Market research is an investment of time and money, and everybody wants to get the most bang for their buck. Clients often feel frustrated that the research doesn’t get the desired traction within the organization or sits on a shelf after it is completed.

That’s why we encourage our clients to use Activation Workshops to bring the research to life and embed the insights and implications within your organization. Given the hybrid work world we’re living in, we’ve found that employees are starved for collaboration and are energized by working together with their colleagues on a shared objective. Activation workshops are the perfect setting to foster teamwork and creativity.

We often create and execute these for clients, but some prefer to DIY. Either way, we are big supporters and wanted to share a few thoughts on the subject. Activation Workshops can be used to:

Workshops can be conducted online or face-to-face. If the workshop is online, the workshop facilitator will need an assistant to do tech support and handle some of the logistics, like setting up and activating breakout teams.

Planning a workshop can take a significant amount of time, but it also doesn’t have to. Don’t dismiss the idea of doing a workshop just because you don’t have much time to plan it—just set expectations for yourself and others that the stimuli used during the workshop will come straight from the pages of the research report. In other words, you’re not going to spend extra time redesigning slides or curating case studies from the outside world to incorporate into the workshop activities.

One of the most important steps in planning your activation workshop is setting objectives. Tight, focused objectives will help you and the team stay focused. However, you must also be realistic. If you have three hours with your team, having an objective of, for example, “creating new product ideas based on the learnings from the research” is too broad. Instead, set a goal such as “create new product ideas for one particular need state or customer segment.” Or focus just on creating ideas to attract potential/new customers versus thinking about everybody.

Activation workshops ensure that your investment in market research pays off. By bringing people together to brainstorm and plan for incorporating the results into the business, you increase the probability of a good outcome.

Here are our Tips for better workshops. To dive deeper, download our tip sheet — 9 Tips for Building an Activation Workshop.