Types Of Market Research—And How To Use Them

Market research is vital for any business. While you might think there is one specific method, there are several types of market research. Each of them is used in a particular way to enhance your business or marketing plan. If you want to learn more about market research, here are a few facts that you will want to know.

Market Research Is Important

In the business world, you always want to be moving forward. While you might be successful now, the market can change over the years. If you continue doing the same things without changes, you could fall behind the rest of the competition. The same can be said for market research. When you speak to the same individuals, you will get similar results. You need to think about other kinds of market research.

Which ones should be your main focus? Well, that all depends on what you want to gain from the analysis.

The Types of Market Research

With market research, you can reduce the risk of making poor business decisions and solve problems within your company. Several types of market research can help to identify and overcome these challenges. Let’s take a look at them.

Brand Research

Brand research can help manage your company’s brand or identity. It can also create an identity for an organization. The narrative, characteristics, and images are all part of a brand. You can use brand research throughout every aspect of a company’s life, from creating new products to launching new services. When you use brand research, it allows you to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your company and the competition.

In many cases, focus groups gauge the connection and emotions associated with a particular brand. You might even send out market research surveys to determine what separates you from the competition. With that, you create stronger branding strategies for your business.

Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis assesses the weaknesses and strengths of your competitors in the marketplace. This analysis can help you create an advantage over rival businesses and companies. If you want a robust company, you need to include competitive analysis in your marketing plan. Competitive analysis can become an invaluable tool for your new or existing business. Researchers will select a few of your main competitors and analyze their references, customer perceptions, marketing strategies, and sales volumes. In some cases, advertising and articles are used to collect valuable information on your competition.

Campaign Effectiveness

This type of research can help a business evaluate whether its advertising and marketing messages reach the right people. Campaign effectiveness can measure whether the campaign is delivering the right results. You can reduce customer acquisition costs and sell more products or services with a successful campaign. Getting the attention of your customers can be difficult. You don’t want to waste your dollars. Use campaign effectiveness to create a marketing strategy for your business. Quantitative research is conducted to address and overcome any weaknesses in your advertising campaign.

Customer Satisfaction Research

Customer satisfaction research might sound like the other types of analysis, but this market research looks at a customer’s experience with a particular service or product. This research focuses on how the service or product met, exceeded, or failed to live up to certain expectations. Customer satisfaction is a good indication of your company’s performance and customer retention. By gathering this data, companies can assess the design and quality of their products. If you want to measure customer satisfaction, surveys are vital. These surveys can measure satisfaction levels and resolve any problems. There are several creative companies in Philadelphia that can help you connect with your customers to measure their satisfaction levels.

Consumer Insights

Consumer insight research provides you with valuable information. This research identifies your customers and how they behave in specific ways. Once you know your customers, you can create a marketing plan for your business. Consumer insights can help meet your customers’ needs, personalize your marketing campaign, and solve any challenges. Social monitoring, customer journey research, interviews, and survey research are valuable consumer insight tools that access this data.

Product Development

If you want to create a new product or improve on an existing one, use product development. You already know that most products fail within the first year. You can minimize that risk with product development research before entering the market. There are four stages of product development: conception, formation, introduction, and retention. This type of research will use different methods to gather data, depending on the goal.

Customer Segmentation Research

Customer segmentation divides customers and markets into small groups with similar characteristics to target their marketing efforts. When you know how these people behave, you can understand what influences their purchasing decision. Consider customer segmentation research if you want to build loyal relationships and focus on creating new products. There are four ways to segment your customers: geography, psychographics, behavior, and demographics. A researcher collects data on these customers through website analytics, interviews, focus groups, and surveys.

Usability Testing

For those companies that want to know how customers use their products in real-time situations, these businesses should consider usability testing. Testing can be conducted on either digital or physical products. With usability testing, bugs or other problems are detected before the product is launched to the general public. Some of these tests are conducted during different parts of the product’s life. Many of the usability tests observe the customer’s experience. Other research methods give the customers specific tasks to see how they respond with help from the product.

If you want an effective method for your market research, reach out to a Philadelphia branding and design agency. They can help you find the best market research type to meet your goals. You can even mix and match these methods to address any challenges for your business.

Let Us Help With Your Business

At Hyland Graphic Design & Advertising, we have all the tools to create an effective campaign for your business. You can schedule a consultation by calling the office at (484) 879-6145.