When consumers come across a product ad that perfectly fits their needs, they feel lucky, but this hasn’t anything to do with luck. In reality, this happens because a company has concentrated all its efforts on strategic market research, enabling it to develop products that appeal to customers. The benefits of market research are endless, helping propel your business to success in many ways.
You can use different methods to conduct market research, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, and field trials. However, if you find it difficult to do this on your own, you can always seek help from a market research company like Savanta. Letting experts take care of this part of your business will allow you to focus on other critical aspects, ensuring a successful outcome.
Breaking down the concept of market research
Market research is the process of collecting data about your customers to promote your venture more effectively and achieve success. It plays a crucial role in business, regardless of its type and size, as it gives you valuable insight into the market, helping you make data-driven – and thus better – decisions. It’s not that companies don’t acknowledge the importance of market research – they do, but only in a general sense. What they fail to understand is that market research is vital to succeed in the business landscape, as it helps identify current trends and understand customers’ behaviour and attitude. In other words, if you get off track, market research can give you all the answers you need, keeping your business relevant in a competitive environment.
How does market research benefit your business?
Market research is a valuable tool for businesses, delivering excellent benefits. Let’s take a look at how it can empower your company.
It helps you remain customer-centric
Embracing a customer-centric approach can set your business up for success – according to research, ventures that put their customers at the forefront are 60% more profitable than others. The good news is that market research allows you to understand your prospects better and identify their desires and needs. If you don’t know what your customers want, you can’t create products that appeal to them – it is pretty logical. That’s where market research can help, as it enables you to meet customers’ preferences and demands, thus ensuring a great experience for them. And when customers are happy, your business grows, so that’s a win-win. You can embrace a customer-centric approach in your business by using an STP (segmentation-targeting-positioning model), which involves identifying how and to whom you will market your products.
It helps mitigate risks
Success doesn’t come in business if you aren’t willing to take risks, as that would only mean limiting your growth potential. However, it’s crucial to learn how to mitigate risks strategically, and market research plays a huge role in that, helping you maximise rewards. For instance, one way to reduce risks is to check whether the market needs your product. The harsh reality is that products have a high failure rate, failing to connect with customers. Given this significant risk, you should use market research to determine whether customers will receive your product well. The goal is to ensure it will meet their needs more effectively than your competitors do. Through market research, you can also refine your strategy before launching the product. For instance, you can offer food samples to people and ask them for feedback. Or, you can test people’s reactions to new packaging, a new logo for your business, and so on.
It allows you to identify growth opportunities
Market research is also a great way to discover new growth opportunities for your business. These could range from unreached segments and business partnerships to product improvements. Through market research, you can take advantage of an opportunity and partner with ventures that already have a solid relationship with your target audience. For example, joint promotions offer mutual benefits to your business and the partner company. By combining the power of your brand with another, you can reach a broader audience, ultimately leading to more sales, thus improving your business in the long run. Additionally, you can use market research to identify shortcomings in your services or products and find solutions to make them more appealing to customers.
It gives you a competitive advantage over other businesses
The business environment can be truly competitive, and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing – as it forces you to get out of your comfort zone and innovate – it can be pretty intimidating. This means you must look for ways to stay on top of competitors, and market research can be incredibly effective in doing that. That’s because it allows you to better understand your customers’ needs and behaviours and, as a result, engage them much more efficiently than other businesses. Plus, it allows you to learn about your competitors so you can figure out how to fit in the marketplace and bring something they don’t offer. Pinpointing current gaps in the market enables you to promote your business as a disruptive one, which provides a unique solution to customers.
It plays a role in making more informed decisions
Market research can be an empowering tool for your company, helping you make data-driven decisions. In business, it’s never a good idea to rely on your gut feeling – conducting market research is the only way to ensure an idea can be successful. It can be your compass that helps ensure all your choices bring you closer to your business goals, thus converting and retaining customers. Market research is key in making more accurate decisions in different areas, such as determining which channels are more suitable for your advertising campaign. It can also help you decide if you should modify or discontinue a product and play a role in forming your brand persona by choosing the right design. These are only a few ways market research can result in better decision-making in your business so that you can get things right from the beginning.
Last words
Market research is critical to any flourishing business, making it worth your time, effort and finances. Obviously, it’s not the only thing that will help your brand grow, but it’s a key ingredient you need. Without it, it’s hard to connect with customers and identify excellent opportunities. So, make market research a part of your business strategy, and you’ll reap amazing benefits.