Using AI for Faster, Smarter Planning Research

Written by Randall Kirsch & Corey Green

This article is the first in a 5-part “AI in Practice” insights series, designed to give PR and marketing pros like you the practical advice you need to produce more efficient, strategic and creative work with the help of AI.

Developing a PR or marketing plan or campaign without thorough research is like designing a house for a family you’ve never met. Sure, it’ll have the typical features of a well-designed house, but you have no way of knowing if it’s really the right house for them. 

Yet too many marketing and communications plans skip the research stage on the way to fast (and often first) solutions. It doesn’t make sense. Not only does research lead to more strategic and tailored approaches (which is why “Research & Insights” is hard-coded into our DRIVE planning model), it also inspires more creative and effective ways to connect with the audience. The real people on the other end of every communication.

If you’re not a researcher, here’s a quick primer on the two main categories of research: 

• Primary research – Gathering information and insight directly from the target audience (think customer interviews, focus groups, prospect surveys, observing customer behavior in the store, etc.).
• Secondary research – Gathering information through intermediary sources (like analyst reports, consumer trend data, earnings releases, peer-reviewed journals, the media, and other credible sources). 

Now for the good news: both types of research, but especially secondary research, have never been easier or more efficient, thanks to the rapid spread of AI research tools. And while there are many of them, this article will focus on using ChatGPT and its fellow OpenAI GPTs, as they are both accessible and easy to use for most researchers in agency or corporate environments.  

Secondary Research: Digging into the “4 C’s” 

We’ll start with secondary research, not because it’s better, but simply because it’s more common. In fact, secondary research should be part of the planning process for every PR, marketing or communications plan. And there’s no excuse for skipping it, especially now that it’s faster and easier than ever. 

More good news: ChatGPT can accelerate secondary research into all “4 Cs” commonly investigated as part of the strategic planning process: Company, Category, Consumer and Culture. Let’s look briefly at some examples of how it can help with each one:

1. Company: ChatGPT can distill company reports, financial statements, and news articles, providing a comprehensive view of the corporate landscape.
   • Sample Prompts:
     • “Summarize this annual report from Company X, highlighting key financial metrics, major achievements, and strategic priorities.”
     • “What are the key challenges and opportunities facing Company X in the near future?”
     • “Analyze recent customer reviews and feedback for Company X’s products or services.”
2. Category: It can analyze industry reports, market research studies, and news articles to identify emerging trends and shifts in the market. It can benchmark the competition, comparing different companies within a category to identify best practices or common messaging. It also can help spot category clichés, table stakes and stereotypes so you can avoid them.
   • Sample Prompts:
     • “What are the current trends and challenges in the renewable energy sector?”
     • “Who are Company X’s top three competitors and what advantages might they have over Company X?”  
     • “What are the most common features and benefits cited by manufacturers of pickup trucks?” 
3. Consumer: ChatGPT can analyze customer reviews, social media posts, and survey responses to gauge consumer sentiment and identify common pain points and preferences. Or it can create detailed consumer personas, complete with shared demographics, behaviors and preferences. You can even train it to simulate interactions with these personas, providing deeper insights into consumer behavior and preferences.
   • Sample Prompts:
     • “What are the top features that consumers look for when buying a smartphone?” 
     • “Summarize the key factors influencing consumer choice in the organic food market.”
     • “Create a consumer persona for a typical customer of a high-end fitness brand.”
4. Culture: Understanding cultural and social factors is essential for any strategy. ChatGPT can analyze social media trends, news articles, and other cultural artifacts to identify emerging cultural dynamics that might impact your strategy.
   • Sample Prompts:
     • “How are cultural attitudes towards work-life balance changing in Europe?”
     • “How are social justice movements impacting brand perception among consumers?”
     • “Summarize the cultural significance of environmental sustainability in urban areas.”

Primary Research: 5 Ways ChatGPT Can Speed Things Up

Unlike secondary research, primary research is about gathering original data. It always requires more investment, but ChatGPT can make the process far more efficient. Here are five ways you can use it to execute your own market research: 

1. Designing Research Methodology: Tell ChatGPT what you want to study, and it can suggest a comprehensive research methodology. From defining research questions to suggesting suitable methodologies, ChatGPT offers a structured approach to primary research design.

2. Designing Research Instruments: Drafting surveys and interview guides can be time-consuming. With ChatGPT, you can generate first drafts of these instruments based on your research objectives, and almost always will suggest questions you haven’t thought of but wish you had. 

3. Recruiting Participants: Your research is only as good as your sample, so recruiting participants in focus groups or surveys is critical work. ChatGPT can speed this up by helping you craft compelling communication to attract participants, ensuring a higher response rate and more diverse sample. 

4. Qualitative Analysis: Poring over thousands of open-ended qualitative responses orlong-formfocus group transcripts to identify common themes is tedious, time-consuming and prone to human error. ChatGPT can expedite the process dramatically by reviewing qualitative datasets of any size and identifying common themes. In the case of open-ended survey responses from large samples, it can even build a coding framework and code every response accordingly so you can see not just the most common themes, but exactly how many and which verbatims fell into each theme category.

5. Quantitative Data Analysis: Handling quantitative data requires precision. ChatGPT can guide data cleaning, preparation, and analysis, ensuring your data is consistent and ready for robust statistical analysis. 

3 Watchouts & Solutions When Researching with ChatGPT

Knowing how to use ChatGPT effectively is crucial, as it’s not infallible and not especially creative. Think of it more like Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit than a robot replacement for human researchers. And human researchers should keep three main watchouts in mind before firing up their GPT super suits: 

1. Accuracy and Reliability: Always fact-check and verify sources. ChatGPT is only as reliable as the data it’s trained on. If you’re wondering which sources to consult when fact-checking, just ask the bot for suggestions.

2. Limitations: Be aware of the limitations of whichever ChatGPT model you’re using, such as training data cutoffs and potential difficulties in data visualization. The newer versions of ChatGPT have fewer of these limitations and can access real-time web data to inform its answers.

3. Ethical and Privacy Considerations: If you’re using a free version of ChatGPT, do not share any sensitive information that you don’t want to become part of the training data for future models. You can manually exclude specific chats from being used as training data in Settings, and enterprise customers can opt out of having any of their data used for model training, which provides an extra layer of data privacy and security.

The Real Question: Not Why, but Why Not?

There are few reasons not to integrate AI into your research processes. The efficiency and depth AI tools offer are unparalleled, and emerging applications like synthetic data bring sophisticated primary research within reach for anyone. By embracing these technologies, you shrink the time to gather and synthesize facts and free up time to do the deeper analysis that leads to real insight, all while opening a world of possibilities that is limited only by your research imagination and ingenuity. You also remove two of the biggest barriers – time and cost – that block companies and their agencies from gathering real “aha’s” and building plans that work. 

At Jackson Spalding, we’re excited about the possibilities AI brings to research and planning and committed to using these tools to deliver exceptional insights and strategies for our clients, faster and more cost-effectively than ever before. Connect with us to learn more about how we can enhance your research with AI-driven insights and strategies to drive success.