From Deliverables to Research Assets: How Insights Teams Can Leverage Content Design Principles for Greater Influence

Consumer insights teams are the detectives of the business world, uncovering insights that guide critical decisions. Yet, showcasing the true value of our work can be a challenge. We often get caught in a cycle of short-term deliverables, struggling to demonstrate the long-term return on investment of the research.

How can we break this cycle? The answer might lie in a surprising place: content design principles. Content design thrives on creating valuable, relevant content that attracts and retains an audience, ultimately driving action.

In this article, we’ll explore five key principles from content design that will help researchers transform their insights into bite-sized research assets that will resonate with stakeholders, influence the business, and deliver long-term value.

Principle 1: Prioritize Stakeholder Needs and Desired Outcomes

Sarah Winters pioneered the discipline of content design, which focuses on creating content that effectively meets user needs. As she explains, "Content design is a way of thinking. It’s about using data and evidence to give the audience what they need, at the time they need it, and in a way they expect" (Winters, Content Design, 2017).¹

While this approach seems obvious, we often find ourselves producing lengthy reports that include everything but the kitchen sink. The desire to be thorough and cover all the research can overshadow the importance of catering to various stakeholders and their unique needs. In this process, we risk losing sight of what truly matters to our audience, and giving it to them at the right time, and in a way they expect.

Principle 2: Reframe Research as Assets

Within the broader context of content creation, content marketing has gained significant popularity over the past decade. However, a similar challenge plagues both content marketing and consumer insights – they're often viewed as expenses, not assets. To unlock their true potential, a shift in mindset is essential.

“If you treat content as an asset, people in your organization will stop treating content as that ‘soft fluffy thing’ that they can take or leave. In every meeting or conversation you have, use the word ‘asset’” (Pulizzi & Piper, Epic Marketing Content, 2023).²

Within consumer insights, research outputs often get relegated to the status of "deliverables". What if we reframed them as "research assets"? This simple shift in perspective unlocks several benefits, as the following breakdown illustrates.

When we view research outputs as assets, we're compelled to treat them with the care and strategic foresight they deserve. As the Persian poet Hafiz reminds us, "The words we speak become the house we live in."

Principle 3: Make Your Ideas Stick

Our brains crave stories – it's been that way for millennia. They serve as a powerful tool for establishing connections with our audience and conveying our message in a captivating and engaging manner. 

However, storytelling isn’t the only weapon in our arsenal.

In their book "Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die" (2007)³, Chip and Dan Heath identify six key principles that contribute to making ideas stick:

• Simplicity
• Unexpectedness
• Concreteness
• Credibility
• Emotions
• Stories

By infusing research assets with these elements, we strengthen our ability as researchers to deliver insights that cut through the noise and captivate our audience.

Principle 4: Deliver Bite-sized Insights for Busy Stakeholders

As Kate Moran from Nielsen Norman Group, a leading research and consulting firm in user experience, emphasizes, "Human short-term memory is limited, so if you want your users to retain more, pack information into meaningful chunks."⁴

Chunking leverages the way our brains process and retain information by grouping related items into manageable pieces. Recognizing the limitations of human attention and the demands of busy schedules, chunking research outputs into engaging, bite-sized insights will maximize the impact of the research.

These insights can be transformed into various research assets, such as infographics, cheat sheets, before-and-after comparisons, frameworks, webinars, carousels, vlogs, or even podcasts. Each research asset focuses on a few key ideas, making the information easier to digest and retain.

Principle 5: Capture Attention in 10 Minutes or Fewer

As John Medina also points out in his book “Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School” (2008)⁵, our attention spans are notoriously short. “Brain Rule #4: We don't pay attention to boring things” reminds us that our brains naturally gravitate towards stimuli that are engaging, meaningful, or emotionally resonant. After around ten minutes, attention tends to wane, and people's focus starts to drift.

When it comes to presentations, meetings, or any form of communication, stakeholders' time is indeed limited. Chunking deliverables into ten-minute segments aligns with the natural rhythms of attention and helps mitigate the boredom and distraction.

The Future of Research: A Strategic Asset

Shifting the view of research from a cost center to a value-generating asset is crucial. By adopting these content design principles, insights teams can create entertaining, educational, and inspiring research assets that resonate with stakeholders, drive decision-making, and ultimately contribute to the long-term success of the business.

References

1. Winters, S. (2017). Content design. Content Design.
2. Pulizzi, J., & Piper, B. W. (2023). Epic content marketing, second edition: Break through the clutter with a different story, get the most out of your content, and build a community in Web3 (2nd ed.). McGraw Hill.
3. Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2007). Made to stick: Why some ideas survive and others die. Random House.
4. Moran, K. (2016, March 20). How chunking helps content processing. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/chunking/#:~:text=The%20main%20takeaway%20from%20Miller's,short%2Dterm%20memory%20at%20once
5. Medina, J. (2014). Brain rules (updated and expanded): 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school. Pear Press.