Every company needs to know how market research is conducted to develop new products and service, or to know what consumers need.
In the business world, it’s not always about guessing what people want since you don’t want to spend time creating something that nobody wants to use.
When you try to create a product, you need to ensure that your product will be beneficial to your target customers and that’s exactly why market research exists for businesses.
What is Market Research?
Market research is a method where businesses use different strategies to gather information to determine what their target audience needs.
It basically lets companies get more specific on what their target audience needs before committing to expensive product development costs.
This technique also lets them create a marketing strategy that they might find effective in lead generation to get high conversion rates.
Without market research, it will be impossible to understand what your target audience needs.
Since your goal is to keep working with them, you must also know how market research is conducted to turn them into loyal customers.
Just think of it that’s something that you can use to improve their experience with your brand.
This eventually encourages them to keep using your products or services.
How is marketing research used in developing new products?
To let you understand how it works, let me give you a clear example.
A person wears eyeglasses to see things clearer, avoid getting into accidents, doing mistakes, etc.
Although eyeglasses are already enough to provide vision, people were still able to create a better solution by developing a new product.
Wearing eyeglasses always come with a price like accidentally breaking it, paying for adjustments, or even losing it after placing it anywhere.
Until it was in the 19th century when contact lenses were invented to help people with vision problems see things clearly without using eyeglasses.
Although the history of the development of contact lenses is controversial, it was said that Dr. Adolf E. Fick, an ophthalmologist, created the first contact lenses for people in 1888.
What I’m only trying to say is that there can be problems out there that need a particular product to solve them.
When you do market research, it may include asking your customers about their needs.
And if you don’t want to talk to them directly, you can also do it by observing how someone uses your product or service.
The main goal of market research is to collect information about what your customers think whether it’s a problem or a solution to the problem (product or service).
How Market Research is Conducted: Four Types of Research Methods
There are four common methods that you can use to conduct market research so you can easily collect customer data and create a unique product or service for them.
Surveys
Surveys are probably the most commonly used method that’s very easy and inexpensive to conduct and you can use a survey funnel to your website directly.
This saves you all the trouble looking for respondents since your lead automatically becomes one.
Before, conducting surveys used to be about going to a specific place where your ideal customers gather and asking them to answer your survey.
The only stressful part about this traditional method is the huge possibility of being rejected by a respondent.
An online survey usually has three essential parts that are applied in this manner:
Part 1: Survey Page
This is the first page of your survey funnel that asks the respondent (prospects) questions about themselves.
It’s where you can see a common tagline that says,
“Find out which skin care product is recommended for your skin type by taking this short quiz”
The goal of your quiz is to get your prospect to answer questions that are based on their opinions so you can redirect them to a sales page in the end.
This format helps you organize the questions inside your survey funnel through multiple choice questions:
Self-identifying questions
“Tell us your age and gender“
Self-identifying question based on the subject
“Do you apply sunscreen before going outside?”
Self-declaration
“How often do you reapply sunscreen in a day?”
Biggest Challenge
“Does your skin break out so easily? Have you tried using toners on your face before?”
Clarification
“How often do you apply makeup to your skin? Which makeup products do you use? Select all that apply”
Curiosity-based question
“Since you’re always applying makeup to your face, do you clean your makeup brushes every once in a while?”
The questions in your mini quiz should have one bucket question so you can generate unique results for your respondent.
Part 2: Squeeze Page
After they finish answering the different questions, a random calculating pop-up will show saying,
“Please wait, we are still calculating your results. This will take less than a minute to finish.
If you wish to get a copy of the full result and get some expert advise from our team of dermatologists, enter your email address below so we can send it to you directly”
Remember, your squeeze page should be effective enough to make them give their contact information to you.
Part 3: Results Page
This page usually appears after they give you their email address.
It will also show different results that are based on their answer on the bucket question.
“Hi _____, it seems that you have sensitive and oily skin based on your answers.
We also found out that you’re not cleaning your makeup brushes weekly that’s why you’ve been having a hard time dealing with your acne problem.
We highly recommend you get our startup bundle that you can get for only $$$ when you purchase it today.”
This is very important to ensure that your prospect will have an idea that your results aren’t always the same even after providing different answers.
And yes, there are types of people out there that take time to retake quizzes to know more or to determine that your results are accurate and reliable.
There will also be a time when they take the quiz on behalf of someone else, like their partner, for example.
Additionally, the results page is also where you can add an upsell or a one-time offer to get conversions right away.
Interviews
For the past years, conducting interviews has been proven effective to conduct market research.
Interviewing someone from your target market lets you speak directly to your ideal customer, which gives you a chance to understand them even more.
Having conversations with someone also lets you learn new things about them other than just answering plain questions on the computer screen.
This lets you dive deep into their desires since it gives them an opportunity to share more things.
However, the downside of conducting interviews is the huge amount of money that you will be spending to do it.
Focus Groups
This research method is probably the most dangerous since it is done by forming a group of around 6-10 people that belongs to your target market.
It’s also an expensive research method especially when your ideal customers are from big companies, celebrities, etc.
A trained moderator is assigned to handle the discussions within the group.
Members will be asked about their opinions on a certain topic and since each has the chance to contribute, there’s a possibility that the results will be biased.
They will be asked about their comments on a product, service, campaign, user experience, and anything that the company wants to know.
Not only does it provide inaccurate results but sometimes it might result in a huge argument within different personalities.
This method isn’t usually recommended to new marketers.
Observation
Observing someone is the most powerful and somehow accurate since you will only be taking notes as someone engages with your product or service.
It also doesn’t encourage you to spend too much money when conducting this type of marketing research since you can observe them from afar.
How does market research help know customers?
Market research lets you know more about your ideal customers since you will be gathering data about their problems in life, their favorite hobbies, their likes, basically anything.
If you think about it, companies won’t be successful if it weren’t for market research.
The entire concept of knowing your customers more through research lets you identify market trends, customer buying habits, demographics, etc.
All the information that you collect gives you an advantage in the marketplace as it gives you an insight on the buyer’s perspective.
This way, you’ll also be able to know which areas need to be improved, what functions should be added, or maybe creating a new recipe that you can add to your menu.
It’s not always about creating something new because it’s also about putting your customers first.
Once you learned how market research is conducted, it will also lead you to another opportunity to serve your consumers.
So if you want to learn more strategies for your business, I encourage you to check our DotCom Secrets Review before getting a FREE copy of the book.
