What do your consumers look like?
What other types of products are they purchasing?
What style is best reflected inside their homes?
What food is in their cupboards?
What about their fridge?
What types of technology are they using the most at home?
To answer these questions in more, consider conducting home audit market research. It is a lot less creepy than it may sound, trust me.
In this blog post, our home audit research company will define what a market research home audit study is, the benefits of completing home audit research, and an example of what this process looks like.
Before introducing a product to the masses, conduct a market research home audit first. This will highlight potential red flags from a sample size of your target consumers.
What is a market research home audit?
The concept of a market research home audit is simple. It refers to a market research professional visiting a participant's home, to take inventory of items or products.
Oftentimes, a market research home audit is done in addition to an in-home usage test (IHUT) or in-home interview.
An in-home usage test is a study where a market research company visits a participant's home to collect feedback on a product. Feedback can include:
- Effectiveness
- Appeal
- Price
- Packaging
- Ease of use
- Likelihood to recommend
Typically, a market research home audit focuses on products preparing to enter the market. The goal is to identify areas of strength and weakness to address before fully launching the product. Research interviews can cover a wide variety of topics which dig deeper into the reasoning behind decision making, attitudes, beliefs, and values.
By interviewing a small sample of participants who make up your target audience, they are able to best represent how the larger market will react to your product. Organizations are then able to take feedback from a market research home audit and make any necessary changes before introducing their product to the masses. The idea here is putting the best possible product forward with the power of market research.
What are the benefits of a market research home audit?
What makes market research home audits powerful? Market research home audits bring a whole new level of understanding consumers and/or customers.
Typically, surveys, interviews, and focus groups are used to create a customer or consumer persona. A persona includes traits, attitudes, beliefs, and values gathered from an audience through compiled market research findings. With market research home audits personas are highly detailed to help your team create more effective strategies and meet the needs of customers.
For example, a typical customer persona puts a name and face to data and makes it easier for organization to better understand research findings. A persona may include a statement like, "Donald, aged 57, is very price sensitive but also highly values companies with sustainability practices." In a sense, it is humanizing research data to be more impactful.
A customer persona created with a market research home audit brings personal details about your target customers to life. Keeping with this example, a market research home audit can show a majority of products purchased by Donald are based on price, however, when faced with a choice between a cheaper product and one that clearly labels sustainability efforts on the packing, Donald is much more likely to buy the eco-friendly product.
Market research home audits give analysts the tools needed to gather unique details and information to create effective next steps and business strategies.
What is the process of a market research home audit study
A market research home audit study can be completed more quickly than one may think. Depending on the methodology of the study, a market research home audit may be conducted alongside IHUTs or in-home interviews.
The market research home audit study will begin with a project kickoff with the market research company. Within a week, the market research firm will deliver an interview guide, outlining the questions participants will be answering. Once approved by your team, the market research home audits are scheduled throughout the next week or 2.
Depending on the goals and objectives of the study, a typical home research audit includes a range of 6 to 14 interviews. The number of interviews will increase if your organization is looking for more numerical, quantitative data and less explanatory.
The interview and audit will likely take between 45 minutes to 1 hour to complete. Typically, the interview is conducted within the first 30 minutes. The final 15 to 30 minutes are used to collect information about the home (i.e., what products are purchased, where products are stored, technology used in home, etc.) This is the audit portion of the in-home interview.
After completion, the findings from the home audit interviewers are complied into a market research report, drafted by the market research provider. A market research company who specializes in home audits, like Drive Research, can deliver a report within a week of completing fieldwork. In summary, a market research home audit study can be completed in as little as 3 weeks.
Want to learn more about the best practices to recruit for in-home interviews in market research?
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Contact Our IHUT Market Research Company
Drive Research is an in-home usage test and home audit company located in Syracuse, NY. Our team helps organizations around the world with a wide range custom market research services including surveys, focus groups, in-home usage tests, and more.
Interested in learning more about our market research services?
Below are four different ways to reach us!
Message us on our website
Email us at [email protected]
Call us at 888-725-DATA
Text us at 315-303-2040