Why is market data considered the lifeblood of the business world?
Informed decisions stem from a deep understanding of market trends – especially in the space of digital advertising, which is estimated to reach $1.2 trillion by 2027, surging at a CAGR of 14.7% and nearly doubling in just 5 years.
Some of the key drivers of the advertising market include:
- Accelerating development of smartphones and high-speed internet
- Increased use of social media
- Rapidly growing eCommerce industry
To talk about how this and other unique insights are shared across the web, we called on marketing expert Victoria Franco from BCC Research, a market research company bridging the gap between raw data and actionable insights.
Who Is Victoria Franco?
Victoria has led BCC Research's marketing department since 2023, guiding her team in creating and executing campaigns that drive the growth of the company's market research. Being a board member of the American Marketing Association in Boston, her professional expertise spans content creation, communications, and project management.
The journey of transforming market data into strategic insights unfolds through a collaborative effort across various teams, according to Victoria.
The story begins with research analysts, who after rigorous investigation, pass their findings to the marketing team. This handoff ensures that the marketing materials, whether they be PR pieces, blog posts, or social media content, are engaging and accurate.
"Having these marketing handoffs come straight from the analysts ensures accuracy and accountability between teams," Victoria says.
The philosophy guiding BCC Research's promotional campaigns connects with the understanding of their target audience.
Victoria's team draws inspiration from a variety of sources:
- Regional events
- Global holidays
- Hot topics on Google Trends
"Clients are our priority, so if we're creating something like a webinar, we think about who would be beneficial to have on there and how they can advise them best. We don't want to waste anyone's time or send out the wrong information, so we make sure to set up guests who are leaders in their field with the experience to back their knowledge."
2023 marked an important year for BCC Research, which made its webinars freely accessible
Per Victoria, knowledge should be shared continuously, and her company's original market insights serve a broader community that extends beyond the company's client base.
"We decided that being a market research company, we want the world to know what's trending, what to look out for, and how it impacts the future. We'd like to use this to increase awareness related to our topics of interest, such as biotech, environment and sustainability, commerce, materials, and sensors. We want to bring awareness to certain subjects and share the knowledge we have to benefit the world."
Commenting on the ways her company's marketing team shares their research, Victoria recognized LinkedIn as the most relevant platform in the B2B world, and I couldn't agree more.
"We find that quantity doesn't always mean quality. The best marketing campaigns are the ones that tie back to the product, our employees, and the entire ecosystem of partnerships and clients. Clients want to see real people and understand the company, not just hear the numbers."
Victoria was also kind enough to explain the process of creating content for the marketing team she leads.
"We're a collaborative and open group. If someone has an idea, we're happy to experiment to see if it works by performing A/B testing and analyzing the results. The only way to continue to evolve is by listening to the talented people you hire."
"Our marketing team is broken up into three segments: lead gen/email, content and creative, and SEO/SEM, all handling the data and analytics of their responsibilities to get a holistic view of their position. This helps us devise proper target markets and know what we are trying to accomplish across all channels."
"Our marketing objective is to raise brand awareness, improve ROI, and get qualified leads for the sales team. To do this, we position our market reports in front of their respective target markets."
Marketing metrics play a vital role in shaping BCC Research's strategies
Victoria tells us how exactly.
"When it comes to email marketing, we observe the obvious: bounce rate, CTR, unsubscribes, and form-fills. On our social media, we look at our target markets via LinkedIn to see how they match up with our projections. For our digital strategies, we look at the best times to post or send out information to get the most impressions and engagement."
"We don’t just look at the data, we analyze it. As a market research company, we know that just looking at the numbers doesn’t tell the full story. You must look at what else was going on, both internally and externally. That’s where you will find what worked and what didn’t. Then, you can conclude how to improve and incorporate it into your future marketing campaigns."
The purpose of market research is to understand the market, providing little-known insights
"The point of our reports is to predict the market, giving insights and forecasts as to what we have taken the time to research heavily. In each one, we provide a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) – a growth rate over time index."
"I advise companies to use this to investigate their markets in-depth. You may see a target audience that you never thought about, bringing in new platforms or ways of marketing that could help you increase leads, engagement, and ROI."
The world is still excited about generative AI. In the field of text generation, ChatGPT 4 remains widely the best platform to this date, with OpenAI hinting at an amazing future with its video-generation model Sora.
Still, Victoria shared some major concerns when it comes to using AI-generated content in market research, insisting her company's focus remains on providing insights created by people that businesses can rely on.
"We noticed in 2023 that some companies used generative AI to pump out market research reports quickly, increasing their sales for a short time, but making customers unhappy since the data wasn't analyzed adequately"
"We continue to stick with our analysts providing accurate, well-thought-out data to keep our clients happy. Although it was a challenge at first, it helped us and the market view which companies are selling accurate, informed data that is worth the money."
As we delve deeper into 2024, generative AI stands out as a key area of focus for all major tech players. To boost this fact, we can check Nvidia's stock growth of outstanding 265% over the past year.
For our interviewee, understanding the implications of how this technology will be used by businesses will remain the no. 1 trending topic in the upcoming months and years.
