Market research drives insights that help companies set their business trajectory and make informed decisions. But how does a market research company that provides such guiding and decisive insights conduct research?
Let’s look at four methods.
What is Market Research, and What is its Significance?
Market research refers to collecting information and comprehending an organization’s target market. Businesses leverage the insights gathered via research to make decisions, enhance their products, understand their customers better, decode the industry’s direction, and improve conversions.
The use of information derived from market research determines its significance. Without information, companies would devise strategies and make critical decisions based on their instincts. They wouldn’t have a data-driven base for their decisions, which is essential given the uncertainties, especially where instinct-based or impulsive choices or decisions don’t work!
4 Proven Market Research Methods
Market research is an extensive process that requires gathering insights via various techniques. Let’s look at the most common ones.
- Online Surveys
Online surveys are a relatively new form of surveying. They help you learn about the target audience’s traits, behavioral trends, patterns, etc.
While conducting online surveys, though, one must keep in mind a couple of things – motivation and convenience. When you ask an individual to provide feedback about a particular service or information about something, you ask for their time. Thus, while conducting online surveys, you might want to offer some incentives or rewards that will encourage them to participate in the survey.
Besides, convenience in the form of surveys completed in a few clicks and answering a few questions is equally crucial. You cannot ask people to fill in lengthy survey forms and expect 100 percent participation or completion.
- Interviews
Interviews are another significant and effective way of conducting market research. The participants of interviews could be actual consumers of a particular product, market experts, representatives of a target audience, etc.
These people can provide ground insights that could help you serve the information needs of the intended groups. However, while conducting interviews, it is necessary to ask relevant questions that will lead to meaningful and useful answers that serve the interview and research’s objectives.
- Observational Research
Observational research refers to marking important points while observing someone when an individual is using a particular product or service.
This type of research involves two types of observations – overt and covert. Overt is when the customers know you are watching them. On the other hand, covert observations involve those done without the consumer’s knowledge.
But this type of research requires recording observations accurately and appropriately. The interpretation of these observations can help the company derive and make the necessary decisions.
- Social Media
Another new form of research is social media monitoring. It is passive market research wherein you set alerts or leverage keywords to determine people’s opinions about a brand. Social media can also be used to conduct poll research, collect feedback and record it.
One significant disadvantage of social media research is the biased nature of feedback. It has been observed that users usually tend to voice out negative feedback or concerns about a particular product or service. Thus, researching via social media channels doesn’t necessarily give companies the complete picture.
So, these are the four types of research techniques. Suppose you are a company looking for report resellers who partner with a reputed market research company (in fact, multiple ones) that conduct market research for startups, SMBs, MNCs, etc. CAGR has got you covered! We are leading report resellers who provide reports for various business domains, including agriculture, chemicals, oil and gas, hospitality, etc. To know more, write to us at ___________.