6 Reasons Why Storyboarding Works for Your Market Research Process

How do you stay on the right track while conducting market research?

Planning extensively before conducting market research, regardless of the scope, is detrimental to the success of your study. It is known to all that conducting market research will require a significant amount of expertise and manpower, is costly, and is often hard to predict. Therefore, there is a crucial need for a visual guideline that will help you, your colleagues, and the client to efficiently move towards the completion of your study.

That’s where storyboarding would be useful.

In a broader sense, storyboard refers to a visual outline, quite similar to a flowchart, which attempts to visualize a process showing all the necessary phases in order to achieve the desired outcome. Market researchers mainly use storyboards as a form of presentation to show clients the buyer’s journey. This helps your client understand where their consumers are coming from and what affects their buying motives. It is also an essential tool in breaking down complex projects into smaller, actionable tasks for easier execution. This is especially helpful when you are working with a number of audio and video files you wish to strategically clip together for better analysis. Hence, a reliable video curation tool would be the best option for you.

What Value Do You Get from Utilizing Storyboards in Market Research?

It helps envision the finished product in advance

A storyboard will allow you and your team to see the whole picture so you can begin to mentally run, rerun, and debug each market research phase as you would deem necessary. Storyboarding is also a kind of low-cost prototyping where you can identify possible findings or results that can create an added value to the initial goal.

It allows for easy collaboration among teams

If the market research plans are visually laid out in chronological stages, your colleagues will have an easier time providing feedback by reviewing and commenting on each stage. It is particularly beneficial for larger or interdisciplinary teams where there are several research collaborators. Having a storyboard accessible to all people involved with the project makes it effortless for them to contribute and review comments accordingly.

It can determine and possibly eliminate inconsistencies early on

By looking at the whole picture, it will be easier for you to determine and eliminate possible inconsistencies or discrepancies before getting too deep into the research. This includes uncomfortable questions and counter-arguments that otherwise might be left unnoticed or unattended until such a time that you’d have to personally face these questions from your respondents or clients.

It can help generate resources and project a list of realistic expenses

Through storyboarding, the stages and concepts of your research are made concrete in an accessible way. Basically, it helps you generate resources and finances from external partners such as investors early on. Looking ahead will also help in realistically costing how much it will take, in terms of time and money, to implement the study and see it through the end.

It helps you combat procrastination

Breaking down an often-daunting and complex research goal into smaller tasks is easier and quicker to accomplish. And it won’t look too overwhelming that way. It encourages researchers to complete stages or phases of the study as soon as they feasibly can.

It streamlines your efforts because you will never lose sight of the intended goal

If the time comes when you get bogged down by details and setbacks, the storyboard will always show you what you are aiming for, what has already been accomplished, what items are in progress, and what’s left for you to still do.  That way, you will have a clearer path towards achieving your desired market research outcome.

However, in order to really make it work, you must partner with an established, inventive and passion-driven company providing technology-facilitated services such as web-enabled IDIs or FGDs, mobile research applications, and a video management platform. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, Civicom may just be the right partner for you. After all, our marketing research services offer a well-rounded set of services that can cater to your global market research needs.