Understanding the Market Research Process
By Stewart Swayze
What is market research?
Market research is the process of gathering information on market trends, needs, and preferences. You can conduct market research on your brand, product, customers, prospects, or competition.
The market information gathered helps you make informed business decisions, remove distracting noise, and focus on the market information that matters most.
Why is market research important
The market is rapidly changing, product life-cycles are shrinking, and customer preferences continue to shift. Researching the market helps your business keep on top of the changes and remain ahead of the competition.
The benefits of market research are only limited to your goals, resources, and budget. Hinge Marketing found that companies that conduct market research — at least quarterly — grow almost 12X faster and are practically 2X as profitable as firms that do no research.
Primary vs secondary market research
When conducting research, there are two methods of research — primary and secondary.
Primary market research is original research conducted by you or someone you hire. The information you gather comes directly from the source. Primary research includes surveys, interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups. Your research participants could consist of current customers, former customers, prospects, industry experts, and influencers.
The information you collect is raw, unanalyzed, and specific to your project goals.
Secondary market research is gathering information that's already published and publically available. Secondary research includes analyzing studies, reports, statistics, and data that answer your market research questions.
Often, the secondary research data you gather was already analyzed or interpreted by a 3rd party — not specific to your goals.
Qualitative vs quantitative market research
There are two types of market research, qualitative and quantitative.
Qualitative market research is gathering non-numerical data or insights. The insights are subjective such as feelings, attitudes, and concerns. Marketers use qualitative insights to add depth and perception to the overall research. Often, it helps market researchers understand the "why" or to develop a hypothesis for further study.
Examples of qualitative market research include:
Interviews
Focus Groups
Open-ended survey questions
Quantitative market research is the collection of numerical data. The data is objective and measurable. Quantitative market researchers analyze the data to find correlations, determine causations, conduct regressions, and perform other types of market analysis. Often, quantitative research helps you identify "what" is happening in the market.
Examples of quantitative market research methods include:
Polls
Questionnaires
Surveys
Market research objectives
You can conduct market research on almost anything. But, before starting a market research project, you need clearly defined objectives.
Below are a few common market research objectives:
Buyer personas - Build profiles that represent your ideal customer based on research
Market segmentation - Divide your customers and prospects into specific segments based on demographics and psychographics
Marketing message testing - Create or adjust your marketing messages to match what your target audience wants to hear, read, or see
Market sizing - Understand the total available market and serviceable available market
Competitor analysis - Analyze your competition to determine your market position or conduct a gaps analysis to improve your go-to-market strategy
8 Common market research mistakes
Many marketers jump into the market research process only to find themselves overwhelmed. Before you start your next market research project, avoid the most common mistakes.
Not clearly defining market research objectives
Dumping too many research objectives into one study
Allowing confirmation bias to skew your research
Analyzing data without context
Thinking correlation is causation
Not spending enough time collecting and analyzing data
Believing your customers and prospects are telling you the truth
Thinking your too big to worry about the competition
Examples of market research
I support large companies and startups. My clients use research to improve their products, services, strategies, and operations. Below I'll list 3 examples that I've worked on for my clients. One of the critical components of a successful marketing research project is the ability to tie and apply the results to a specific goal. For each example, I always provide recommendations based on the uncovered information. I'm able to deliver these recommendations because of my depth of expertise in B2B strategy.
A global B2B industrial equipment manufacturer wanted to understand its competitors and improve its go-to-market strategy. I conducted a competitive analysis using primary and secondary research. Using qualitative insights and quantitative data, I presented my client with a detailed gap analysis, competitive positioning, and GTM strategy recommendations.
A domestic O&G distributor wanted to improve its sales strategy and key account management program. I used voice of customer (VOC), quantitative analysis of market & sales data, plus competitive benchmarking to recommend improvements to their sales strategy and key account management program.
A global B2B company wanted to redesign its sales performance management strategy. Using primary and secondary research, I conducted a market and competitive benchmarking project, plus analyzed its current sales performance management process to recommend a new and innovative strategy.
Can you conduct market research yourself
The short answer, Yes. There are certain aspects of marketing research that you can conduct yourself. But, be careful to consider the mistakes above.
Creating a non-biased market research questionnaires takes skill. Even if you’re only gathering secondary market research. Your confirmation bias can creep into your results.
Your internal marketers have a story they want to tell or not tell. It's easy to find insights and data to confirm that story unintentionally.
You're going to collect a lot of information. Unless you have marketers with specific expertise in analyzing market research, it could be best to hire an outside resource. Plus, think through the opportunity cost of allocating full-time resources on market research. Are your investment dollars better spent elsewhere?
Last, and more importantly, your customers and prospects are more likely to open up, share thoughts, and provide truthful insights to a third party — especially when the market research is blind. If you conduct primary research interviews yourself, those customers might be reluctant to be critical of your company or products. And give you the juicy information on your competitors. You want the critical and juicy information, that's where you can make the most of your research.
Everything starts with market research. When you need to develop a content strategy, you need to conduct research. If you want to improve your GTM strategy, you need market research. When you want to build a new product or service, you need to gather research.
If you'd like an expert to help with your next market research project, reach out to me. I'd be happy to support your company. You can learn more about my market research consulting by clicking here.
