Here are some areas where market research can help you build a stronger business.
1. Enhance your brand image
Many business owners don’t have a clear idea of their brand. They ask themselves, “How do customers perceive us? How does our brand compare to our competitors?”
You can rely on market research to improve your brand image by exploring the following topics:
Brand awareness – How well do customers know your brand ?
Comparisons with your competition — How do customers view your business compared to your competition?
Personification — What characteristics and qualities do customers associate with your business?
You can also survey your customers to get their feedback on your marketing content (logos, brochures, websites, etc.). Brand research is typically conducted by conducting customer interviews or focus groups. This allows you to explore different topics in depth and get feedback from participants. The results will help you better position your brand and improve your marketing assets.
2. Better understand your customers
Business owners sometimes need to get more specific information about the size of their market, who their target customers are, and how best to reach them. We recently conducted a study for a client who had developed a new kitchen product and wanted to get more specifics about their target market. Here are some of the insights we wanted to gain about potential consumers of this new product.
Age
Sex
Family situation
Children
Place of residence
Education level
Social networks used
We designed an online questionnaire that was administered to 1,000 consumers across Canada. This type of consumer research helps us identify the profile of the target audience, in order to position the brand strategically. By focusing your efforts on the right target market, you will get results faster, you will increase your effectiveness, and your marketing campaigns will yield better results overall.
3. Evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing
Many business owners want to better promote their business and generate more sales. Market research can help by providing you with information on the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. We can create studies to obtain customer feedback on the format of your marketing messages. We can also measure the visibility of certain marketing campaigns and activities and the reactions they generate among your customers.
Using this type of data can really help maximize the impact of your marketing budget , allowing you to design marketing strategies that reach and engage your audience.
4. Find new opportunities
Market research can help you identify new opportunities for your business. It can help you identify geographic regions that are ripe for growth and/or determine whether the market is ready for your products or services.
For example, you want to open a new store and need to find the mom database ideal location. Or, you are considering changing your distribution channel and need to assess the impact of this decision on your customer base.
To help you, we can analyze data from government publications, Statistics Canada and/or certain sector reports. These sources provide various information:
Market size
Demographic data
Market share statistics
Sector dynamics
Main supplier companies in the sector
Main competing companies
General industry data such as the number of companies and their geographical distribution
Obtaining this type of data is a necessary first step in assessing a new market and thus determining the business strategy and activities to focus on.
5. Gain a better understanding of your product features
If you are developing a new product or looking to improve an existing one, you need to know if you have selected the right features and packaging. Market research can provide you with information that will help you fine-tune your products before incurring high production costs.
When we conduct a new product study, we collect customer feedback on a particular concept and/or prototype. We also compile data on how consumers react to the product and its features: presentation, design, ease of use, colors, packaging, etc.
We may also seek to determine how consumers might purchase the product, in order to design an appropriate distribution plan. We may also survey consumers about their reactions to marketing messages, creative content and promotional ideas planned for the product launch.
We usually start with qualitative research (interviews or focus groups), because this dialogue-based format allows us to gather very useful and more detailed feedback from consumers. Whenever possible, we provide them with a prototype or sample of the product, so that they can see it up close and use it.
We then validate our research insights by conducting an in-depth survey of a similar, but larger, audience (e.g., 100+ consumers). This provides us with relevant data to make informed decisions about improvements to the product concept and/or design.
Let us know your feedback
Have you used market research in the past? Has it helped you make business decisions? Let us know your thoughts below.
