The 4 major Learnings from my B2B Marketing Research Startup
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In 2014, we tested the first version of our market research software Placedise with many potential clients and partners. There were many interesting insights and also new discoveries, which pushed us to some pivoting and the next version.
However, those very early learning were quite special and could help others — especially within the market research industry.
I somehow pointed them out in the more complex article about Placedise (you might want to read this one first), but I want to share some more details here.
💄 1. Brands want to be deceived
Initially, we evaluated the quality of a measure on a scale from 0 to 100 %.
As stated by Dr. Ferdinand Froning to us, that is basically not usable. Not because it would be wrong, but because no one wants quality below 100 %.
Since the top was the absolute maximum, which also was quite hard to achieve, all managers would constanly question, whether our users make a good job.
As a result, we extended the scale to 140 %, so the probability of being above the 100 % increased. This was somehow a life-saving advice (thanks for that), but stayed one of our major problems.
We built a market research solution to measure quality.
No matter the scale, users would almost always fail to achieve the maximum. And this type of transparency is only wanted by the CEO. Everybody else loves a higher degree of intransparency. Because, let’s face it, most managers always want the 100 % — not matter the underlying logic and background.
Therefore, companies rather focus on empty KPI over valuable ones. With “empty“ I mean, for example, explicit numbers like reach of a measure (could be clicks). This is a nice KPI, because it is usually (in detail) not directly connectable to any action.
At the same time, it is more or less useless. You can reach 1 billion people. If they all hate your message, you would kill your company. Reach 100 with the right story and you might already earn a fortune. See the problem?
This brings me to the conclusion, that brands (meaning their marketing managers here) in most…
