8 market research strategies and how to use them

Scoring a try in marketing

If you’re unfamiliar with rugby, it’s like American football…just different. The point of the sport is to score points by carrying, passing, kicking, or nosediving an oval ball across the goalpost.

A “try” is almost like a “touchdown” in American football, except (ironically) the player must touch the ball to the ground with their hand, arm, or front torso in rugby, whereas a touchdown only requires the player to run across the end zone.

Now that we’re all familiar, let’s get to the point.

Understanding your market is similar to preparing for a rugby match. You must study your opponents, analyse their strengths and weaknesses, and make strategic decisions to win.

The best part? If you don’t win this match, you can always go back to the drawing board, adjust a tactic or two, and see if it works next time.

8 ways to win the marketing game

1. Brand research: Crafting your team identity

A team’s brand plays a pivotal role in the sport. In South Africa, the Springboks are more than just a rugby team; they represent unity and diversity. Whether deliberately or not, your brand represents a company culture that sticks in consumers’ minds.

Brand research is a great way to understand how customers perceive your brand at various lifecycle stages and typically involves:

• Brand advocacy: Are your customers willing to recommend your brand?
• Brand awareness: Is your brand well-known and considered a serious contender in the market?
• Brand loyalty: What are your customer retention rates?
• Brand penetration: What proportion of your target market uses your brand?
• Brand perception: What do people think of your brand’s identity and qualities?
• Brand positioning: What differentiates you from the competition, and how do you communicate those differences?
• Brand value: How much are customers willing to pay for your brand’s experience?

2. Campaign effectiveness: Reach the right fans

You wouldn’t market a rugby team at a tennis match. Although some people may enjoy watching both, you’d rather allocate your marketing budget to reach your audience more effectively. In business, you need to make every cent count.

Campaign effectiveness research evaluates whether advertising messages reach the right audience and deliver desired results.

3. Competitive analysis: Scouting the opposition

The Rugby World Cup exists for a reason. Every four years, teams from around the world compete for the title. But to get even close to winning, they must study and understand rivals’ previous matches, tactics, and evolution.

Your competitors have arguably the most significant impact on your business’s success. One stronger strategy, message, or offering can make or break yours. Competitive analysis lets you evaluate the marketplace, customer perceptions, and competitor strategies so you can develop your brand and products accordingly.

Remember, it’s powerful to be the best, but even more powerful to beat the best.

4. Consumer research: Know your fans

Sport without supporters is like playing in a swimming pool without water.

Your business can’t survive without customers, and to get them, you need to understand their behaviour so you can customise your marketing strategies, innovate, and solve problems effectively. This involves various research methods, including interviews, surveys, and social monitoring.

5. Customer satisfaction research: Scoring on customer experience

When rugby teams don’t live up to fan expectations, they’ll know about it and keep hearing it until they improve.

This is where market research differs from rugby. A customer or two may voice their concerns, but many just switch to a competitor without so much as a “Your receptionist looked at me funny.” Surveys and review campaigns reveal what customers like and dislike and where you need to improve.

6. Customer segmentation: Divide and conquer

Every player, supporter, and sponsor plays a role. Players have dedicated positions according to their strengths, supporters encourage players to win, and sponsors help to pay for everything (and get promoted in return).

Dividing your market into smaller, similar groups allows for targeted marketing and personalised experiences with your brand.

7. Product development: The winning strategy

Regardless of what you’re doing – rugby, business, synchronised swimming, or pottery – innovation is the key to staying ahead. Market research for product development uses customer knowledge to create or improve products, services, or apps.

This involves concept testing, pricing strategies, value propositions, and ongoing product enhancement.

8. Usability testing: Perfecting your moves

Usability testing is like practising rugby moves before the match. You perform real-time testing to identify problems and bugs and improve overall functionality. For example, it doesn’t help if a player can kick a ball far but skew. They must practice kicking until they can get the ball over the goalpost to score points.

In market research, usability testing includes journey testing, eye tracking, and click searches.

At InteractRDT, we don’t mind which sport you support, but we do care that you win at marketing. Get in touch(down).

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