Leverage Existing Research

LinkedIn Posts

May 8

Leverage Existing Research to gather new insights into customer preference, pain points, and trends.
How? Look for gaps or areas of overlap in previous research efforts to prioritize future research initiatives.

Conducting more research or another customer call isn’t always the answer. Leveraging existing research is where one should begin. This allows you to work smarter, not harder.

Getting familiar with what is already known within your organization, and from outside resources, will save incredible time and reduce considerable rework. Somebody, somewhere knows something about your topic, segment, feature, customer, and otherwise. Find and digest that first.

This week, I’m sharing more about how to be more efficient with research and data via the following tactics:

Back to leveraging existing research... This can be done at every stage in the research journey to gather insights into customer preferences, pain points, and trends.

Here are 6 ways to leverage existing research:

Review findings from previous user research studies to identify recurring themes or insights across them.
Update and consolidate existing research findings to create a comprehensive repository of learning that's easy to access and search.
Compare current customer feedback with historical data to identify long-term trends or changes in customer preferences.
Look for gaps or areas of overlap in previous research efforts to prioritize and inform future research initiatives.
Extract key quotes or testimonials from previous research reports to use in product documentation or marketing materials (assuming permission was received).
Share learning from previous research studies with relevant teams or stakeholders to inform decision-making and strategy development. Teams evolve. Ads yourself, who is new to the team or hasn't seen X research (lately)?

It seems obvious to established researchers that maximizing existing research is key, but it's less obvious to non-researchers. Please, find out what is already known to inform your next steps. When you learn what is already known, you’ll be better positioned to potentially scope a more meaningful study, or have a more impactful customer call, building on what's already been learned.

Leveraging existing research is also an excellent means to learn more when you don't have direct or easy access to the people best suited to provide you with feedback.

I’m Michele Ronsen, founder of Curiosity Tank. Contact me to learn about user research services, consumer and team training, consulting, and mentoring.