The market research It is an essential tool of marketingsince it allows us to better understand the audience we are targeting and get our campaigns right.
Launching a new product or brand, identifying problems with our strategy, getting ideas to improve our service… market research has a lot of useful applications, so let’s see what it is and how to use it with our brand.
What is market research?
We can define market research as the process through which companies systematically collect data on consumers in order to better understand the target audience and thus make better decisions. In this way, it is possible to better manage the company’s time and resources.
Within market research we can distinguish two main types of techniques: quantitative and qualitative.
Examples of quantitative techniques
- Surveys: This technique consists of asking consumers a series of closed-response questions. In this way, a large amount of easily quantifiable information can be collected in a short time, especially if we use online surveys.
- Interviews: The interviews consist of a series of questions with open answers that allow you to delve deeper into a specific topic, such as product design, price or functionalities. Normally the interview is carried out orally, either by telephone, video conference or in person.
- Mysterious client: In this type of market research, a person poses as a customer of the brand to analyze the entire purchasing process. For the information to be quantifiable, the mystery shopper must fill out a pre-designed survey after their visit.
- Social network analysis and social listening: This technique allows us to obtain objective information at low cost about the consumption habits, opinions and lifestyle of our potential audience.
Examples of qualitative techniques
- Depth interview: in the previous section we have seen the interview as an example of a quantitative technique, but we can move on to the qualitative field through more extensive interviews and without previously prepared questions, so that a more natural dialogue is established between interviewer and consumer.
- Focus group: This is one of the most popular research techniques since, although it has a relatively high cost, it allows you to obtain a large amount of valuable information. It consists of bringing together a group of between 6 and 12 people who are part of the brand’s target to interview them and generate a debate on a topic of interest to the brand, such as a specific product, customer service, an advertising campaign. , etc.
How to do market research in 7 steps
1) Define your objectives
As always, before undertaking any marketing action, we have to stop and think about what we want to achieve with it.
Being clear about the objectives of your research will help you better focus the next steps and achieve satisfactory results.
Market research is a very versatile tool and as such, it can help us achieve very diverse objectives: test an idea for a new product, analyze the success of an advertising campaign, improve an existing service and much more.
2) Identify your target audience
Market research is based on studying your target audience, so to achieve good results, it is essential that it is well defined.
If you haven’t done it before, it’s time to sit down and define your buyer persona, a representation of the ideal customer for your products or services. This buyer persona should not be limited to demographic data, but should include in-depth information about their habits, needs, and challenges.
3) Choose the sample and method
In the previous section we saw some examples of quantitative and qualitative methods. Choosing one or the other will depend on the resources we have and the objectives we have set for market research.
It is also very important to select a representative sample of our target audience, either through random (random) or non-probabilistic sampling (selecting different types of profiles so that they are representative of the total population).
4) Collect the data
In order to collect data about our target audience, we have to design the instrumentfor example, the structure and characteristics of the focus group or the survey questions.
Next, we will apply this instrument to our sample until we obtain the amount of data we are looking for. Depending on the technique used, this process will have a very variable duration, from a few days to several months.
5) Study your competition
In addition to collecting data from our target audience, it is also advisable to complement our market research with information about the competition.
Luckily, there are many online tools that can help us in this task, such as:
- The Google Keyword Planner: to see the volume of searches for your competitors’ keywords and analyze the terms that generate the most traffic for them.
- SimilarTech: to find out the technologies used on competing websites.
- SimilarWeb: to obtain information about the traffic and audience of competing websites.
- Buzzsumo: to analyze the performance of competitors’ campaigns and publications on social networks.
6) Complement the information with other sources
To obtain a more complete vision, in addition to studying the target audience and the competition, I recommend you complement your market research with some market data in general. To do this, you can rely on sources such as the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) or the studies and analyzes on digital markets from Think With Google.
7) Analyze the data
Last but not least, you will have to analyze all the information you have collected in your market research.
For the final report of your study to be truly useful, remember to put the data in contextsummarize the most salient information using graphics easy to understand at a glance and, above all, include a series of practical recommendations to apply everything you have learned.