Shideh Rahmanian

1) Be realistic: how many other competitors are there in this space? A MQ is meant to show the main players and their market share. If the category is too nascent then it might not make sense to publish a MQ just yet. If that's the case, engage with analysts but aim to get an 'honorable mention' in existing reports. 2) AR is a long game: build familiarity with your brand and product over time so that you're already in an influential position when the opportunity presents itself. Keep analysts in the loop about product and market developments so they can understand how your category has evolved vs. existing ones. 3) Don't forget about customer evidence: Depending on the nature of the report there may be a hard requirement for customer evidence. Prime your successful customers to co-present with you. Depending on the segment you play in, don't forget about leveraging third-party review sites to drive word of mouth. 

Try to understand where any resitance might be coming from and be sure to tie your research to business outcomes. Digital transformation in market research A variety of self-serve tools exist today that weren't available even a decade ago! They save both time and money (vs. relying on an external agency)---your team just needs to learn how to use them: * Messaging: run A/B tests with your LinkedIn campaigns and let the numbers speak for themselves! Version ads, landing pages, visuals, terminology, etc. * Pricing, new concept tests, etc.: check out Quantilope, a research automation platform that exists to support Market Researchers in particular. Think Survey Monkey but on steroids. A fraction of the time and cost it previously took to run these types of studies. * In-app user experience: run some user interviews on a platform like Userlytics. Many of these platforms will also offer some level of professional services or can coach you along. And in the case where you don't have any budget there are some 'scrappy' stop-gap solutions (do internal usability tests with employees, etc.). Depending on the nature of your project, you (PMM) + DemandGen + Usability teams are more than capable of administering. Tie research to existing investments and future projects With product insights tools like Amplitude and Pendo getting more coverage, quantitative insights are a great place to start but don't tell the full story. They might tell you how many users are abandoning a workflow but won't tell you why or what needs to be done to improve it. Relate your needs for qualitative research to what the quantitative data is showing. Above all, your reserach must deliver some actionable insight. Research findings should yield actions that will help increase conversion rates, contract size, retention rates or another tangible benefit for the business like higher NPS. Ideally, learnings feed into business case modeling (eg. at this price X% convert but at this other price, Y% convert).