“Companies will have to get ever closer to the consumer in 2021. Agility, innovation, and bold choices will be needed to identify growth opportunities. In this environment, market research and the actionable insights it provides are even more crucial than ever.” - Sarah Boumphrey, Global Research Director, Euromonitor International.

Sarah’s words stress that market research is your key factor in determining your growth strategy as a company. The market research industry has exceeded the global revenue by $73.4B in 2019—more than double since 2008. This is additional evidence that companies should invest in market research.

So, if you have a bomb idea to implement or have already created an MVP to back your product, put market research in your priority list, if not already.

Let’s understand what it is and why you should invest in market research for your business’s growth.

What is Market Research?

Market research is the process of collecting data and gathering user sentiments for an industry a company is running or launching its services or product in. During the market research, the company gathers information from its customers about their preferences, dislikes, feedback, and expectations.

This process deploys various quantitative market research methods like surveys, polls, and quizzes. Qualitative market research on focused groups using interviews helps to collect deeper insights from users.

During data collection, several companies seek assistance from market research companies for collecting data. They also approach the best online survey sites to reach out to their audience via targeted surveys. These market research and online panel companies use various trending technologies to survey the users.

How is Market Research Different from Marketing Research?

Market research is collecting customer’s sentiments about a product or service. In contrast, Marketing research is about finding ways and innovative ideas in building a brand for the product or the company. This also involves identifying advertising and promotional campaigns.

The target audience for market research is niched and smaller as compared to marketing research.

Why is Market Research Critical for Your Business?

 1. Find Customers and Market

Knowing your customer base right from the start is crucial. Customer surveys and demographics help you to know your customers. Even if you pick the latest reports from your industry, you can understand your potential customers' trends and preferred experiences.

Well-crafted statistics about your customers’ demographics will help you narrow down your product’s pricing and features to appeal to a larger segment of users. You can also zero in on your preferred locations for better reach. The size of the market would help you to predict demand and forecast.

Once you know your customers well, you would be able to get into their shoes to understand their pain points. This leads to nail down the proper communication.

 2. Improve Customer Communication

Market research lets you understand customers’ language and channels where they are available. For instance, if your product is a new cold drink, your customers would most probably hang out on Tok-Tok and Instagram. Your preferred marketing campaign would be quick videos for Millennials.

If you understand their language, you would be able to establish solid two-way communication with your users. This helps in improving the engagement and experiences of your customers.

 3. Improve Product and Customer Experience

Once your customer communication is clear and smooth, your market research efforts would gather excellent feedback. As you know what your customers need in your offerings and like in your products, you would automatically know what to improve. To improve, you can launch:

• Customer satisfaction surveys
• Product satisfaction surveys

Your understanding of the user base also helps in rendering a better customer experience. For instance, 72% of customers expect their purchase history to be remembered. And when you have a way to save their preferences, your brand would automatically be their preferred choice for buying options.

 4. Lower and Mitigate Your Risks

With correct data collected through market research, you would get rid of the trial-and-error method. You will be able to plan and focus on strategies that are more potent to results and success.

Let’s say you want to launch an HRMS product. Knowing that automation is preferred by the corporates who are your target audience would naturally push you to automate certain mundane tasks for them. Likewise, you can’t go to the market without having an app for the same.

Knowing what your users want and need lowers your risks.

5. Identify Opportunities

With exemplary customer communication via omnichannel data and research methods, you can identify opportunities for growth, improvement, and new launches.

Say you have identified that your product has no reach in 2-tier cities. You can tie up with distributors in those regions and capture a market with good potential. Not only an unexplored market is an early growth opportunity, but it also is competition-free.

Likewise, you can explore partnership possibilities with vendors to launch marketing campaigns and new products with offers and promotions.

 6. Uplift Business Decisions

Market research reveals many statistics that are not just user-related but also business-related. For instance:

• What should be your pricing strategy for your offering?
• Do you need a brick-and-mortar store in a particular location?
• Would you need to introduce the ‘buy offline and get home delivery’ option?
• Whether the market has space for your new product or it’s too saturated?

What is the forecasted demand for the next quarter, which decides your budget?

Being aware of factors that influence your business and decision-making is crucial to run a successful business.

7. Beat the Competition

Knowing your risks doesn’t mean your competitors will bite the dust. Lowering the risks only means mitigating them and putting the right foot ahead. But what about competition, which never ceases?

Market research would also help you understand the areas where you can work, which are not explored yet. Or features that your competitors lack. Knowing your competition and its weak points will help you to stay ahead in the market.

If you can capture the negative sentiments of your target audience about similar products, you can make sure to eradicate such drawbacks from your offerings.

Are you Leveraging Market Research?

Whether you are an enterprise on a growth track or a start-up looking for funding, market research should be on your to-do list. Conduct quick surveys and launch polls to gather insights from them. Conducting online surveys is an excellent way to collect data from your users.

If you are looking for some help in market research and setting up polls, Opinionest would be happy to help. Reach out to us for a quick and stimulating discussion here.