Market Research - The Key to Success
Market research is an essential part of setting business direction, that is too often overlooked due to time or budget constraints.
Carrying out a deep dive to find out more about market activity and sentiment is invaluable for making the right choices to help grow business, through offering customers (existing and potential) what they actually want, rather than what the business thinks they want. An important part of this includes keeping track of competitor activity as well as market trends and upcoming regulations and legislation to ensure the business stays relevant.
Research methods are split between quantitative (numerical/statistical data) to state facts and qualitative (data based on perceptions/behaviours/emotions) to understand the reason why. Your research objectives will help to determine which type to use, but as a general rule of thumb in marketing, a mix of both will help you to understand the wider picture.
There are lots of ways to carry out research, including:
Surveys to the market - these can help you understand at a high level what the main topics and trends are with your target audience. This is most likely to be done online through survey software such as Survey Monkey, Mailchimp or Jotform to name a few, which will help you to manipulate the data from the respondents to understand the outcomes.
Face to face interviews - one to one discussions to deep dive into those key topics and explore the reasons behind any initial research you have. The online survey may have given you clusters of information that you want to explore further on a face-to-face basis, to understand the ‘why’.
Focus groups - holding a discussion with 10-12 people, ideally with different viewpoints, to stimulate a conversation which can bring up new ideas. A series of focus groups work best, ideally across different regions (again, dependent on your research objectives) that can be compared and contrasted. A moderator would be involved to lead the conversation and make sure all relevant areas are covered.
Research reports - desk-based or field-based research that delve into a topic and act as a basis and background for the above, including competitor research and market information that is rooted in facts. Research companies can be contacted directly or bought online, sometimes with the option to tailor for your business.
The quality of data from the research will depend on the planning that goes into it beforehand i.e. setting the research objectives and making sure the right audience is asked questions that are relevant to them and the market. Having a suitable database is also important to ensure that any communication gets to the right person. Without this, your data will not mean much.
Setting aside budget for research is vital - this shouldn't be a one-off activity, but done regularly, because markets and customers change - sometimes quickly. Make sure it's part of annual planning to guide strategy to ensure that activity is relevant and targeted.
In the case of developing products, market research is essential to find out customer demands and market trends that will shape what you launch to the market. Without this information and merely producing a product or service based on your what the company can (or always has) produced, is a recipe for failure.
Market research is an invaluable tool in any company, no matter what product category is offered, and is the first step to understanding the customer sentiment and market dynamics, which is the key to success.
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