The right way to do your market research for maximum profitability
Statistics is an essential part of market research; that’s a fact. Another fact is, Global revenue of the market research industry exceeded 47.3 billion USD in 2018, and since then, it is growing continuously. So this could be the right time to navigate the waters and know the rights/wrongs of the market research community.
In this post, we are going to tell you everything you’d probably want to know about marketing research. But before we get started, here’s a bit about what market research is (you can skip this section if you are well aware of this industry).
What is market research?
Simply put, market research is a report created with systematically gathered data and analytics that helps business owners to make informed decisions. This research focuses on people and companies in the market.
For instance, let’s say you have an eCommerce store selling clothes, and you came to know that a specific color combination is trending. You might want to use that information and create unique products with that color combination.
There are two types of market research–one where you gather first-hand data (primary) and the other where you use existing resources for your data.
Common market research mistakes
But how exactly can you create an optimized profitable marketing plan? To know that, let’s first take a quick walkthrough focusing on the most common mistakes companies to make when doing market research:
1. Believing budget myths about market research – There is more than one factor behind market research and data analytics contributing to its cost. Many small businesses think that it costs a lot to create an influential marketing research report. This is, however, not the case. You can create a report anywhere from a few thousand dollars to 35,000 dollars. You can further reduce the cost by using DIY market research (we will discuss later).
2. Keeping the focus on secondary research – Many companies create legislative statistics without putting much effort into primary research.
3. Relying on a set of data – This is the most overlooked (and common) mistake by business owners. If you are using primary research, you’d need to do it at least a few times. One time survey response will barely give you enough data for your business plan.
4. Using existing information – Secondary research can be helpful, but only to an extent. It is essential to perform surveys and collect feedback to generate an authoritative research report that helps a company.
5. Not using the research reports – As stupid as it sounds, many business owners do toss around the research because they don’t get the answers they want to know. You should properly use the report if nothing it will give you a broad overview of your customer’s lifecycle.
How to conduct solid marketing research?
Step 1: Define buyer details
Start with creating fictional personas of your buyers. This will include characteristics like gender, age, income, and other details. You can use digital tools like HubSpot for this purpose.
Step 2: Identify your engagement
Gather around some representative samples of your target customers. You can use things like online surveys, phone interviews, and even email outreach. One great example of visitors’ profiling is this case study. A company named Continental Warranty boosted its sales by 23% by clubbing it with landing page optimization. You can use these website designs to get started.
Another excellent example of a vast, compelling visitor profile is this template by Matomo.
For this purpose, look for mixed participants – your competitor’s customer base, new audience, and the one that bought your products (or similar situation).
Also, when you recruit participants, don’t forget to pull a customer’s list that was involved in the ongoing evaluation. You can also use social media to find participants for your market research. Try giveaways, incentives, and other rewards to motivate them.
Step 3: Create research questions
Creating research questions is the foremost important task for developing a market research report. Try not to make the questions too hard. It should be a simple question like the favorite color or something.
Your main goal should be to create a questionnaire that both gives you critical data and engage the users.
Summing up
Summarise your market research and create a conclusion. Mention everything, including the background, participants, questionnaire, and the action plan. Market research can be helpful, especially when you are starting up. It can give you some valuable insights into your small business. The acquired feedback will not only help you boost the leads and sales but also to improve your WOM.
Don’t forget to avoid these mistakes after your market research.