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Every year, organizations invest millions into market research. Teams labor over survey design, conduct interviews, synthesize findings, and prepare decks that distill consumer truths into neat patterns. And yet—most of it goes nowhere. The slides are presented, the data is documented, but little changes.

That’s a sobering reality for anyone in the insights profession. We don’t get into this work just to report what happened; we do it because we want to be catalysts of change. We want the insights we uncover to shift strategies, reshape campaigns, and ultimately make organizations more effective in reaching the people they serve.

So why does so much research stall? Why does it land with a thud instead of sparking new possibilities?

From our experience, the issue isn’t that researchers aren’t doing good work. The problem lies in how that work is received, shared, and applied. Four challenges in particular stand in the way:

1. Marketing Teams Are Moving Too Fast for Deep Analysis

Brand managers and marketing teams live in a constant state of motion. They’re reacting to cultural moments, revising content, responding to crises, and producing new campaigns at breakneck speed. While researchers love diving into transcripts and patterns, marketers rarely have the time—or the headspace—for that kind of analysis.

The result? Too often, research deliverables stop short of connecting the dots to clear action. Researchers present findings, but expect marketers to help finish the analysis. Yet marketers aren’t primed to do that work—they’re thinking in tactical, creative terms, not in systems and data patterns. It’s a mismatch of mental “muscles.” Without translation, insights remain half-finished and underutilized.

2. Research Is Too Self-Obsessed

Researchers love methodology. We can spend slide after slide talking about sample sizes, research objectives, and whether we used IDIs or online journals. But here’s the truth: most marketers don’t care. What they want to know is whether the insights are reliable and what they mean for the business.

When we lead with process instead of outcomes, our reports become more about us than about the audience we’re trying to help. That inward focus makes research feel insular, even navel-gazing, when it should be outward-facing and empowering.

3. Shareouts Are Overloaded With Information

One of the biggest sins in research is delivering a hundred-slide deck that attempts to capture everything. Not all insights are created equal. Some are critical for shaping decisions; others are merely interesting. When we fail to prioritize, we end up burying the most important truths under layers of noise.

It’s the difference between handing a student a textbook and guiding them through a lesson. The textbook contains the knowledge, but only a skilled teacher can make it actionable. Researchers need to embrace that teacher role—curating, editing, and highlighting the insights that matter most.

4. The Researcher–Marketer Relationship Can Feel Adversarial

Finally, there’s the human element. Marketers often feel like outsiders within their organizations, tasked with representing the customer against internal pressures. Researchers can feel even more adversarial—challenging not just the organization’s status quo, but the marketer’s own assumptions and strategies. That dynamic can create resistance, even when insights are valid and useful.

Without careful framing, research can feel like critique rather than collaboration. And when people feel threatened, they’re less likely to act. I recall one session where I was presenting and at the break I noticed the CMO’s notebook had the phrase “I hate market research” scribbled on it. Not the outcome we’re looking for as insights professionals.

“You are the bridge between business objectives and human impact, products and services and their role in people’s lives, financial transactions and personal relationships.”

Taken together, these challenges explain why so much research fails to inspire action. But they’re not inevitable. With the right mindset and methods, researchers can make insights not just interesting but indispensable—tools that marketing teams actually use to make decisions, design campaigns, and build stronger relationships with customers.

Here are four ways to overcome the barriers and make insights matter:

1. Do the Deep Analysis—Then Translate It Simply

When marketing teams are moving quickly, the researcher’s job isn’t just to uncover insights, but to distill them into something immediately usable. That takes discipline. As the old adage goes: “I would have written a shorter letter if I had more time.”

The work doesn’t stop when you’ve spotted a pattern. The real challenge is shaping that pattern into a clear framework or storyline that can be grasped quickly. Metaphors, visuals, and concise recommendations aren’t just nice-to-haves; they are the bridge that moves insights from analysis to action.

Researchers should spend as much time thinking about how to tell the story of the insight as they do discovering it. In the end, what matters is not just what you found, but how well you equip your audience to carry it forward.

2. Re-Center the Audience in Your Shareouts

Just as we tell marketers to center the customer, researchers need to center their marketing teams in the way insights are shared. That means resisting the temptation to indulge in methodology slides and instead focusing on what matters most to your audience.

A one-hour session should be designed like a dialogue, not a lecture. Ten or twelve strong slides can tell a compelling story, leaving space for discussion. And that discussion is often where the real questions emerge—the deeper, unarticulated needs that weren’t obvious when the project began.

Sometimes, the question teams bring to research is a “phantom question”: the one they know how to ask, but not the one they truly need answered. You only uncover the real question when you create space for conversation, debate, and synthesis.

Practical tip: start with your punchline. Give your conclusion up front, then use the discussion to work through the reasoning behind it. That way, your audience walks away clear on what matters, even if the conversation runs out of time.

3. Stop Listing, Start Storytelling

A hundred-slide deck is documentation, not inspiration. If research is going to inspire action, it has to be told as a story.

That doesn’t mean dumbing down the data—it means curating and connecting it. Think like an educator: your role is to make the complex understandable and memorable. People don’t act on lists; they act on stories that help them make sense of the world and their place in it.

When insights are framed as narratives—with heroes, struggles, and transformations—they become easier to retell, easier to champion, and easier to use in decision-making. Researchers who see themselves as educators and facilitators—not just analysts—will find their work has a longer shelf life inside organizations.

4. Build Relationships, Not Rivalries

Finally, we need to reframe how we show up in relationship with marketers. Researchers can sometimes be perceived as adversaries: the ones who challenge assumptions, surface inconvenient truths, or shut down beloved ideas. Many of us have had to share the bad news about a campaign idea, forecast, or feature that the marketing team spent energy developing. That tension is real—but it can also be reframed.

Instead of positioning ourselves as critics, we can present ourselves as catalysts. Catalysts accelerate change; they may spark friction, but always in service of moving things forward. By consistently reminding teams that we share the same goal—building stronger connections with customers and driving impact for the business—we shift from opposition to partnership.

That means framing insights around shared outcomes, aligning to common objectives, and continually reinforcing that our role is not to derail progress, but to enable it.

Turning Insights Into Impact

Market research will always be judged not by how interesting it is, but by what it changes. To overcome the inertia that plagues so many projects, researchers must be more than collectors of information. We must be translators, storytellers, and partners—skilled at turning complexity into clarity, curiosity into conviction, and data into action.

When we do, our work lives up to its true promise: not just informing decisions, but inspiring them.