For growing brands, staying close to your consumer is critical. Yet without a clear plan, consumer research can become reactionary – rushed projects triggered by stakeholder questions or an unexpected shift in the market. This ad-hoc approach can lead to duplicated efforts, missed insights, or even poor strategic decisions. Quarterly research planning helps reduce those risks by aligning business priorities with a regular, disciplined cadence of consumer testing.

In short: it brings strategy into your insights workflow.

The Benefits of Planning Ahead

Instead of scrambling to launch a survey every time a decision needs supporting data, a quarterly testing roadmap gives your team a proactive structure. This makes it easier to:

• Coordinate with cross-functional teams (e.g., brand, innovation, marketing) so insights are delivered when they’re needed most
• Sequence research types – like creative testing, pack testing, and message evaluation – in a way that ladders up to business goals
• Avoid research fatigue internally and externally by spreading out studies thoughtfully
• Build stronger business cases based on comparable, timely consumer data

Quarterly research planning doesn’t require a large team or big budget. With market research tools like AYTM, it’s now easier than ever to execute strategic consumer testing using fewer resources and shorter timelines. The key lies in organization – knowing not just what to test, but when.

Aligning Research with Key Milestones

Every quarter comes with a set of critical milestones – seasonal campaigns, product launches, promotional moments, trade planning. Mapping your AYTM research roadmap to these moments helps ensure you're collecting insights that are both timely and actionable. For instance, a message evaluation study conducted three weeks after your campaign launches won’t help much. But if it’s scheduled in a planning sprint months ahead, that study can guide more effective copy and creative assets before they go live.

Preparing to Scale Carefully

As your organization matures, your insights needs will grow. What starts as a basic quarterly test cycle can evolve into a full pipeline of ongoing research work. Laying a foundation now – even with a small roadmap – makes it easier to scale. More importantly, structured planning builds trust with leadership by showing that research isn’t just a support function; it’s a business engine that drives smarter, faster decisions.

For growing brands trying to prioritize insights without overloading lean teams, On Demand Talent from SIVO can fill key gaps, provide strategic planning input, and help scale resources to meet demand – without committing to a full-time hire. It’s a flexible way to bring seasoned expertise into your planning cycle, ensuring your roadmap stays aligned with both internal timelines and evolving consumer needs.

Once you’ve committed to quarterly research planning, the next step is knowing how to structure it effectively – and AYTM makes that process far more manageable. As a leading DIY survey platform, AYTM allows teams to create, launch, and analyze consumer testing quickly. But without a well-sequenced research strategy, even the best tools can deliver unfocused results.

At its best, an AYTM roadmap is a structured, repeatable plan that outlines when and what you’ll test across the quarter.

Step 1: Define Your Business Questions

Start by documenting the main questions your team needs answered each quarter. Are you validating creative direction for an upcoming campaign? Testing new packaging options? Exploring how consumers perceive a refreshed brand message?

Common tests on the AYTM platform include:

• Creative Testing – Evaluating digital ads, packaging visuals, or content decisions
• Pack Testing – Comparing visual designs, functional elements, or branding cues on product packaging
• Message Evaluation – Understanding clarity, appeal, and resonance of product or brand language

Each of these can stand alone or be sequenced strategically, depending on the lifecycle of your brand effort.

Step 2: Map Research to Key Milestones

Create a visual calendar of your quarter and identify key decision-points – creative brief sign-offs, product launches, campaign go-lives. Then place research activities backward from those moments. For example:

• Week 2: Message evaluation on early concepts
• Week 5: Pack testing on shortlisted designs
• Week 8: Final round of creative testing before campaign lock

This backward mapping ensures results are ready when they're most useful – not after decisions have already been made.

Step 3: Assign Ownership and Resources

Even with DIY tools, research takes time – from drafting questions to interpreting results. Assign internal owners for each initiative, and consider where external support may be needed. That’s where SIVO’s On Demand Talent can help. By bringing in experienced professionals on a project or fractional basis, you can:

• Ensure studies are thoughtfully designed and aligned to business outcomes
• Offload operational tasks like scripting, analyzing, or stakeholder reporting
• Build internal team confidence by mentoring and upskilling as projects happen

Rather than relying on freelancers or squeezing bandwidth from already stretched teams, On Demand Talent gives brands access to highly skilled research professionals who can hit the ground running and strengthen research quality across the board.

Step 4: Use Templates and Tool Features

AYTM’s platform offers templates for common study types, built-in logic to streamline survey design, and automation features for shareouts. Lean into these capabilities to save time on execution, and standardize how your team runs studies across the quarter. Creating repeatable formats also makes it easier to build trending data over time, which leadership increasingly expects from insights teams.

Building a structured market research planning process using AYTM doesn’t require a consulting firm or lengthy ramp-up. With the right partner and a clear testing sequence, your team can harness the speed of DIY platforms without sacrificing quality or strategic alignment.

Understanding the Core Types of Consumer Testing

When laying out your quarterly AYTM roadmap, organizing what to test – and when – is crucial. Three of the most common and essential test types to include in structured market research planning with AYTM are creative testing, pack testing, and message evaluation. Each plays a different role in optimizing your brand’s effectiveness across the consumer journey.

Creative Testing: Find What Captures Attention

Creative testing focuses on the visual and emotional elements of your ads or brand communications. Whether you're testing new digital banners, video ads, or in-store signage, it’s about gauging what resonates and drives engagement.

In AYTM, you can run side-by-side comparisons of different concepts or gather open-ended reactions. This helps you determine which creative idea is most likely to break through and connect with your target audience.

Pack Testing: Ensure Shelf Appeal

Pack testing in AYTM allows you to evaluate the look, feel, and messaging of your packaging. Consumers are quick to form impressions based on visuals on the shelf – so understanding which design communicates key benefits, stands out, and supports your brand positioning is vital.

For example, a fictional organic snack brand might test updated colors and label wording to see which version better conveys health and freshness. These micro-decisions drive purchase behaviors.

Message Evaluation: Clarify and Motivate

Getting your brand message right can make the difference between consumer indifference and action. Message testing through AYTM helps you evaluate clarity, relevance, and emotional impact.

What’s working: Is the positioning unique? Does the call to action feel strong? What points are confusing or unconvincing? These insights help you craft messaging that converts.

How to Sequence These Tests in a Roadmap

Each quarter, consider your brand goals and where you are in the strategy cycle. A simple way to think about test sequencing:

• Quarter 1: Message testing to fine-tune brand or campaign positioning
• Quarter 2: Creative testing to visualize the strategy
• Quarter 3: Pack testing when ready to launch or update packaging
• Quarter 4: Re-test or validate based on earlier results and refinements

This isn’t fixed – but a flexible variation of this structure keeps insights rolling at every stage of commercialization or brand evolution.

Why Expertise Matters in DIY Platforms

AYTM is a powerful survey platform that gives brand and insights teams more control over their consumer testing. But with great tools comes a new challenge: knowing exactly how to set up the right studies, ask the right questions, and interpret results with impact. That’s where On Demand Talent makes a big difference.

While DIY platforms allow teams to move fast, some level of expertise is still needed to ensure your AYTM research roadmap stays aligned with business goals and delivers meaningful outcomes – not just quick data.

How On Demand Talent Adds Value

SIVO’s On Demand Talent solution connects you with experienced market research professionals who can work alongside your team – on your timeline. These aren't freelancers or general consultants. They are experts in consumer insights, survey design, and strategic research planning.

Here are a few ways On Demand Talent supports your AYTM projects:

• Study design expertise: They help you structure surveys so you capture actionable results, not just noise.
• Optimizing the sequence: Pros guide the order and timing of creative, pack, and message tests within each quarter.
• Training your team: Want your internal team to build capabilities with the platform? On Demand Talent can coach them along the way.
• Plug-and-play support: Whether you need help for two weeks or a few months, talent can step in exactly when and where needed without a long hiring process.

Bringing Efficiency Without Sacrificing Insight Quality

Companies often turn to DIY platforms like AYTM to move faster and reduce costs – which makes sense. But speed shouldn’t come at the expense of nuance or quality. Having On Demand Talent on hand ensures your research roadmap reflects best practices, avoids common pitfalls, and delivers strategic insights that drive confident decision-making.

In short, you get flexibility and control without sacrificing the human intelligence that makes research meaningful in the first place.

Make a Plan – Then Keep It Agile

Quarterly research planning works best when it’s structured, but not rigid. Having a defined AYTM roadmap helps align your team and resources, but building in flexibility ensures you can pivot quickly when business needs shift.

Start each quarter by reviewing upcoming launches, strategic goals, and what decisions need insight support. This gives you a research plan that's practical and purposeful.

Identify Owners and Routines

To keep research actionable, appoint someone to oversee research cadence, updates, and follow-through. This could be a team lead, or an On Demand Talent professional temporarily supporting your team. Consistent ownership helps research stay connected to real-time needs.

Also, set a regular rhythm for reviewing insights, adjusting roadmaps, and reopening past surveys in AYTM if needed for comparison or validation.

Balance Speed with Rigor

AYTM enables fast testing, but speed should never come at the cost of accuracy. Give enough time to analyze findings, socialize them internally, and actually apply what you’ve learned. Even a quick test needs thoughtful design and reporting.

Some tips to keep your research both sharp and swift:

• Keep objectives clear and questions focused
• Use templates when possible to maintain consistency
• Avoid over-surveying or testing too many ideas at once
• Revisit previous results for context on new decisions

Make Learning Visible Across the Team

Quarterly research should generate momentum. Turn insights into quick summaries or dashboard snapshots so findings are easy to share across stakeholders – from marketers to product teams.

This builds trust in consumer testing as part of your decision-making process and encourages teams to act on data, not just collect it. Sharing performance results with leadership also boosts visibility and long-term investment in structured research planning.

With DIY market research tools like AYTM, combined with consistent routines and expert guidance when needed, your brand can stay agile without compromising on quality – quarter after quarter.