A guide to understanding Market Research
Market research spans many different forms and methodologies, but it has one simple purpose: to help businesses and organisations make better decisions by helping them better understand their customers and market(s). This simple guide will give you a quick overview of the main methodologies, and help you to avoid the common pitfalls many organisations make in research.
Why should I use market research?
“There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
All businesses need to grow, adapt and evolve in order to survive. To be able to do this successfully, it is vital that they make the right decisions. The most surefire way to make correct decisions is to ensure that they are fully informed by comprehensive research.
The most successful companies and organisations are those that both continually monitor the markets, competitor landscapes and customer needs in which they operate, (or intend to operate), and use this information to implement change, adapt and plan ahead.
Failure to put market research at the heart of business strategy can lead to catastrophic and costly decisions, even among the most successful major global companies.
Google wrongly assumed that there would be consumer demand for its Google Glass augmented reality eyeglasses. The smart glasses were launched in shops in 2014 but failed to sell well as the public did not see the benefit in its key features, which were instant access to the internet and the ability to quickly capture images. Consequently, Google Glass was withdrawn from retail sale in early 2015. Google has apparently developed further prototypes of its glasses since then, albeit without any plans for a relaunch to consumers.
How can market research help me?
Here are just a few examples of the vast array of types of questions that market research can help you to answer:
What do my target audience think of my product or service?
How does awareness of my product or service compare to others available?
Is my marketing effective?
How does my product or service offering and marketing compare to competitors?
What does my target audience look like?
How can I find better routes to market for my product to improve my sales?
What unmet needs do consumers have that could be an opportunity for me?
What are the major current or future threats to my business that I need to address?
How do I need to adapt to external changes?
Types of methodologies: which should I use?
There are various types of methodology used in market research: 3 key types are below. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t necessarily sure which type is right for you- the expert consulting team at Rare: are on hand to help decide.
Often the most effective and robust research approach is to incorporate a mix of qualitative, quantitative and desk research, as this gives the broadest possible view of markets and consumers.
Quantitative
Put simply, quantitative research is most commonly used to answer “what” questions about consumer behaviour. Quantitative research is usually best where the main goal is to look for insight into consumers from as many people as possible. It typically takes the form of questionnaires or surveys. If you have many questions that need answering, the Rare: Consulting team can create a survey of your own.
If you only have a couple of questions, you could consider Rare:’s new omnibus survey- this simply means a monthly survey that is sent to participants which incorporates questions from multiple different companies. This can be a really cost-effective way to get quick and simple answers.
Another option is Rare: Metrics, an online platform which is a great way to test out consumer preferences of your creatives, videos, logos, advertising messages, website, or any aspect of product offering.
How does quantitative research work?
For quantitative research the process generally looks a little like this:
A kick off meeting to discuss your needs and questions that you need answering, who the target audience for the survey should be, and how many people it will be sent to.
A draft of the survey will be created and sent to you for approval.
A final version of the survey is made, which is then uploaded to a scripting program and tested in-house.
A soft-launch of the survey to ensure that it is working as planned. Some dropouts can be expected, however at this stage we would check that dropout levels are not too high.
Survey will go ‘into field’, meaning that it is fully launched and sent out to the full number of participants.
The survey typically remains ‘in field’ until a pre-agreed time frame, or the desired number of responses are achieved.
After the survey ends, data tables are produced and analysis of the results is presented to you in a format of your choice.
Qualitative Research
If quantitative research helps us to answer ‘what’ questions about consumer behaviour, the primary purpose of qualitative research is to answer ‘why’- i.e. to flesh out and get a deeper understanding of the reasons for the behaviour. In contrast to quantitative research, qualitative typically consists of open ended questions. Qualitative research can often take the form of focus groups with a small number of participants, interviews with individual participants or even open ended questions in surveys.
How does qualitative research work?
The qualitative research process is typically as follows:
A kick off meeting to discuss your needs and questions that you need answering.
A draft of the script will be sent to you for your approval.
A final version of the script is made, and participants will then be recruited.
Focus groups or interviews will then be carried out, typically recorded for you to keep and refer back to.
Insight results will be produced in a format of your choice.
Desk/Secondary Research
The importance of desk research should not be overlooked. It is a vital way to gain market intelligence that is not covered by qualitative or quantitative studies. Some of the ways it can be used are to conduct competitor research, research market sizes and growth, build key opinion leader profiles, look at company profiles, positioning, advertising and marketing strategies, and to look for reasons behind trends in data.
Tips for getting the most out of research:
Use market research to understand consumers/markets and then base your decisions on the results of the research- do not try to plan the research to fit decisions that you have already made. This may sound obvious, but it is actually a very common mistake. For this reason, market research is often most effective if used at the outset of a project.
Keep the research neutral, and do not make assumptions. It can be very tempting to try to phrase questions in a way that will elicit the response you want to hear from consumers, or that makes assumptions about them, but the most effective research keeps questions neutral, and does not lead participants to a particular response.
Compare the phrasing of the two questions below. Which do you think is likely to give you the better insight into how consumers really feel about your product?
What do you like best about the product?
What, if anything, do you like or dislike about the product?
Consider how specialised the target group for your research is. If you are looking to canvas the views of a relatively wide audience, say of UK adults aged 18-30 who like cycling, then a survey will probably be the right option. If your research needs to target only people who fit a very specific criteria, for example those who have competed internationally at cycling, then other options such as interviews will likely be more suitable.
Now for the hard part: implementing research insights
So the research results are in, and you’ve got the insight you need to make business changes. Unfortunately the hardest part of the process can be actually implementing those changes; and a staggering 70% of attempts to make changes in business fail. There are often two key reasons for this; firstly because other employees or stakeholders are resistant to the change. This can often be because they were not fully involved in the research process. Another key barrier to change is a lack of practical solutions for actually building products that the research shows are needed. This is especially true where the change needed is part of a company’s digital transformation- a perennial problem for many organisations. Companies may not always know who to turn to to help with this.
At Rare: one of our unique capabilities is that we can help with the entire research process. We can run ideation sessions and workshops in-house with your team at the outset of projects to ensure that everyone is fully invested in the reasons for the research, and minimise the likelihood of resistance to change from internal stakeholders based on the results. We also have the Rare: Labs team spanning developers and product and innovation specialists who can help you develop and test new products, software and services. Contact us to find out more about any of the services mentioned in this article.
