How do you build XFN interest and buy in for market research projects?

The challenge if your company doesnt always do market research is that you have to prove that there is a gap in your foundational knowledge. Which is always tricky because you're effectively saying that the company has been doing something inefficiently (and potentially "wrong") in the past.

A way to get around this (which admittedly has its own hurdles) is to pilot a research program from your own cost center and then prove the value of it to XFN stakeholders (and once youve got it budgeted, get their support and input into the study so they are more excited about the output) and then in the future use that pilot study as a reference point to showcase what impact market research can have.

When we elevate the learning agenda for a product, customer segment, or portfolio, we create space for all cross-functional disciplines to get involved and rally around a plan forward.

One of the most powerful things we can do as product marketers is to foster a culture of learning across all disciplines we work with - product, engineering, design, marketing, sales, and communications alike.

Most of the time I see product marketers focus most on granular elements that need customer or market signal - like whether one feature is the right feature to build, or whether we're capturing or missing a major customer or market insight.

But what's often missing (from any cross-functional discipline) is: a comprehensive learning plan that states how we need to move a program or product from A to B over time, what learning dimensions we need to get more signal on over a time period (often 12/24/36/48 months), and what tactics each discipline will contribute to achieve a set of desired learning outcomes.

If you haven't tried this, I'd suggest starting with this altitude and encouraging all your cross-functional partners to jump in with you. i.e. what is it they want to learn, and how can we partner to achieve this learning together for the organization?