Ad and digital agencies – big ones – often have internal planning/strategy teams that handle their qualitative insight research, as well as UX and customer segmentation work. However, even the biggest ad agencies run out of Planner bandwidth, and often smaller agencies don’t have planning and strategy teams in-house.
If this sounds familiar, you’re in good hands, because at InterQ, we often partner with agencies as their market research partner.
How an agency market research partner works
InterQ has partnered with agencies of all types: Digital, traditional full-service (media, PR, design, copy), and product design agencies. We work as your “in-house” strategist, from start to finish. Essentially, we become a part of your team, helping to gather customer and demographic insights so that your copy, design, and product teams can build campaigns and products around customer feedback and observations.
Our team specializes in focus groups (remote and in-person), in-depth interviews, ethnographies, online discussion boards and digital communities, ad campaign/copy testing, social listening, and UX design.
We can work as a white-label partner, under your brand, or as a named partner, in collaboration with you and your clients.
Our goal is to fit seamlessly into your project flow and culture so that your team can incorporate our market research insights as campaigns and products are built and designed.
Why work with an external market research partner for agencies?
Aside from the bandwidth issue (simply not enough teams or time), you may be wondering what the advantages are to working with a market research partner for agencies. Here is a quick rundown of some of the benefits you’ll get when you bring InterQ in as your agency market research partner:
- Lower cost: Hiring a full (or even part-time) planner/strategist is pricey and sometimes projects that require planners are short-term. Outsourcing the market research to a full-team of specialists is a big cost-savings, and our experienced project managers can help you build in strategy to your budgets in a way that fits your client needs. Also, your HR teams will be relieved that they won’t have to go through the cumbersome process of hiring another team member!
- An experienced market research team: InterQ brings what more than a single planner can to the job: We have a full-team of recruiters, moderators, quant analysts, and social listening strategists. When we build a market research project, we use each of our team members to add these elements to a project, which results in a far more comprehensive research approach than a single planner/strategist can add. And, as point 1 above shows, at a lower cost than what a full-time team member would cost.
- We know agencies: InterQ’s core team members learned the craft by working at ad agencies, so we understand the unique constraints, pressures, and needs that agencies have. This helps us blend seamlessly into your team and respond promptly to client needs.
- Fast-turnaround times: We know how to work under tight deadlines, and with our full-team, we can quickly recruit, moderate, and synthesize data so your team can use the insights to build campaigns and products.
If your team has reached capacity with your research needs, give us a call or send us an email! We’d be happy to consult and explain how we can be your market research agency partner.
