Market research should be the basis of a marketing strategy. It forms the foundation upon which ideas and concepts are born, based on the outcome of various research techniques conducted with customers or general members of the public. But when it comes to actually carrying out the process, how does your business fare?
In order to effectively conduct solid market research, you need to first determine what it is you want to know from your audience.
Define The Market Research End-Goal
Without an end goal, you might gather incredible insight, but it also might not prove actionable for your needs. By determining the purpose of your market research, you have an opportunity to refine and channel your responses in a way that will produce valuable information for your business.
If there are multiple goals, try and tackle them one a time by prioritising each one. Some examples of what you might be trying to achieve are as follows:
- Solving a problem that keeps cropping up for customers
- Understanding why a product isn’t selling as fast as other similar ones
- Determining how your customers view your current offerings (this could be website, products, apps, customer service or many other attributes that make up the business)
- Understanding who the customer is and what demographic you’re speaking to
- How your customer prefers to be communicated with
Once you’ve selected your outcome, you can start working on understanding it better by building up the research component. Brainstorm with the team on how you can best approach the topic and what questions you should ask to get the desired answers. It’s at this point where you will also need to identify the right groups of people for your market research, as well as the best methods for extracting the insight you need.
Creating The Ideal Market Research Survey
When it comes to quantitative research, surveys are your very best friend and they can easily be constructed in the digital space. Before you begin, you want to maintain a mindset of simplicity, so you don’t want to be asking questions that aren’t necessary. You also want to get straight to the point. People value their time and if you’re harping on with irrelevant questions, you might find you experience a high drop-off rate, which won’t suit your purposes.
How can you help respondents with their survey progress?
- Tell them upfront how much time will be required to fill in the survey
- Implement a progress bar that will show them how far they are in the process and how much further they need to go
- Ask them in advance if they would mind providing further insight by way of a follow-up after the survey is complete
When creating your surveys, try and think of a natural flow of questions that will build on one another. Disparate questions are fine too if they have specific purpose, but it’s better if the entire process is a journey that builds with each question. For example: if you’re looking to find out how a product impacts different people in different job sectors, start by asking them what their role is and then based on that, filter respondents down the appropriate path that matches their designation.
Craft each series of questions for each target group individually. Run through them all once, twice, three times and more to ensure you’ve covered everything. If, once you’ve received the feedback, you have respondents who don’t mind you contacting them, work through your post-survey feedback methodically by designing your follow-up questions carefully. Make sure to record the calls for easier unpicking at a later stage.
Back Up Your Findings With Further Research
Once your survey is complete, you can still go that little bit further to understand more about your research findings. Take to social media to get more insight or get analytical with your web property analytics. Don’t limit yourself to only what a survey can provide as the uncovering of information about your target customer and their preferences is an ongoing process.
If you’re in any doubt, whatsoever, we are here to shed the light. Contact Interact RDT today to find out how we can leverage market research for your business needs.