More Resources
The Kodak camera should tell you all you need to know about the critical importance of doing effective market research.
For decades, Kodak was synonymous with photography, dominating the market. Just about everyone had a Kodak camera or used Kodak film. Yet Kodak made an all-but-fatal mistake of not keeping up with market trends and fast-evolving consumer preferences. In doing so, Kodak completely missed the move to digital photography. Today, photography has evolved into the digital age—namely, transforming smartphones into high-quality cameras.
Get a better understanding of survey design, sampling, and analysis from survey experts.
Market research surveys help you identify, understand, and ultimately engage with your target customers. It also provides vital insight into the broader market landscape, your competitors, and trends affecting your industry and consumers.
Yet the process can be intimidating. Where do you start? What is the quickest and most effective path to success? How can you be sure that your research will be accurate and generate actionable insights?
Success can be found by gaining a greater understanding of marketing research and then following an effective marketing research process to achieve your goals.
When it comes to executing an effective marketing research process it’s wise to begin with the end in mind. In short, what do you aim to accomplish through your research? Clearly understanding the outcome you're aiming for will help you identify and frame the specific customer problems you want to study and solve. Ultimately, you want to take a deep dive into the challenges and desires of your target customers so you can design products and position services that fully meet their needs and craft supporting messaging that resonates deeply with them.
If you frame your problem too broadly, you will get vague answers. Too narrow and you may not understand enough. Determine the scope of what you want to study and what conclusions you hope to arrive at.
Think about what decisions will be made based on your research. Are you testing a concept that will affect the packaging of your product? Are you gathering information for a new product that will fill a market gap? Ask good questions and they will help to clarify your outcome.
Brainstorming is a valuable way to arrive at your research problem. Your team can create lots of potential research questions and narrow them down to which ones best address your study.
Deeper dive: SurveyMonkey’s market research survey templates offer a shortcut to developing effective surveys to get the information you need to make better decisions about your products and services
Develop a plan of action that will drive toward the outcomes you are seeking and provide a roadmap to keep you on track.
The initial phase of this planning focuses on choosing your data sources – where you will get the information and insights you are looking for. At the core of this effort is effectively identifying your target audience. This is essential because you want to be sure that the feedback and data you gather comes from the people who are most relevant to what you are researching. SurveyMonkey can make sure you survey who you want when you want to with powerful and easy-to-use audience targeting tools.
If you conduct primary research, you will gather quantitative and qualitative data about your target audience. This approach includes:
You may also want to conduct secondary research that collects data from existing sources. This research is valuable and keeps you from spending extra time and money on information that is readily available.
Next, select your marketing research methods. Depending on your research problem, you’ll need to conduct different research methods. Here are several to consider:
Going global? SurveyMonkey can help you quickly identify survey participants from your target audience in up to 130 countries around the globe.
Now it is time to execute your research plan. A logical place to start is often with secondary research to find out what existing data is available from reputable sources that directly relate to your research question. The benefits of this are two-fold. Through the process of reviewing secondary research you gain a deeper understanding of what you are studying. Additionally, you help ensure that you are not duplicating research so you can focus your primary research on capturing fresh insights and data.
Unless your topic is brand new and there is no existing data, previous in-house or industry research, academic journals, and experts in your field may provide valuable information that contributes to your research.
Your primary research will then begin as you survey, interview, and observe your research participants. Depending on your research plan, you will have a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to analyze to substantiate your research question.
It is important to be vigilant about any potential researcher biases that may exist. If you and your team have preconceived notions about how research participants will react to your questions, you will have to put them aside to ensure your data is collected according to your research plan.
Need help identifying your target market? We’re here to help.
After your primary and secondary data is collected, you're now ready to shift to the most meaningful phase of the process—analysis. Typically, researchers use several statistical methods to analyze their data, including advanced decision models and predictive analytics. Averages, statistical regression, spreadsheets and charts may all be part of your analysis.
Setting aside assumptions about what you think the data means allows for data-driven patterns and trends to emerge that should lead to actionable insights. Depending on the research tools you use, analytics and reporting, like those included in online surveys, will supply ready-to-use information.
Your goal is to discover what your data says about your target audience’s behavior patterns, attitudes and preferences. You may find that your data proves or disproves your original research question. It’s important to remain open to both outcomes. Never fall victim to the temptation to alter the data to prove you are right. Not only is that unethical, it could lead to actions that actually run counter to your company’s goal, leading to disappointing, even disastrous, results.
Your data should be tabulated and ready for the next phase where you present your findings to your company or research sponsor for their review.
Depending on who paid for or sponsored the study, you will have to create a formal research report that outlines your initial question, target audience, research methods, data collection methods, audience demographics, and finally your conclusion. You will want to clearly state if you proved or disproved your research question and outline your conclusions.
Your study conclusions may outline opportunities (or challenges) for your company or research sponsor. For instance, does your audience like the new packaging you tested and will they pay the proposed price you asked them in your survey? Can the company move to the next stage of product development, or did you research uncover different features that are more important to customers?
You may present your findings to company leadership, or small groups of relevant colleagues throughout your organization. Beyond reporting results, effective presentations often include actionable recommendations based on your findings.
Your research findings should serve as a guide to specific actions your company can take to improve business results or deepen customer relationships. If your concept testing was successful, it may be time to move to the product development phase. If your updated branding and logo received negative reviews, it’s time to go back to the drawing board or make some major tweaks. If your marketing messaging struck a powerful chord with your target audience, it likely makes sense to find ways to infuse that message into marketing materials and other content.
There are numerous other ways to use your research. Updating buyer personas, or developing new marketing strategies and advertising campaigns might be the next phase. Your research is a valuable first step in helping companies spend their resources on products and services that increase their revenue.
Market research is only as good as the information it collects. That’s why it’s critical to follow a step-by-step process that all leads to gathering quality data that is accurate and actionable.
Savvy shortcut: SurveyMonkey’s market research resources offer a one-stop shop for key information, tools, and resources to expedite your market research efforts.
Marketing research encompasses a range of activities aimed at gathering information and data to help your company better understand its target market. Once you capture market research data, you can then leverage it to introduce or upgrade products, improve the customer experience, craft a sharper marketing position, or help guide business decisions.
The marketing research process focuses on collecting insights from your target audience, such as their opinions and attitudes that would help you evaluate current products, services, or test concepts aimed at improving them. It can also gauge customer perceptions about your company. This is best known as brand tracking.
Good marketing research has myriad benefits. At its core, marketing research replaces assumptions and go-with-your gut decision-making with data-driven insights to inform smarter strategy and tactics.
The overarching benefit of marketing research is to gain a deep understanding of your customers or prospects so you can take actions that will resonate with them to build greater customer loyalty, increase engagement and ultimately, grow your business.
Data captured from surveys, interviews and other methods reveal customer behaviors that indicate why they buy particular products or take certain actions. Typically, most products are designed to solve a customer’s problem. The marketing research process gets to the root of those problems, paving the way to develop new products, services and support that connect with customers and help solve their challenges.
Try this additional resource: How to identify and reach your target market with surveys
A common focus of marketing research is concept testing: the process of determining if a new product will be a hit with customers.
Based on analysis of the data and information captured, yo