Mastering the art of research communication

Every researcher wants to make an impact. But few actually prioritize communication in a way that influences conversations, decisions, and priorities. 

As the research communications manager at ServiceNow, I help our researchers make their insights travel: across teams, up to executives, and even back to the customers who shaped them. What I’ve learned in this unique role is that, as researchers, it’s easy to treat communication as an afterthought; what you do when your research is done. We conduct our study, finish the analysis, and then think, “okay, how do I actually present this?” 

The thing is, research has to be performed—just like music. I used to be an orchestra conductor, and one thing that always stuck with me is that a score sitting on a stand is meaningless until someone plays it. Research is the same way.

Insights only matter when they’re performed, shared, dramatized, and acted on.

That’s the real art of research communication. So how do you make it happen? For me, it comes down to four principles I use every day with our team: keep it Distilled, Dramatic, Targeted, and Timely.

But first….

Why most research fails to land

A lot of us were trained to be educators. We think our job is to teach the organization about the user, to present findings clearly, stay unbiased, and let the data “speak for itself.” 

But data doesn’t speak, people do. As researchers, we need to educate in a way that inspires action. 

If we only teach, our work risks being “interesting” instead of impactful. If we inspire, our insights turn into decisions.

In addition to creating impact with our internal colleagues, our relationship with customers who participate in research is equally important. Customers at ServiceNow expect a closer relationship with us than your average customer. They expect to be involved, give feedback, and understand what we did with that feedback. So our research team started to share back what we learned from them and what we did with those learnings. 

That act of closing the loop humanizes the entire process. It turns participants from data points into collaborators. Most importantly, it reminds everyone that research is not an extraction–it’s a conversation.

In order to keep that conversation alive across teams, orgs, and customers, I rely on simple principles that guide every piece of communication I create.

The four principles of research communication

After years of working with researchers, designers, and executives across companies like LinkedIn, Microsoft and Netflix, I started to see a pattern in what makes research communication land.

It came down to four principles: Distilled, Dramatic, Targeted, and Timely.

Let’s unpack them.

1. Distilled

The best insight from any research isn’t always the most detailed or elaborate one. Rather, it’s the one people can repeat the next day and still get it right. There’s an easy way to reach that point:

Try summarizing your study in three paragraphs. Then three sentences. Then one. If you can express your entire research story in a single, sharp line (your headline) you’ve found your message.

Here’s what that looked like in practice for me:

When I led a project at LinkedIn on communication between hiring managers and job seekers, our findings were sprawling. We uncovered dozens of themes, any one of which could have become the “main” story. But clarity meant choosing one: the power imbalance between recruiters and job seekers. That’s the one that resonated.

In short: if you can’t say your main point in a sentence, your audience won’t remember it in an hour.

2. Dramatic

“Dramatic” might sound like the opposite of research because people assume it means “exaggerated.” That’s far from true. 

To me, being dramatic simply means emphasizing why your insights matter. What might happen if we keep ignoring these insights? What value could we bring if we pay attention and act? These questions will help illuminate the “drama” hidden in our insights. And this is where many researchers hesitate: we’re trained to stay objective, but somewhere along the way, objectivity started to mean detachment. Too many reports flatten their own message in the name of neutrality, even though being “unbiased” doesn’t mean you can’t be moved by the data.

So instead of saying:

“80% of customers downloaded the feature, but only 30% used it after 30 days.”

Say:

“We’re losing 70% of users within a month. Here’s why.”

Now you have their attention, even though you’re saying the exact same thing.

And once you have it, tell them what to do. Executives, especially, don’t want you to hand them data; they want you to hand them direction. 

That might mean being more prescriptive than feels comfortable. But remember: clarity inspires confidence. Ambiguity inspires inaction.

3. Targeted

Not everyone needs to hear everything.

This sounds obvious, but it’s one of the biggest mistakes I see: share-outs that try to address every audience at once.

When you’re talking to a PM who’s supposed to make a feature succeed, telling them the feature doesn’t belong on the roadmap to begin with won’t work. That conversation belongs with the person who writes the roadmap.

Your insights only make change if they reach the people who can change things. That’s what “targeted” means.

Sometimes that means creating smaller conversations instead of one big presentation. Sometimes it means looping your PM into the planning so they can bring the right people to the table.

I try to think of it like asking for salt at Thanksgiving dinner. You don’t shout across the room, you ask the person sitting next to it. It’s simple, it’s direct, and it’s well-targeted.

4. Timely

Even the best insight will fail if it’s shared too late.

The timing of your communication matters just as much as the content. That’s why I always tell researchers: know when the decision happens. Build your communication around that moment, not your report deadline.

When I worked on LinkedIn’s referrals product, for example, we found that users rarely made referrals because it was such a high-effort, high-stakes action. It was a powerful finding — but it only gained traction because the product leads were already reviewing roadmap priorities. The insight met the moment.

Information + timing = influence.

Plain language is powerful language

Let’s talk about language. And yes, AI.

We’re all guilty of writing “researchy” sentences that sound clear in our heads but collapse in translation. Our stakeholders don’t want a lecture in methodology; they want plain, direct, actionable language.

That’s where I’ve found AI genuinely useful. I’ll paste a paragraph of dense findings into a prompt and ask it to "rewrite this in plain, direct language.”

Do this and you’ll realize how much flourish you naturally add to your language.

This isn’t meant to replace human writing by any means. The goal is to help people understand faster by communicating more effectively.

You’ll never alienate someone by being clear. You’ll only lose them when you make them work too hard to get it.

So yes, I use AI to simplify, shorten, and strip away jargon. Then I edit by hand because, at the end of the day, I’m still the expert. You’re still the expert. AI helps you say what you already know, just faster.

Start with research on your communication

If you don’t know where to begin improving your research communication, run a study—on yourself.

Ask your stakeholders:

• “When’s the last time a research insight really landed for you?”
• “What made it stick?”
• “What made you act on it?”

Use the same curiosity you bring to users to understand your internal audience. I did this when I first started out, scheduling short interviews across roles to see what worked and what I could improve on. As for the feedback, it helped me identify where communication broke down and what moved people to act.

Our own methods are powerful. We should really be using them on ourselves more.

The research doesn’t end at the report

I can never stress this enough: Your job as a researcher isn’t just to inform. It’s to inspire action.

Everything else (the reports, the decks, the share-outs) are just instruments in that performance. And like any good performance, its power lies in how it makes people feel and what they do next.

Editor’s note: This article is based on a webinar with Jesse from July 2025. Watch the full webinar recording on YouTube.