Can you run campaigns focused on market research or discovery conversations instead of sales closures, and what would that cost?

Cormac Repman
2 hours ago
3 min read

Yes, we absolutely run market research and discovery-focused campaigns. These aren't sales closures - they're exploratory conversations designed to validate assumptions, identify pain points, and test messaging with your target audience. The trade-off is scope: market research campaigns require a $20,000 minimum investment across three months because the cost-per-conversation is higher when you're not filtering exclusively for purchase intent.

Why Market Research Costs More Than Sales Campaigns

In a standard sales campaign, we're running to a tight conversion funnel - we target people with specific buying signals, compress the sales cycle, and book qualified meetings that convert to revenue quickly. Market research is different. We need deeper targeting to find the right research participants, allow for longer exploratory conversations, and accept lower meeting-to-booking ratios because discovery conversations rarely lead to immediate closes.

That means more touches, more rejections, and higher cost-per-booked-conversation.

What's Included in a Research Campaign

We handle the full execution: list building with your ideal research participants, email sequencing, phone follow-up, and scheduling. What changes is the screener questions we use during calls. Instead of "Do you have budget and timeline to move forward," we're asking "What keeps you up at night about X problem" and "How are you currently solving for this."

You get a database of recorded conversation summaries, identified pain points, messaging angles that resonated, and objection patterns your prospects voice naturally. That intelligence becomes your product roadmap, your sales messaging, or your competitive positioning.

Real Use Cases

A B2B SaaS company considering a new feature set ran a three-month research campaign to understand workflow bottlenecks before committing to product development. They booked 60 research conversations at roughly $330 per conversation and validated that their assumed problem wasn't what customers actually cared about most.

An enterprise software vendor testing messaging with a new vertical ran discovery calls to identify which pain points ranked highest in their target market. That research informed their entire go-to-market repositioning.

The ROI Lens

You're not paying for immediate pipeline revenue - you're paying for market intelligence. A $20,000 investment typically yields 50-80 recorded conversations depending on your target audience and research scope. That's $250-400 per conversation plus a summary database that feeds your product, marketing, and sales teams for months.

Compare that to traditional market research firms charging $5,000-15,000 per interview. You're getting the same depth of insight at a fraction of typical research costs, plus the added benefit of building early-stage relationships with prospects.

Hybrid Approach: Research Plus Sales

Some clients run a split campaign - 60% market research conversations focused on specific customer segments or product questions, 40% sales-focused conversations with high-intent prospects. That balances discovery with pipeline building and typically lands in the $20,000-30,000 range for three months.

We've also built campaigns that start as research - exploring pain points and messaging - then transition to sales mode once you've validated the market insight. This staged approach lets you prove the market exists before committing sales budget to aggressive outreach.

Timeline and Commitment

Three months is our standard engagement window. That timeline gives us enough runway to build list quality, adjust messaging based on early feedback, and generate meaningful conversation volume. Shorter campaigns tend to hit list depletion before generating reliable patterns.

The process isn't "set it and forget it." We run weekly debriefs sharing conversation themes and messaging wins so you can iterate in real time.

Book a call and we'll walk through your research questions and build a realistic projection for cost and conversation volume.