Annual planning isn’t just another quarterly meeting – it’s the foundation for the year ahead. This phase involves high-stakes decisions around growth strategy, product roadmaps, investment priorities, and marketing direction. The insights that fuel those decisions often require quick turnaround, deep expertise, and strong alignment with business goals.

Unlike ongoing research or evergreen brand tracking, pre-planning research is usually short-term, highly focused, and time-sensitive. It often involves answering urgent strategic questions like:

• What are emerging customer needs in our key segments?
• Where are competitors shifting their focus and why?
• Which innovation opportunities have the most potential for next year?

Because of this, the support needed during pre-planning is unique. Businesses aren’t just looking for help – they need experienced, efficient, and adaptable consumer insights professionals who can plug in fast, work smart, and deliver impact in compressed timelines.

The Limits of Internal Teams

Even organizations with strong insights capabilities face bandwidth issues during Q3 and Q4. Teams may be juggling ongoing research, supporting marketing needs, and reacting to executive asks – leaving little room for additional strategic work.

Hiring full-time employees takes too long and often isn’t necessary for a finite period. Meanwhile, freelancers or general consultants may lack the depth of insights experience or structured business understanding required to drive real value in planning scenarios.

Why On Demand Talent Fits the Need Perfectly

This is where On Demand Talent shines. These are seasoned consumer insights experts who bring specialized know-how and can embed quickly into your team. Unlike freelancers, who may operate solo without context, On Demand Talent can align with internal stakeholders, work within existing frameworks, and deliver high-quality outputs in weeks – not months.

In short, pre-planning research requires a flexible but skilled layer of strategic support. By tapping into temporary insights professionals who understand the pressure, pace, and stakes of annual planning, you can increase your team’s impact without overextending full-time staff.

When engaging contract insights support ahead of annual planning, a strong job brief is your launchpad. It sets expectations, outlines the opportunity, and ensures your temporary insights professional knows how to deliver value immediately. But what exactly should you include in a job brief to make it effective for short-term insights projects?

1. Clear Project Overview

Start by explaining what your company does, what your team is responsible for, and where this short-term project fits within your broader planning process. Provide high-level context, but keep it concise. The goal is to help the insights expert quickly understand your business environment.

2. Define the Objective

Be explicit about the problem to solve or the insight you’re seeking. For example:

A focused objective helps narrow scope and ensures alignment from the start.

3. Scope of Work and Deliverables

This section should outline what tasks the professional will complete and what outputs are expected. For example:

Consider referring to this as your "market research scope of work" or "consumer insights job brief" for internal consistency.

4. Ideal Background or Expertise

Temporarily bringing in insights support works best when the person has relevant experience. Mention industries, skill sets, platforms, or types of work that would set someone up for success:

Example: “We prefer someone with CPG innovation experience and comfort moderating remote qualitative sessions.”

5. Timeline and Availability

Since pre-planning work often runs fast, include start dates, key milestones, and expected hours per week. If you have a deadline tied to leadership presentations or an annual planning cycle, make that clear.

6. Collaboration + Reporting Structure

Outline who the insights expert will report to, how often they’ll check in, and preferred collaboration tools (Slack, Zoom, shared drives, etc.). Clarity here removes friction later on.

7. Budget Range (Optional)

For some organizations, giving a rough budget range or estimated project size can help filter the right fit. Even though costs vary, being open about whether it’s a tight tactical project or a more strategic investment helps everyone's expectations align.

When you work with SIVO's On-Demand Talent, we don’t just connect you to experienced insights professionals – we help you get started faster. From clarifying the research brief (if needed) to matching you with the right expert for your timeline, category, and goals, we make sure nothing slows you down during pre-planning season. Whether you're crystal clear or still shaping the scope, we’ve got you covered.

Why Clarity Matters in Your Job Brief

When preparing for annual planning, your success in working with contract insights support often hinges on one key factor: clarity. Outlining a detailed project scope, along with expected deliverables and timelines, sets you up for an efficient and effective working relationship. A vague or incomplete brief can lead to delays, misinterpretations, and missed deadlines – all of which carry heightened impact during the critical Q3–Q4 pre-planning window.

Defining Project Scope Effectively

A well-defined project scope answers the fundamental question: What do we need to learn, and why? At this early phase, outline the core business challenge, the audience you are trying to understand, and the strategic role the research should play in annual planning.

Be sure to include:

• Research objectives: What specific business questions need answers?
• Target audience: Are you looking at existing customers, potential entrants, or a niche segment?
• Scope boundaries: What’s in and out of scope? For example, is competitive analysis part of the project?

Articulating the Right Deliverables

Defining deliverables is just as critical as defining the work. What does success look like? Specify the expected outputs of the project, including:

• Types of deliverables: PowerPoint reports, whitepapers, dashboards, stakeholder debriefs, etc.
• Level of depth: Should the insights be high-level summaries or detailed breakdowns?
• Format and presentation: How should findings be shared? Will the expert present to leadership?

For instance, a fictional CPG client preparing for product portfolio planning may include a deliverable of a 10-slide insights summary deck, supported by topline charts and shopper behavior analysis based on syndicated data and internal sales metrics.

Mapping Out Your Timeline

Pre-planning timelines tend to be compressed – so align expectations around start dates, key check-ins, and final delivery before Q4 ends. Frame your timeline like this:

• Project kickoff: September 5
• Midpoint review: September 20
• Final deliverables due: October 10

Clear deadlines help your temporary research support stay focused and allow for any internal reviews or iterations.

Avoid Scope Creep

Insights projects can quickly expand without guardrails. Clarify if your project is exploratory, tactical, or strategic, and establish the number of reviews or stakeholder meetings included to avoid stretching the scope unintentionally.

By painting a detailed picture of what the project involves and what success looks like, you give your On Demand insights professionals the information they need to deliver maximum value with minimal ramp-up time.

Understanding the Skill Set You Actually Need

When scoping a job brief for temporary research support, many teams focus on general research experience – but pre-planning market research requires something more specific. To get the most out of your short-term engagement, you’ll need professionals with precise expertise aligned to your project goals and industry context.

Start with the Functional Focus

First, define the core capabilities needed. Is this a quant-heavy segmentation study? Do you need qualitative ethnographies to uncover shifting consumer behavior? Or are you vetting early-stage concepts ahead of prioritizing next year’s innovation pipeline? Each of these calls for different types of professionals.

Examples of functional areas to specify include:

• Quantitative research design and analytics
• Shopper and retail insights
• Brand health and tracking analysis
• Concept testing and innovation research
• Strategic synthesis and story-building

Clarifying these skills in your consumer insights job brief ensures you’re not just hiring help – you’re engaging someone with the background to lead or contribute strategically from day one.

Consider Industry Background and Tools Experience

Pre-planning often requires a working knowledge of your company’s category or customer behavior. For example, a fictional fast-casual restaurant brand needing menu innovation help would benefit from someone familiar with the food service industry and accustomed to agile testing timelines. Including industry preferences helps On Demand Talent providers like SIVO match you with experienced professionals who’ve tackled similar challenges before.

Also, note any tools or platforms your team relies on. From Qualtrics and Tableau to Nielsen or Brandwatch, mentioning tools upfront helps find pros who are ready to engage without a learning curve.

Level of Seniority and Autonomy

Be clear about how independently the expert needs to work. Are you supplementing an in-house team and need someone collaborative? Or are you looking to hand off ownership to a senior professional who can drive recommendations independently?

In pre-planning, fractional insights talent can flex into either role – but only if your job brief outlines expectations. This avoids mismatches and saves valuable onboarding time during crunch periods.

Short Deadlines Require High Readiness

Annual planning doesn’t wait. When departments enter Q3 and Q4, the pressure quickly mounts to gather meaningful consumer insights – fast. In these windows, hiring full-time staff or onboarding a lengthy agency engagement may not be realistic. That’s where On Demand Talent steps in as the ideal fit.

Unlike freelance marketplaces where experience can vary, On Demand Talent from SIVO includes only seasoned, vetted professionals who are accustomed to jumping into fast-paced settings. These insights experts typically need minimal hand-holding and can begin delivering value within days, not months.

The Flexibility Needed for Pre-Planning

Temporary research support allows you to expand and contract your capabilities based on what your team needs in the moment. Whether it’s helping synthesize results from past research, developing a new segmentation, or conducting quick-turn qual, fractional consumer insights talent offers the agility today’s planning cycles demand.

Benefits of On Demand insights professionals during annual planning include:

• Quick activation: Talent can often be matched and onboarded in a matter of days.
• No long-term commitment: Use as-needed support rather than adding headcount.
• Built-in expertise: Bring in specific skillsets such as brand tracking, innovation prioritization, or competitor mapping.
• Strategic contribution: These are professionals who can own or guide the work, not interns or entry-level temps.

Trusted Partnership Without the Overhead

Some companies may default to consultants or agencies for pre-planning market research – but those options often take time to scope, launch, and establish rapport. With On Demand Talent, you still benefit from senior-level guidance, but in a nimble, lower-friction format tailored to your specific ask.

For example, a fictional health & wellness brand facing tight turnaround on a product relaunch used an On Demand expert to build a rapid insights plan, field a short survey, and integrate learnings into the roadmap – all within three weeks.

Whether you're tackling unmet consumer needs, validating new ideas, or reshaping next year’s brand strategy, fractional insights talent helps you unlock impact without delay. It’s everything you need for strategic insights planning – minus the lag time.