Effective market research is often the difference between a soaring and a fledgling business.

 The current market, especially with the changes and challenges introduced by COVID-19, is more dynamic and volatile than ever before. A strategy that might have seemed sound three years ago might not be practical anymore.

This is where market research comes into play, as it helps you determine not just the current and past trends, but also forecast market changes and establish plans that will help a business stay ahead of the curve.

In this blog, Brian C Jensen outlines a few tips that will help you enhance the quality of your market research.

Tips for Conducting Market Research:

 Tip 1 – Identify Needs and Opportunities:

Change is the only thing that is constant – and the market is definitive proof of that. This constant evolution means that market researchers need to regularly study and analyze the following aspects:

• Trends
• Customer demographics
• Market share
• Market size
• Industry suppliers
• Trends and forecasts
• Key competitor
• Geographic distribution of customers
• Demands, needs, and market gaps

According to Brian C Jensen, compiling the above information can help you understand the market landscape and identify opportunities for your business.

Tip 2 – Perform Field Research:

Field research involves obtaining first-hand information for a specific purpose. Examples of field research include questionnaires, surveys, focus groups, and direct observation. How you execute the field research will play a key role in determining how accurate and actionable the results are. Brian C Jensen suggests a few ways to get your field research right:

• Reach out to the right people (people who are representative of your target segment, for example)
• Make sure that you reach out to enough people (avoid an excessively small sample size)
• Ask the right questions
• Avoid bias and partiality

Tip 3 – Perform Brand Research?

The way that companies perceive their brands is astonishingly different to how customers perceive those brands. Even seemingly trivial things like the color or font size can have a tremendous impact on brand perception and recognition, and Brian C Jensen thinks that the degree of this impact is often not fully appreciated by business owners.

This is why thorough brand research is crucial – it helps a business shed some much-needed light on:

• The degree of brand familiarity
• How memorable the company name and logo are
• The way that the brand is viewed in comparison to rival brands
• The kind of reputation that the brand has in the eyes of buyers and potential buyers
• The overall brand awareness and perception within the marketplace
• The way that the customers feel about the brand’s website, content, ads, and social media presence

Final Word:

Market research is so much more than simply distributing surveys and generating reports. When done right, thoroughly, and meticulously, market research can provide invaluable data capable of showing demographics, trends, opportunities, and a wealth of other practical insights.