time employees. 483 00:34:55.969 --> 00:34:59.960 But the big thing that you called out there is now we're starting to say okay 484 00:35:00.040 --> 00:35:06.500 this writer on our team has really focused on this industry or not even 485 00:35:06.510 --> 00:35:10.080 sometimes it's not just specific to industry but these types of industries 486 00:35:10.080 --> 00:35:14.390 where you know there's more technical speak to it or you know this writer has 487 00:35:14.390 --> 00:35:19.270 done a lot of stuff in in I. T. And in very technical language and and done it 488 00:35:19.270 --> 00:35:22.720 well and I think having those conversations where we've initiated 489 00:35:22.720 --> 00:35:26.060 them or where our customers have initiated them, it's the same with 490 00:35:26.060 --> 00:35:29.480 finding the right author for your market research report as much as 491 00:35:29.490 --> 00:35:34.600 turning your podcasts and blog posts like our team does. So eric as we 492 00:35:34.600 --> 00:35:38.510 mentioned earlier we've got to make time for challenge number four and how 493 00:35:38.510 --> 00:35:42.800 to address that. And that's the need to distribute all of this content in your 494 00:35:42.800 --> 00:35:46.990 report and all the derivative content assets that come out of it. Tell us a 495 00:35:46.990 --> 00:35:51.380 little bit about some of your favorite ways to get this content out there so 496 00:35:51.380 --> 00:35:55.710 that we go back to number one and all of this investment isn't just efficient, 497 00:35:55.710 --> 00:36:00.440 but it's actually driving results, yep, this is where the RL I really starts to 498 00:36:00.440 --> 00:36:05.860 bubble up and of course it comes back to the first thing I consider being the 499 00:36:05.860 --> 00:36:09.870 partner organization that you did choose. So if you did select an 500 00:36:09.870 --> 00:36:13.910 organization that focuses on your market specifically, they're going to 501 00:36:13.910 --> 00:36:19.450 get as much benefit out of promoting this asset as you would, especially if 502 00:36:19.450 --> 00:36:23.770 you're a smaller entity or an earlier stage startup in your contract and with 503 00:36:23.770 --> 00:36:29.230 a research entity that has a lot of those resources, you're suddenly going 504 00:36:29.230 --> 00:36:32.820 to get a boatload of credibility when they start pushing out those resources 505 00:36:32.820 --> 00:36:36.140 on your behalf because the insights that they've gathered over the course 506 00:36:36.140 --> 00:36:39.660 of the research obviously benefit them as an organization as well, because 507 00:36:39.660 --> 00:36:43.550 it's information that they didn't have before the research project started. 508 00:36:43.930 --> 00:36:46.740 And so hopefully you've, you know, served enough people during the 509 00:36:46.740 --> 00:36:51.300 analysis and have a really powerful. So what headline that comes out of this 510 00:36:51.310 --> 00:36:56.410 report and that report hopefully will capture the attention of industry 511 00:36:56.410 --> 00:37:01.730 focused media to hopefully facilitate your launch. So there's a ton of assets 512 00:37:01.730 --> 00:37:05.560 that can come from this report. It's not just okay, reports done, have a 513 00:37:05.560 --> 00:37:09.840 nice day and then you move on. Um, you really should build a campaign around 514 00:37:09.840 --> 00:37:13.790 it and it's something that should last for the entire year and keep pointing 515 00:37:13.790 --> 00:37:18.070 back to that original asset. So if you're, if you're a zinger of a 516 00:37:18.070 --> 00:37:22.690 headline is big enough, you will get media attention and media press. So 517 00:37:22.690 --> 00:37:26.880 most of the reports that I've pushed out now with playing grid and that auto 518 00:37:26.880 --> 00:37:31.800 desk have gotten news hits in media attention and that drives a ton of 519 00:37:31.800 --> 00:37:36.190 engagement and also amplifies the credibility of your organization, which 520 00:37:36.190 --> 00:37:40.050 is, you know, the prime driver as to why you're doing this outside of that. 521 00:37:40.050 --> 00:37:43.380 Make sure you're reaching out to your internal email database. The craft, a 522 00:37:43.380 --> 00:37:48.950 really thoughtful message for that tied into your company and partner social 523 00:37:48.950 --> 00:37:53.050 channels. You're going to be running blog posts. Your sales team should be 524 00:37:53.050 --> 00:37:57.130 using this and sending it to key customers or potential accounts that 525 00:37:57.130 --> 00:38:00.960 they're interested in targeting. You can also leverage this in A. B. M. 526 00:38:00.960 --> 00:38:05.070 Tactics where you print out the report itself and mail it to somebody who you 527 00:38:05.070 --> 00:38:08.320 think really should read it if they're an important customer or potential 528 00:38:08.320 --> 00:38:12.550 customer and then from there, if you're messaging and insights are impactful 529 00:38:12.550 --> 00:38:15.810 enough for your audience, you have a chance to bake it into things like 530 00:38:15.810 --> 00:38:19.730 conference presentations and if your partner organization is industry 531 00:38:19.730 --> 00:38:23.850 focused, they want to co present with you at that one. You host webinars 532 00:38:23.850 --> 00:38:27.820 again co presenting with your partner if it makes sense, podcast episodes 533 00:38:27.820 --> 00:38:31.800 like this, I've had a number of conversations about the Trust report 534 00:38:31.800 --> 00:38:35.770 that Autodesk released last year on a couple different podcast specifically 535 00:38:35.770 --> 00:38:39.800 supporting the project. And there's more opportunities that will continue 536 00:38:39.800 --> 00:38:43.000 coming from that one down the line that I'm envisioning, so I'm excited about 537 00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:46.440 that. And then of course you get to integrate it into some of your product 538 00:38:46.440 --> 00:38:50.230 marketing assets as well. And this is where you get to step out of that 539 00:38:50.240 --> 00:38:54.050 product agnostic track a little bit and use the data and insights you've 540 00:38:54.050 --> 00:38:57.500 discovered to drive attention to your own offering. But keep in mind that 541 00:38:57.500 --> 00:39:01.740 this product focus part should be very separate from the campaign that you're 542 00:39:01.740 --> 00:39:05.250 running, associated with the report and all the supporting materials itself, 543 00:39:05.420 --> 00:39:09.760 simply to make sure that you're not unintentionally deluding your message 544 00:39:09.760 --> 00:39:14.860 with a sales conversation in an unexpected fashion. But you absolutely 545 00:39:14.860 --> 00:39:17.720 should be leveraging this data and your product stuff and you can cite your 546 00:39:17.720 --> 00:39:22.340 report all day long because it's uh, it's your report to use as you feel. Uh 547 00:39:22.620 --> 00:39:27.440 yeah, now when it's time then then go there. Yeah, I love it. Well eric we've 548 00:39:27.440 --> 00:39:32.080 talked about, you know, the four obstacles to meaningful market research, 549 00:39:32.080 --> 00:39:37.150 the investment, gathering enough responses, the resources needed to do 550 00:39:37.150 --> 00:39:40.520 thorough analysis and the resources needed to really distribute it well. 551 00:39:40.520 --> 00:39:44.810 And I think you've given some given folks some pitfalls to look out for 552 00:39:44.810 --> 00:39:49.890 like uh incentivizing responses in Canada and some some great ideas on 553 00:39:49.890 --> 00:39:54.170 distribution and tackling some of these other challenges. I like what you said 554 00:39:54.170 --> 00:39:58.860 about the print piece and incorporating that into A. B. M. Using your podcast 555 00:39:58.860 --> 00:40:02.650 to then promote that. Where it comes up in conversation linked to that in the 556 00:40:02.650 --> 00:40:06.690 show notes of your podcast. Use that and follow ups to the folks who 557 00:40:06.690 --> 00:40:10.690 attended a webinar. Hey, you want to go deeper. We have this full report. All 558 00:40:10.690 --> 00:40:16.040 of those are fantastic ideas. Eric if anyone listening to this has now become 559 00:40:16.040 --> 00:40:19.760 a fast fan of yours and maybe they want to become a friend of yours as I have 560 00:40:19.770 --> 00:40:23.580 as we've worked together over the last year or so, What's the best way for 561 00:40:23.580 --> 00:40:26.540 them to reach out, get in touch with you or maybe learn more about what you 562 00:40:26.540 --> 00:40:30.430 and the auto desk team are up to these days. Yeah, if you're looking for more 563 00:40:30.430 --> 00:40:33.450 information about autodesk construction in particular, you can go to 564 00:40:33.450 --> 00:40:37.360 construction at autodesk dot com. If you want to reach out to me, linkedin 565 00:40:37.360 --> 00:40:41.270 or twitter are probably the best ways to do that. So linked in, I'm eric 566 00:40:41.270 --> 00:40:44.510 thomas manager of construction, thought leadership, so you should be able to 567 00:40:44.510 --> 00:40:49.120 find me there. Otherwise, I have a fairly active digital builder twitter 568 00:40:49.120 --> 00:40:53.280 account, which is builder underscore digital. And then of course, if you 569 00:40:53.280 --> 00:40:57.410 want to check out the show that I host, which comes out every other monday, you 570 00:40:57.410 --> 00:41:02.140 can go to construction dot autodesk dot com forward slash podcast and all of 571 00:41:02.140 --> 00:41:06.070 our most recent episodes will be there as well. I love it. We've got to get a 572 00:41:06.070 --> 00:41:10.140 plug in for your podcast there. You've been doing a phenomenal job and if 573 00:41:10.140 --> 00:41:14.040 folks go to the podcast landing page, you'll see a great video of you 574 00:41:14.040 --> 00:41:18.970 explaining the themes and and having some fun promoting the podcast. They're 575 00:41:18.980 --> 00:41:22.940 great example as well. If you liked this episode, two others, I would 576 00:41:22.940 --> 00:41:26.720 recommend to you. If you've got some more podcast listening in front of you 577 00:41:26.730 --> 00:41:30.550 will link to these in the show notes. We've got an episode on how to use your 578 00:41:30.550 --> 00:41:35.670 podcast to create more original research content. So addressing a 579 00:41:35.680 --> 00:41:39.910 number of the obstacles that ERic talked about in today's episode and we 580 00:41:39.910 --> 00:41:44.400 did a great episode with Ian luck from customer gauge about conducting 581 00:41:44.410 --> 00:41:47.290 original research as well. So if you like this topic, you want to keep going 582 00:41:47.290 --> 00:41:50.020 on it and you got some more listening time, check out those to follow up 583 00:41:50.030 --> 00:41:54.020 episodes in the show notes. Uh ERic back to you. I really appreciate your 584 00:41:54.020 --> 00:41:58.130 time today. Thank you so much for being on the show. It's been a pleasure as 585 00:41:58.130 --> 00:42:02.070 with every one of our conversations and glad we got to record this one. Yeah, 586 00:42:02.070 --> 00:42:05.910 this has been a ton of fun and it's great when I get to combine now, my my 587 00:42:05.910 --> 00:42:09.800 two favorite things that I do at work, one is the market research and like I 588 00:42:09.800 --> 00:42:13.650 said, it's, it's a complicated project, but the reward at the end of the day is 589 00:42:13.660 --> 00:42:17.370 super exciting and it's really fun to launch these and bring them to market 590 00:42:17.370 --> 00:42:20.680 and see the excitement. And then the second fun thing that I get to do at 591 00:42:20.680 --> 00:42:23.860 work now, which I'm excited to share with you today is of course just the 592 00:42:23.860 --> 00:42:28.270 podcasting piece. So all fun stuff from here and I definitely appreciate your 593 00:42:28.270 --> 00:42:33.320 friendship and continue to look forward to working together. Awesome. Well eric 594 00:42:33.320 --> 00:42:36.220 have a great rest your week. Thanks so much for being on the show man. Yeah, 595 00:42:36.230 --> 00:42:36.720 likewise, 596 00:42:40.700 --> 00:42:44.360 one of the things we've learned about podcast audience growth is that word of 597 00:42:44.360 --> 00:42:49.050 mouth works. It works really, really well actually. So if you love this show, 598 00:42:49.050 --> 00:42:53.160 it would be awesome if you texted a friend to tell them about it and if you 599 00:42:53.160 --> 00:42:57.390 send me a text with a screenshot of the text you sent to your friend meta, I 600 00:42:57.390 --> 00:43:00.950 know I'll send you a copy of my book, content based networking, how to 601 00:43:00.960 --> 00:43:05.880 instantly connect with anyone you want to know. My cell phone number is 4074 602 00:43:05.880 --> 00:43:09.730 9033 to eight. Happy texting.