If you're a researcher with an insight community, you probably know its value intimately. You're exposed to the real-time insights every day. You see the quality of the data. You feel the authenticity of member feedback.
If you're lucky, your CMO sees it too. Of all the executives, the notion of "customer understanding" is something marketing leaders tend to value.
But if you have to make the case for why your insight community needs to exist, there's one leader you need to convince—even if you don't report to them: the CFO. The best way to future-proof your community and continue to get investment? Show your CFO the receipts!
Here's the thing: insight professionals are really good at learning what makes customers tick. But when it comes to explaining the value of that insight to the C-suite, suddenly we're speaking a different language. Sorry to say this, but your CFO doesn't really care about "deeper customer understanding" or “interesting” research—they care about numbers that make the balance sheet look good.
The solution? Stop talking about insights like a researcher, and start talking about them like an investor.
Here are three ways you can measure and communicate insight community ROI in a way that gets fiscally minded executives nodding yes instead of nodding off.
Let's address the elephant in the room: can you claim your brand’s insight community actually generates revenue?
Most insight leaders get squeamish here. After all, you're not directly launching new products or creating marketing campaigns to promote them.
But here's the reality: when a product gets prioritized because of feedback from your insight community, or marketing nails campaign messaging because of member responses, you’ve contributed to revenue. That's proof of insight community ROI. Own it.
Your CFO doesn't really care about "deeper customer understanding" or “interesting” research.
How? At minimum, keep a running list of every product, marketing, and CX initiative that used insights. Doing message testing for the comms team? Track it. Helped the marketing team with a mobile shopper mission to understand the buyer journey? Track it. Even better, work with your stakeholders to connect what you’ve tracked to actual business outcomes.
This is where things get fun for your finance team.
There are several ways your community is probably saving the company money right now:
One CPG company using the Rival Technologies platform saved $250,000 in sample costs in a single year by tapping their community instead of traditional panels. Warner Bros. Discovery? They 4x'd their study volume without increasing their research budget.
When you're presenting these numbers to your CFO, speak their language: same budget, way more output. That the kind of operational efficiency makes finance people cry happy tears. And it's exactly the kind of insight community ROI proof points that get market research budgets approved fast.
This one's less obvious, but potentially the most powerful. Think of your insight community as your company's insurance policy against expensive mistakes.
Your community can:
The payoff? Avoiding brand damage, customer churn, or investing six figures, or more, in the wrong direction.
Think of your insight community as your company's insurance policy against expensive mistakes.
Case in point: Carnival Corporation was debating an onboard casino policy change.. Leadership was split. Tensions were high. At least one VP stress-ate their way through the Lido Deck buffet. Instead of making an expensive guess, Carnival asked their insight community. Using a conversational approach, they captured quant data, qual inputs and even video feedback. The feedback gave the company a clear, data-backed answer—and the policy change rolled out with zero impact on casino bookings. Crisis averted.
To measure this aspect of insight community ROI, document decisions where community insights helped the business course-correct. Then do some demonstrative napkin math: What could’ve happened without that insight? What potential costs were avoided? What reputational damage was prevented? (Bonus points if you can calculate the dollar value of not trending on TikTok for the wrong reasons.)
In the end, to justify your insight community budget, there's no need to make complicated charts or build a highly scientific attribution model. The key is to speak the same language as your CFO. That means resisting the urge to talk about engagement rates, study completion numbers, or how many surveys you've launched. These are noteworthy metrics, but they won't resonate with the CFO.
Instead, translate your wins into the language of business:
By reframing your community's value, you'll earn more credibility with the executive team. Showing ROI makes it a whole lot easier for them to keep saying "yes" when you need resources in the future.
Maximizing your market research ROI, starts with following insight community management best practices and partnering with the right research supplier. Rival’s modern insight community platform—built for speed, quality, and measurable business impact—makes all the difference.
Want to see how leading brands are measuring their insight community ROI? Let's talk.
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