Market research is a valuable tool for businesses of all sizes and sectors. It answers a number of common internal and external challenges for organizations all over the world.
Whether you are a newbie or experienced in the realm of marketing research, there are four influential factors that will impact the success of your results.
What are they?
- Objectives
- Audience
- Questions
- Help
Missing the mark on even one of these can run your market research study to the ground. In this blog post our full-service market research company will explain each of these factors in detail.
Market research is an effective tool for driving internal and external change within an organization. Before passing go, read this.
1. Remember Your Objectives
What are you hoping to accomplish by conducting market research? Keep this answer in the back of your mind with every project phase of the marketing research. Through the proposal, project kickoff, fieldwork, and analysis your main objectives will act as the focal point of each activity. Doing so, the outcome will be most aligned with your project goals and objectives.
Market research can help solve a variety of business objectives. Popular objectives and goals for conducting marketing research include:
- Identifying brand awareness and brand perception of a target audience
- Measuring customer loyalty and satisfaction
- Concept testing for a new product
- Evaluating employee engagement
Without clearly defining objectives, problems are sure to arise. This should be the first step in starting market research as this will guide what methodology you use, your target audience, budget, and more.
2. Choose the Right Audience
The success of a market research study is dependent on whether or not you are speaking to the right audience. If your target customers are those who are a part of Gen-Z, do not survey those who are outside of this age range.
The select group of market research respondents or participants are representative of your target audience as a whole. This is who you need to be collecting feedback on.
Unsure of who is in your target market? Look at your current customer base. Who in this group brings the most business for your organization? What are the most common characteristics and interests of this group?
Also look for key demographics such as:
- Age
- Location
- Gender
- Income level
- Education level
- Occupation
The more information the better! This will help you find exactly who you want to speak to and will provide the best results for conducting market research.
This also reverts back to following your objectives for conducting market research. If you are trying to grow business within a lacking demographic, do not survey those who are bringing in the most business. On the contrary, you’d be looking to gain more psychographic insight from the group in which you are hoping to increase business.
3. Ask the Right Questions
Any market research methodology is centered around asking questions, therefore it is extremely crucial to make sure you are asking the right questions and in the right way. This is dependent on the target audience of which makes up your research respondents.
For example, the questions you would ask your target market is different from the questions you’d ask your customers.
The questions to ask your target market helps your business understand and know more about who your customers are. In this case, the market research questions who be more demographic and psychographic based such as, “What is your household size?” or “Where do you spend your free time?”
Generally, companies who use market research to ask their customers questions are hoping to obtain customer feedback. In this scenario, a customer satisfaction survey would ask:
- How likely are you to recommend [INSERT COMPANY, PRODUCT, OR SERVICE]?
- What problems does [INSERT COMPANY, PRODUCT, OR SERVICE] solve for you?
- How well does [INSERT COMPANY, PRODUCT, OR SERVICE] meet your needs?
- What made you choose [INSERT COMPANY] over a competitor?
- What do you wish the [INSERT PRODUCT OR SERVICE] had that it currently does not offer?
It is equally important to not only ask the right questions, but phrasing the questions in a non-bias or leading way. A leading question in market research is one that influences a respondent to provide a particular response. This misses the entire point of conducting marketing research, as a company should be looking for objective feedback. Look at the examples below.
Leading Question: Are you more likely to purchase [INSERT, PRODUCT, OR SERVICE] over a competitor because of your experience?
Objective Question: How likely are you to purchase [INSERT, PRODUCT, OR SERVICE] over a competitor because of your experience?
In this example, the leading question directs a respondent to give a more positive response, while the objectively phrased question is more neutral.
Learn more about leading questions and how to avoid using them.
4. Consider Hiring Third-Party Help
The only sure-fire way to verify your objectives are the focal point of your research, the correct target audience is being surveyed, and the right questions are being asked is to partner with a third-party market research company.
A full-service market research company, like Drive Research has the expertise to administer a successful study and sure to increase ROI.
Unsure of what methodology to use? A market research company will have the greatest insight into the right methodology based on your specific project goals and needs.
Don’t know how to recruit for qualitative or quantitative studies? A market research firm understands what outlets are best to attract even the toughest of audiences.
A qualified third-party company takes the guesswork out of market research and instead works as an extension of your team to produce analysis, insights, and recommendations for next steps quicker than if conducted in-house.
Even better, by bringing in third-party help to conduct market research, your organization will have a fresh set of eyes and a new perspective to provide insight you may not have had otherwise.
If nothing else, a market research agency can help serve as the “middle man” with your customers, employees, or the general public. It is human nature to be dishonest with our opinions and feedback if it is being reviewed by those who we are critiquing. A company conducting research with a third-party market research firm will receive a much higher quality of data to help implement a strong business and marketing strategy.
Drive Research is a market research company located in Syracuse, NY. Our team has the knowledge and tools to design a robust market research study, should it be the right fit for your business.
Interested in learning more about our market research services? Reach out through any of the four ways below.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040