Ever wonder why some products fly off the shelves while others just sit there, all lonely and ignored? Or why your last marketing campaign was a massive hit while some of your others have felt like a total flop? Maybe you’re just dying to know what your customers actually want (spoiler alert: it’s not always what you think).
To answer these above questions, you’re going to need to tap into the best resource around: your customers.
That’s where market research comes in. In this complete guide, we’ll give you the 411 into the key steps, methods, and use cases so you can make smarter, data-driven decisions.
What’s Market Research?
Market research is all about getting information on your target market and customers. It helps you figure out if a new product will be a success, make tweaks to what you’ve already got, or understand how people see your brand so you can communicate your company’s value better.
Let’s take a look at a real-world example:
If you’re into TikTok (and who isn’t?), you’ve probably seen those quick surveys while scrolling your ‘For You’ feed. TikTok uses them to learn what users like and how they feel about ads.
One survey asks for your opinion on a video or ad you just watched. Another might ask if you’ve seen a specific brand’s sponsored content recently, like “Did you catch any Dove ads in the last few days?”
TikTok uses this feedback to fine-tune what pops up in your feed.
Why’s it Important?
Image Sourced from statista.com
The global market research industry hit a record high of around $84.3 billion in 2023. Over the last decade, it’s grown steadily, even when the economy was shaky. It just goes to show how important this stuff is becoming. But why?
Well, market research helps you meet your buyers where they are (not where you wish they were). In a world that’s getting louder and more distracting by the day, that’s pretty much gold. When you really get your buyers’ problems, pain points, and what they’re dreaming of, you can design your product or service in a way that just clicks with them.
Types of Market Research
You now know what market research is and why it’s important to carry out! Next up, we’re going to teach you all the different types you can use:
- Interviews: Sit down with people one-on-one either in person or via video call. Have a chat and let the conversation flow naturally using open ended questions. This’ll help you learn more about your buyers and shape your marketing strategy.
- Focus groups: Another form of market research here.This one’s all about gathering a small group of people to test your product and share their thoughts.
- Customer surveys: Customer surveys could be quantitative or qualitative, done online, over-the-phone or via SMS. By utilizing residential proxies, market researchers can access localized data without geographical restrictions, which is crucial for obtaining accurate market insights across different regions.”
- Product/service use research: Find out how and why people use your product or service. This tells you if it’s easy to use and how it fits their needs.
- Observation-based research: Watch how your target audience interacts with your product or service. You get to see what’s working well and what needs fixing.
- Market segmentation research: To do this one, simply break your audience into different groups based on specific traits (like age, interests or how much they like to spend) This’ll help you figure out the best ways to meet their needs.
- Pricing research: Look at some of the products out there similar to yours. How much are they charging for their products or services? How many people are willing to actually pay that? This research helps you set the right price.
- Customer satisfaction surveys and loyalty research: See how happy your current customers are, and what makes them come back. This could be anything from loyalty programs to great digital customer service.
How to Do Market Research
Alright, It’s time to get practical! Here’s our step-by-step plan on market research:
Step 1: Define Your Buyer Persona
Free to use image sourced from Stockvault
First up, you’re going to need to know who your potential customers are and how they’re making buying decisions. Now, you can do this by creating buyer personas.
Buyer personas (AKA as marketing personas or customer personas FYI) are basically fictional profiles of your ideal customers. They help you understand what your best customers look like and how to reach them. Here’s what you should include in your buyer persona:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Job title(s)
- Family size
- Income
- Major challenges
Think of your persona as a way of connecting with real customers in your industry. If you can, back up your persona with real data from your existing audience. For example, using phone analytics tools from your business phone service, you can check out phone patterns, customers inquiries and communications preferences to share in your persona.
Step 2: Find a Persona Group to Engage With
Now that you’ve got your buyer personas figured out, it’s time to pick a group of people to look into for your market research. You want a sample that truly represents your target customers so you can get a clear picture of their traits, challenges, and buying habits.
So, if you’re an IT company that helps businesses put together an enterprise architecture strategy, for example, you’ll want to select people who either recently interacted with your company, bought similar services, and/or even those who chose a competitor.
How to pick the right people for market research
- Aim for 10 participants per persona
- Pick people who’ve interacted with you in the last six months (or at least up to a year)
- Include people who’ve bought from you, from your competitors, and those who decided not to buy at all.
- Get people excited to spend 30-45 minutes helping you out. On a tight budget? Give them something like exclusive content as a reward instead of cash. This way, you’ll get the feedback you need to truly understand your audience.
Step 3: Collect Your Data
Start by setting up a solid plan for collecting information. Make sure your customer surveys or interview questions are clear and cover everything you need. If people skip questions or don’t fill them out properly, your research could be off.
Step 4: Analyze the Results
Now comes the fun part. It’s time to analyze all that data you’ve collected. Look beyond the numbers to find the real insights.
You’ll get some basic info like age and job titles, but the important data helps you understand their feelings and experiences. Tools like empathy maps can help you get into your customers’ heads (imagine being a mind reader, but more scientific). With good planning and a solid approach, figuring out what your data means should be super simple.
Step 5: Create the Research Report
When writing up your report, think about what you want to achieve with the report and try to tell a story with your findings.Tips for a great report:
- Use the inverted pyramid style: start with the big conclusions, and then add the details. No one has time for a novel!
- Kick off with key insights that your audience would be most interested in
- Make it easy to read so people can get to the main points quickly
Step #6: Make Decisions
Market research helps you understand things like customer buying habits, market trends, and pricing strategies. So go ahead, make those decisions and put your findings into action! Your research wasn’t just for fun, after all.
Final Thoughts
So there you have it. Our complete market research guide, packed with everything you need to know about conducting it at your company.
Market research isn’t a one-time thing. It’s an ongoing process to keep you in tune with what your customers want and how your market’s shifting. keep it relevant, and don’t be afraid to dive back in whenever you need to adjust your game plan.
Happy researching! And remember, the more you know, the better you can do.
FAQs
What can you learn by carrying out market research?
Market research can give you:
- Where your target audience and current customers are doing their research
- Which of your competitors your audience is turning to for advice, options, or straight-up buying
- What’s trending in your industry and what your buyers are buzzing about
- Who’s in your market, what their struggles are, and how you can help
- What really influences your audience’s buying decisions and conversions
- Consumer attitudes about specific topics, pains, products, or brands (including yours)
- If there’s actually a demand for those big business ideas you’re pouring money into
- Unmet or underserved needs that you could turn into a selling opportunity
- How your audience feels about pricing for a particular product or service
Are there any downsides of market research?
While market research can answer big questions about your industry, it’s not a magic crystal ball. It takes time to get a clear picture of what’s really going on with your target audience. But even if you only research a small piece of the puzzle, you’ll start to get a better sense of who your buyers are and how you can offer something unique that they can’t find elsewhere.
Originally published Aug 30, 2024, updated Sep 10, 2024
