Identifying the need for market research is the easy part. You know what questions you need answered and that market research will get you the data you need to inform your strategic planning and decision-making. Your research results need to be accurate in order to be actionable, and that means it's crucial to partner with the most appropriate market research provider you can find - and finding the right fit is the not-so-easy part.
There’s an old saying that bigger is always better. Many organizations feel that applies to market research companies. But the truth is, relying on a boutique market research firm to provide you with the most accurate research results can be a winning proposition when compared to larger research providers. Here’s what you might not know about the benefits of using a boutique market research firm.
A Boutique Market Research Firm is Quality over Quantity
When you’re part of a boutique market research firm, you know you can’t compete head-to-head with your larger competitors. Even in our own market of Phoenix, Arizona, a boutique firm like Noble Predictive Insights doesn’t have the staff or the budget to take on the same number of projects as a much larger firm and still be able to provide an acceptable standard of quality to each client. What you do have, however, is the ability to provide deeper, personalized insights and more in-depth analysis to your client partners on an individual basis.
It’s simply a matter of survival: unlike larger firms, boutique companies usually don’t have the same staff or resources. This means they tend to handle fewer client projects at a time, but that also means all the care and attention of the entire company gets poured into these projects more completely than at larger firms. The end result is a market research campaign conducted by passionate, dedicated experts that are driven to succeed — and who aren’t juggling too many accounts to fully concentrate on yours! With larger firms who churn out these high volumes of projects, you'll get cookie-cutter insights and high-level analysis; but when you use a company like Noble Predictive Insights, each and every insight is tailored to your specific objective to provide data-based solutions unique to you.
Higher Levels of Synergy
Just because a firm has several teams of researchers at its disposal doesn’t mean these teams are optimized for providing the best results when conducting and analyzing market research. The makeup of these teams at larger companies tends to be fluid, with personnel coming and going or organizational structures changing. This makes the cohesion of the team working on a client project tenuous at best. Your project gets passed through so many hands that details get missed and you have to hope that your needs and questions are relayed properly.
Things couldn’t be more different at a boutique market research firm. Teams are tight-knit and well-practiced when it comes to working together in ways that produce the most effective results. With just one team of dedicated professionals whose common goal is the success of the client at hand, synergy levels are high. When you know every aspect of how your team functions, optimizing roles becomes easy. This improves overall performance in ways that larger firms might lack.
Better Communication and Organization
As an organization gets larger it becomes more difficult to keep organized. Lines of communication become harder to maintain efficiently, which slows down progress on projects and can result in mistakes being made that could have been avoided in the first place with a smaller, better-organized team. The sheer energy and resources that go into maintaining organization and communication on a larger scale are, therefore, often massive. In fact, researchers say poor workplace communication can cost as much as $37 billion a year in lost productivity.
But in a boutique company composed of a smaller, dedicated team, organizational chaos is kept at a minimum. Communication is more direct, which results in fewer opportunities for mistakes to happen. Your questions and needs aren't being telephoned to and from staff, you're talking with the people who are actually working on your project from start to finish. While larger firms have to dedicate tons of resources to organizational efforts and overhead costs, boutique firms can reinvest those resources in providing deeper, more personalized results for their client partners in ways a larger market research firm wouldn’t necessarily be able to deliver.
Greater Flexibility
Larger marketing firms tend to be one-size-fits-all. They offer standard packages and often fall into habitual standard operating procedures in order to make it easier to process multiple projects submitted by a multitude of clients for efficient service. This leads to rigidity where clients have to find themselves a place within the firm’s system instead of the firm adapting to the personal needs of the client.
This is not the case with boutique market research firms. With much smaller client partner rosters, boutique companies can provide a tailored fit to each and every one of their clients’ needs. Approaches are customized, leading to greater flexibility when it comes to adapting to situations on the fly, providing quick response times outside of business hours when it comes to crucial projects, and a general willingness to meet specific client requests. Not only that, but research clearly shows that workplace flexibility can increase employee satisfaction by 73% and productivity by as much as 78%. Is it any wonder why our staff here at Noble Predictive Insights is happy to be here?
Higher Cost-Effectiveness
Conducting market research can be resource-heavy. There’s a lot that goes into a campaign, starting with design and implementation, research data collection and analysis, and then interpretation to reveal trends and produce strategic insights. All of this can cost a pretty penny. Large-scale research firms - with dozens or even hundreds of staff members and an office building (or buildings) to match - price services to cover not only their high overhead costs, but to meet their favorable profit margins.
Meanwhile, a boutique market research firm doesn’t have nearly the same overhead costs as a larger firm. They tend to embrace frugality and negotiate costs in order to stretch their operating budgets as far as possible. Smaller firms pass that savings along to their client partners in the form of lower, more affordable rates that ultimately provide better quality results for your research project.
The Final Score
Let’s review, shall we? Boutique market research firms proudly offer you the following benefits:
Flexibility and adaptability to client requests
High-quality, individualized service
Driven, passionate staff
Personalized attention and better communication
Cost-effective results
In the end, the choice is clear: a smaller market research firm always provides better value than a larger one, hands down.
Noble Predictive Insights: The Boutique Market Research Firm for You
When it comes to boutique market research, we know what we’re doing. Here at Noble Productive Insights, we go the extra mile and burn the midnight oil in ways a larger market research company simply can’t. If you’re looking for a company that can provide you with the most accurate and actionable market research and analysis services anywhere, whether it’s in the Phoenix, Arizona region or beyond, turn to us for an authentic boutique experience. See the difference personal attention provides. Schedule a call with us for a free consultation.