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Market Research

What is Market Research?
Market research (also called marketing research) is the action or activity of gathering information about market needs and preferences. This helps companies understand their target market — how the audience feels and behaves.

Types of market research
Primary research is research that you collect yourself but going directly to the target market through a range of methods. Because it is data you create, you own the data set. Two types of results — exploratory information (determines the nature of a problem that hasn’t yet been clearly defined) and conclusive information (carried out to solve a problem that exploratory research identified) — from participants are collected as raw data and then analyzed to gather insights from trends and comparisons.

Secondary research is the use of data that has previously been collected, analysed and published (and therefore you do not own this data). An example of this for market research is: Desktop research – This can be public domain data from think tanks, government statistics or research centers. It can also include paid for research from research journals, education institutions, and commercial sources like newspapers. Most information is freely available, so there are less costs associated with this kind of secondary research over primary research methods.

Qualitative market research is the collection of primary or secondary data that is non-numerical in nature, and therefore hard to measure. Researchers collect this market research type because it can add more depth to the data. This kind of market research is used to summarise and infer, rather than pin-points an exact truth held by a target market. For example, qualitative market research can be done to find out a new target market’s reaction to a new product to translate the reaction into a clear explanation for the company.

Quantitative research is the collection of primary or secondary data that is numerical in nature, and so can be collected more easily. Researchers collect this market research type because it can provide historical benchmarking, based on facts and figures evidence. There are a number of ways to collect this data — polls, surveys, desk research, web statistics, financial records — which can be exploratory in nature without a lot of depth at this stage. Quantitative market research can create the foundation of knowledge needed by researchers to investigate hypotheses further through qualitative market research.

Branding market research assists a company to create, manage and maintain the company brand. This can relate to the tone, branding, images, values or identity of the company. Research can be carried out through interviews, focus groups or surveys. For example, brand awareness surveys will ask your participants whether the brand is known to them and whether it is something they would be interested in buying. Additional areas for brand research is also around brand loyalty, brand perception, brand positioning, brand value and brand identity .

Customer market research looks at the key influences on your target customers and how your company can make changes to encourage sales. The aim of this research is to know your customer inside out, and continuously learn about how they interact with the company. Some themes covered by this include: Customer satisfaction – Exploring what keeps customers happy, as higher customer satisfaction is more likely to lead to increased customer retention. Customer loyalty – This looks at what experiences have happened to lead to greater customer loyalty across the customer lifecycle. Customer segmentation research – Discovering who the customers are, what their behaviour and preferences are and their shared characteristics. Relevant desk research may look at historical purchase records, customer journey mapping, customer segmentation, demographics and persona templates. Primary research, such as NPS and customer satisfaction surveys, or customer satisfaction interviews at the end of customer support calls, can also give more details.

Competitor market research is about knowing who your competition is and understanding their strengths and weaknesses, in comparison to your organization. It can also be about your competitive offering in the market, or how to approach a new market. The aim of this research is to find ways to make your organization stand out and future planning through horizon scanning and listening to customer preferences. For example, for competitive analysis, researchers would create a SWOT for your business and your competitors, to see how your business compares. Primary research could interview customers about their buying preferences, while secondary sources would look at competitor’s market dominance, sales, structure and so on. With this thorough analysis, you can understand where you can change to be more competitive, and look for ideas that make you stand out.

Product market research is a key way to make sure your products and services are fit for launching in the market, and are performing as well as they can. The aim of this research is to see how your product is perceived by customers, if they are providing value and working correctly. Ideas can also be formed about upgrades and future product development. There are a number of avenues within product research: Product branding – Does the product brand and design attract customers in the intended way? Product feature testing – this can happen at various stages of development with target markets (in early development, between versions, before product launch, etc.) to check if there are positive reaction to new or improved features Product design thinking – what solutions would solve your customers’ current or future problems? Product marketing – Do the marketing messages help your product’s memorability and saleability, or can they be improved?