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A Basic Guide to Defining Your Market Research Goals

by Caitlin Stewart , on May 29, 2014

market research process, featured on www.blog.marketresearch.com

1. Define the problem or opportunity and state your objectives

When creating a new goal, it is important to recognize any current problems in a company. You should also work to see whether a problem can be molded into an opportunity. Basic marketing research courses explain that a management problem is any type of issue that needs managerial action in order to resolve the issue. However, a marketing research problem is defined as a statement specifying the type of information needed by the decision maker to help solve the management problem and how that information can be obtained efficiently and effectively. To solve the market research problem, a research team can develop a marketing research objective, which is a goal defining the specific information needed to solve the marketing research problem.

Before you begin a project , make sure you clearly define your objectives and the outcomes you expect from the research that will be conducted. Having a clear and definitive goal is helpful because setting too many goals can dilute a project and increase the chance of having the research fail. By having reasonable goals, you can refer back to them during the project to distinguish whether the research is still keeping the original goals in mind.

2. Develop the research design to meet your objectives

The purpose of a well-developed research design is to confirm theories, measure brand loyalty, describe the population, build a customer profile, or to gain specific information. Based on what you are interested in, deciding whether a descriptive or causal study is needed to meet research objectives is key when starting your project.

Consider all potential issues that could arise during research so you and your research team can be prepared and aware if they occur. For example, if information being gathered is irrelevant to the company’s newly developed objectives, both time and money will be wasted on continuing with that specific research. If this ever occurs, reorganize and consider working with research specialists to help in making sure that the data you are observing is targeted at your specific needs.

3. Collect information relevant to your objectives

Once information and data is needed, sometimes the easiest step is to start looking at secondary data first. Utilizing data sets and examining organized marketing research reports have the potential to clarify your issues or even provide a solution to your research objectives. Secondary data can even alert researchers to other problems and is usually less expensive and faster to gather than primary data.

Once you review or purchase all your secondary data, your researchers can determine whether any further research through surveys or focus groups is necessary. Conducting that research and developing solutions from the information gathered will be required in drawing new conclusions.

4. Create a final report

Create a final report by analyzing all data and organizing it into a useful format for your company’s marketing team. Sorting through conclusions to relate potential solutions to your goals and objectives is central in ensuring your company can make use of the new information both effectively and beneficially.

5. Follow up

Once all findings are organized, you need to choose whether the information gathered is going to be put into use. You should use this stage to identify the areas where marketing techniques can be improved for future research projects. But once all is finished, evaluating whether the information gathered was able to help create solutions and meet your goals is vital. Upper management will need to determine whether the information gathered was a.) worth the cost, and b.) beneficial in meeting the outlined goals.

By knowing what your overall goals and objectives are before you begin a new project, you will help your company and yourself in making sure the research stays on task.

Interested in learning more about using business intelligence to achieve your research goals? Download our free white paper on How to Use Market Research to Launch Your Business.

Thanks for reading!

Caitlin Stewart Marketing Intern, MarketResearch.com

Download "The 5 Keys to Estimating Market Sizing for Strategic Decision Making"

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Written by Mary Kate Miller | June 1, 2021

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Market research is a cornerstone of all successful, strategic businesses. It can also be daunting for entrepreneurs looking to launch a startup or start a side hustle . What is market research, anyway? And how do you…do it?

We’ll walk you through absolutely everything you need to know about the market research process so that by the end of this guide, you’ll be an expert in market research too. And what’s more important: you’ll have actionable steps you can take to start collecting your own market research.

What Is Market Research?

Market research is the organized process of gathering information about your target customers and market. Market research can help you better understand customer behavior and competitor strengths and weaknesses, as well as provide insight for the best strategies in launching new businesses and products. There are different ways to approach market research, including primary and secondary research and qualitative and quantitative research. The strongest approaches will include a combination of all four.

“Virtually every business can benefit from conducting some market research,” says Niles Koenigsberg of Real FiG Advertising + Marketing . “Market research can help you piece together your [business’s] strengths and weaknesses, along with your prospective opportunities, so that you can understand where your unique differentiators may lie.” Well-honed market research will help your brand stand out from the competition and help you see what you need to do to lead the market. It can also do so much more.

The Purposes of Market Research

Why do market research? It can help you…

Pinpoint your target market, create buyer personas, and develop a more holistic understanding of your customer base and market.
Understand current market conditions to evaluate risks and anticipate how your product or service will perform.
Validate a concept prior to launch.
Identify gaps in the market that your competitors have created or overlooked.
Solve problems that have been left unresolved by the existing product/brand offerings.
Identify opportunities and solutions for new products or services.
Develop killer marketing strategies .

What Are the Benefits of Market Research?

Strong market research can help your business in many ways. It can…

Strengthen your market position.
Help you identify your strengths and weaknesses.
Help you identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
Minimize risk.
Center your customers’ experience from the get-go.
Help you create a dynamic strategy based on market conditions and customer needs/demands.

What Are the Basic Methods of Market Research?

The basic methods of market research include surveys, personal interviews, customer observation, and the review of secondary research. In addition to these basic methods, a forward-thinking market research approach incorporates data from the digital landscape like social media analysis, SEO research, gathering feedback via forums, and more. Throughout this guide, we will cover each of the methods commonly used in market research to give you a comprehensive overview.

Primary vs. Secondary Market Research

Primary and secondary are the two main types of market research you can do. The latter relies on research conducted by others. Primary research, on the other hand, refers to the fact-finding efforts you conduct on your own.

This approach is limited, however. It’s likely that the research objectives of these secondary data points differ from your own, and it can be difficult to confirm the veracity of their findings.

Primary Market Research

Primary research is more labor intensive, but it generally yields data that is exponentially more actionable. It can be conducted through interviews, surveys, online research, and your own data collection. Every new business should engage in primary market research prior to launch. It will help you validate that your idea has traction, and it will give you the information you need to help minimize financial risk.

You can hire an agency to conduct this research on your behalf. This brings the benefit of expertise, as you’ll likely work with a market research analyst. The downside is that hiring an agency can be expensive—too expensive for many burgeoning entrepreneurs. That brings us to the second approach. You can also do the market research yourself, which substantially reduces the financial burden of starting a new business .

Secondary Market Research

Secondary research includes resources like government databases and industry-specific data and publications. It can be beneficial to start your market research with secondary sources because it’s widely available and often free-to-access. This information will help you gain a broad overview of the market conditions for your new business.

Identify Your Goals and Your Audience

Before you begin conducting interviews or sending out surveys, you need to set your market research goals. At the end of your market research process, you want to have a clear idea of who your target market is—including demographic information like age, gender, and where they live—but you also want to start with a rough idea of who your audience might be and what you’re trying to achieve with market research.

You can pinpoint your objectives by asking yourself a series of guiding questions:

What are you hoping to discover through your research?
Who are you hoping to serve better because of your findings?
What do you think your market is?
Who are your competitors?
Are you testing the reception of a new product category or do you want to see if your product or service solves the problem left by a current gap in the market?
Are you just…testing the waters to get a sense of how people would react to a new brand?

Once you’ve narrowed down the “what” of your market research goals, you’re ready to move onto how you can best achieve them. Think of it like algebra. Many math problems start with “solve for x.” Once you know what you’re looking for, you can get to work trying to find it. It’s a heck of a lot easier to solve a problem when you know you’re looking for “x” than if you were to say “I’m gonna throw some numbers out there and see if I find a variable.”

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How to Do Market Research

This guide outlines every component of a comprehensive market research effort. Take into consideration the goals you have established for your market research, as they will influence which of these elements you’ll want to include in your market research strategy.

Secondary Data

Secondary data allows you to utilize pre-existing data to garner a sense of market conditions and opportunities. You can rely on published market studies, white papers, and public competitive information to start your market research journey.

Secondary data, while useful, is limited and cannot substitute your own primary data. It’s best used for quantitative data that can provide background to your more specific inquiries.

Find Your Customers Online

Once you’ve identified your target market, you can use online gathering spaces and forums to gain insights and give yourself a competitive advantage. Rebecca McCusker of The Creative Content Shop recommends internet recon as a vital tool for gaining a sense of customer needs and sentiment. “Read their posts and comments on forums, YouTube video comments, Facebook group [comments], and even Amazon/Goodreads book comments to get in their heads and see what people are saying.”

If you’re interested in engaging with your target demographic online, there are some general rules you should follow. First, secure the consent of any group moderators to ensure that you are acting within the group guidelines. Failure to do so could result in your eviction from the group.

Not all comments have the same research value. “Focus on the comments and posts with the most comments and highest engagement,” says McCusker. These high-engagement posts can give you a sense of what is already connecting and gaining traction within the group.

Social media can also be a great avenue for finding interview subjects. “LinkedIn is very useful if your [target customer] has a very specific job or works in a very specific industry or sector. It’s amazing the amount of people that will be willing to help,” explains Miguel González, a marketing executive at Dealers League . “My advice here is BE BRAVE, go to LinkedIn, or even to people you know and ask them, do quick interviews and ask real people that belong to that market and segment and get your buyer persona information first hand.”

Market research interviews can provide direct feedback on your brand, product, or service and give you a better understanding of consumer pain points and interests.

When organizing your market research interviews, you want to pay special attention to the sample group you’re selecting, as it will directly impact the information you receive. According to Tanya Zhang, the co-founder of Nimble Made , you want to first determine whether you want to choose a representative sample—for example, interviewing people who match each of the buyer persona/customer profiles you’ve developed—or a random sample.

“A sampling of your usual persona styles, for example, can validate details that you’ve already established about your product, while a random sampling may [help you] discover a new way people may use your product,” Zhang says.

Market Surveys

Market surveys solicit customer inclinations regarding your potential product or service through a series of open-ended questions. This direct outreach to your target audience can provide information on your customers’ preferences, attitudes, buying potential, and more.

Every expert we asked voiced unanimous support for market surveys as a powerful tool for market research. With the advent of various survey tools with accessible pricing—or free use—it’s never been easier to assemble, disseminate, and gather market surveys. While it should also be noted that surveys shouldn’t replace customer interviews , they can be used to supplement customer interviews to give you feedback from a broader audience.

Who to Include in Market Surveys

Current customers
Past customers
Your existing audience (such as social media/newsletter audiences)

Example Questions to Include in Market Surveys

While the exact questions will vary for each business, here are some common, helpful questions that you may want to consider for your market survey. Demographic Questions: the questions that help you understand, demographically, who your target customers are:

“What is your age?”
“Where do you live?”
“What is your gender identity?”
“What is your household income?”
“What is your household size?”
“What do you do for a living?”
“What is your highest level of education?”

Product-Based Questions: Whether you’re seeking feedback for an existing brand or an entirely new one, these questions will help you get a sense of how people feel about your business, product, or service:

“How well does/would our product/service meet your needs?”
“How does our product/service compare to similar products/services that you use?”
“How long have you been a customer?” or “What is the likelihood that you would be a customer of our brand?

Personal/Informative Questions: the deeper questions that help you understand how your audience thinks and what they care about.

“What are your biggest challenges?”
“What’s most important to you?”
“What do you do for fun (hobbies, interests, activities)?”
“Where do you seek new information when researching a new product?”
“How do you like to make purchases?”
“What is your preferred method for interacting with a brand?”

Survey Tools

Online survey tools make it easy to distribute surveys and collect responses. The best part is that there are many free tools available. If you’re making your own online survey, you may want to consider SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Google Forms, or Zoho Survey.

Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis is a breakdown of how your business stacks up against the competition. There are many different ways to conduct this analysis. One of the most popular methods is a SWOT analysis, which stands for “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.” This type of analysis is helpful because it gives you a more robust understanding of why a customer might choose a competitor over your business. Seeing how you stack up against the competition can give you the direction you need to carve out your place as a market leader.

Social Media Analysis

Social media has fundamentally changed the market research landscape, making it easier than ever to engage with a wide swath of consumers. Follow your current or potential competitors on social media to see what they’re posting and how their audience is engaging with it. Social media can also give you a lower cost opportunity for testing different messaging and brand positioning.

SEO Analysis and Opportunities

SEO analysis can help you identify the digital competition for getting the word out about your brand, product, or service. You won’t want to overlook this valuable information. Search listening tools offer a novel approach to understanding the market and generating the content strategy that will drive business. Tools like Google Trends and Awario can streamline this process.

Ready to Kick Your Business Into High Gear?

Now that you’ve completed the guide to market research you know you’re ready to put on your researcher hat to give your business the best start. Still not sure how actually… launch the thing? Our free mini-course can run you through the essentials for starting your side hustle .

About Mary Kate Miller

Mary Kate Miller writes about small business, real estate, and finance. In addition to writing for Foundr, her work has been published by The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Bustle, and more. She lives in Chicago.

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How to Do Market Research: The Complete Guide

Learn how to do market research with this step-by-step guide, complete with templates, tools and real-world examples.

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What are your customers’ needs? How does your product compare to the competition? What are the emerging trends and opportunities in your industry? If these questions keep you up at night, it’s time to conduct market research.

Market research plays a pivotal role in your ability to stay competitive and relevant, helping you anticipate shifts in consumer behavior and industry dynamics. It involves gathering these insights using a wide range of techniques, from surveys and interviews to data analysis and observational studies.

In this guide, we’ll explore why market research is crucial, the various types of market research, the methods used in data collection, and how to effectively conduct market research to drive informed decision-making and success.

What is market research?

Market research is the systematic process of gathering, analyzing and interpreting information about a specific market or industry. The purpose of market research is to offer valuable insight into the preferences and behaviors of your target audience, and anticipate shifts in market trends and the competitive landscape. This information helps you make data-driven decisions, develop effective strategies for your business, and maximize your chances of long-term growth.

Business intelligence insight graphic with hand showing a lightbulb with $ sign in it

Why is market research important?

By understanding the significance of market research, you can make sure you’re asking the right questions and using the process to your advantage. Some of the benefits of market research include:

Informed decision-making: Market research provides you with the data and insights you need to make smart decisions for your business. It helps you identify opportunities, assess risks and tailor your strategies to meet the demands of the market. Without market research, decisions are often based on assumptions or guesswork, leading to costly mistakes.
Customer-centric approach: A cornerstone of market research involves developing a deep understanding of customer needs and preferences. This gives you valuable insights into your target audience, helping you develop products, services and marketing campaigns that resonate with your customers.
Competitive advantage: By conducting market research, you’ll gain a competitive edge. You’ll be able to identify gaps in the market, analyze competitor strengths and weaknesses, and position your business strategically. This enables you to create unique value propositions, differentiate yourself from competitors, and seize opportunities that others may overlook.
Risk mitigation: Market research helps you anticipate market shifts and potential challenges. By identifying threats early, you can proactively adjust their strategies to mitigate risks and respond effectively to changing circumstances. This proactive approach is particularly valuable in volatile industries.
Resource optimization: Conducting market research allows organizations to allocate their time, money and resources more efficiently. It ensures that investments are made in areas with the highest potential return on investment, reducing wasted resources and improving overall business performance.
Adaptation to market trends: Markets evolve rapidly, driven by technological advancements, cultural shifts and changing consumer attitudes. Market research ensures that you stay ahead of these trends and adapt your offerings accordingly so you can avoid becoming obsolete.

As you can see, market research empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions, cater to customer needs, outperform competitors, mitigate risks, optimize resources and stay agile in a dynamic marketplace. These benefits make it a huge industry; the global market research services market is expected to grow from $76.37 billion in 2021 to $108.57 billion in 2026 . Now, let’s dig into the different types of market research that can help you achieve these benefits.

Types of market research

Qualitative research
Quantitative research
Exploratory research
Descriptive research
Causal research
Cross-sectional research
Longitudinal research

Despite its advantages, 23% of organizations don’t have a clear market research strategy. Part of developing a strategy involves choosing the right type of market research for your business goals. The most commonly used approaches include:

1. Qualitative research

Qualitative research focuses on understanding the underlying motivations, attitudes and perceptions of individuals or groups. It is typically conducted through techniques like in-depth interviews, focus groups and content analysis — methods we’ll discuss further in the sections below. Qualitative research provides rich, nuanced insights that can inform product development, marketing strategies and brand positioning.

2. Quantitative research

Quantitative research, in contrast to qualitative research, involves the collection and analysis of numerical data, often through surveys, experiments and structured questionnaires. This approach allows for statistical analysis and the measurement of trends, making it suitable for large-scale market studies and hypothesis testing. While it’s worthwhile using a mix of qualitative and quantitative research, most businesses prioritize the latter because it is scientific, measurable and easily replicated across different experiments.

3. Exploratory research

Whether you’re conducting qualitative or quantitative research or a mix of both, exploratory research is often the first step. Its primary goal is to help you understand a market or problem so you can gain insights and identify potential issues or opportunities. This type of market research is less structured and is typically conducted through open-ended interviews, focus groups or secondary data analysis. Exploratory research is valuable when entering new markets or exploring new product ideas.

4. Descriptive research

As its name implies, descriptive research seeks to describe a market, population or phenomenon in detail. It involves collecting and summarizing data to answer questions about audience demographics and behaviors, market size, and current trends. Surveys, observational studies and content analysis are common methods used in descriptive research.

5. Causal research

Causal research aims to establish cause-and-effect relationships between variables. It investigates whether changes in one variable result in changes in another. Experimental designs, A/B testing and regression analysis are common causal research methods. This sheds light on how specific marketing strategies or product changes impact consumer behavior.

6. Cross-sectional research

Cross-sectional market research involves collecting data from a sample of the population at a single point in time. It is used to analyze differences, relationships or trends among various groups within a population. Cross-sectional studies are helpful for market segmentation, identifying target audiences and assessing market trends at a specific moment.

7. Longitudinal research

Longitudinal research, in contrast to cross-sectional research, collects data from the same subjects over an extended period. This allows for the analysis of trends, changes and developments over time. Longitudinal studies are useful for tracking long-term developments in consumer preferences, brand loyalty and market dynamics.

Each type of market research has its strengths and weaknesses, and the method you choose depends on your specific research goals and the depth of understanding you’re aiming to achieve. In the following sections, we’ll delve into primary and secondary research approaches and specific research methods.

Primary vs. secondary market research

Market research of all types can be broadly categorized into two main approaches: primary research and secondary research. By understanding the differences between these approaches, you can better determine the most appropriate research method for your specific goals.

Primary market research

Primary research involves the collection of original data straight from the source. Typically, this involves communicating directly with your target audience — through surveys, interviews, focus groups and more — to gather information. Here are some key attributes of primary market research:

Customized data: Primary research provides data that is tailored to your research needs. You design a custom research study and gather information specific to your goals.
Up-to-date insights: Because primary research involves communicating with customers, the data you collect reflects the most current market conditions and consumer behaviors.
Time-consuming and resource-intensive: Despite its advantages, primary research can be labor-intensive and costly, especially when dealing with large sample sizes or complex study designs. Whether you hire a market research consultant, agency or use an in-house team, primary research studies consume a large amount of resources and time.

Secondary market research

Secondary research, on the other hand, involves analyzing data that has already been compiled by third-party sources, such as online research tools, databases, news sites, industry reports and academic studies.

Here are the main characteristics of secondary market research:

Cost-effective: Secondary research is generally more cost-effective than primary research since it doesn’t require building a research plan from scratch. You and your team can look at databases, websites and publications on an ongoing basis, without needing to design a custom experiment or hire a consultant.
Leverages multiple sources: Data tools and software extract data from multiple places across the web, and then consolidate that information within a single platform. This means you’ll get a greater amount of data and a wider scope from secondary research.
Quick to access: You can access a wide range of information rapidly — often in seconds — if you’re using online research tools and databases. Because of this, you can act on insights sooner, rather than taking the time to develop an experiment.

So, when should you use primary vs. secondary research? In practice, many market research projects incorporate both primary and secondary research to take advantage of the strengths of each approach.

One rule of thumb is to focus on secondary research to obtain background information, market trends or industry benchmarks. It is especially valuable for conducting preliminary research, competitor analysis, or when time and budget constraints are tight. Then, if you still have knowledge gaps or need to answer specific questions unique to your business model, use primary research to create a custom experiment.

Market research methods

Surveys and questionnaires
Focus groups
Observational research
Online research tools
Experiments
Content analysis
Ethnographic research

How do primary and secondary research approaches translate into specific research methods? Let’s take a look at the different ways you can gather data:

1. Surveys and questionnaires

Surveys and questionnaires are popular methods for collecting structured data from a large number of respondents. They involve a set of predetermined questions that participants answer. Surveys can be conducted through various channels, including online tools, telephone interviews and in-person or online questionnaires. They are useful for gathering quantitative data and assessing customer demographics, opinions, preferences and needs. On average, customer surveys have a 33% response rate , so keep that in mind as you consider your sample size.

2. Interviews

Interviews are in-depth conversations with individuals or groups to gather qualitative insights. They can be structured (with predefined questions) or unstructured (with open-ended discussions). Interviews are valuable for exploring complex topics, uncovering motivations and obtaining detailed feedback.

3. Focus groups

The most common primary research methods are in-depth webcam interviews and focus groups. Focus groups are a small gathering of participants who discuss a specific topic or product under the guidance of a moderator. These discussions are valuable for primary market research because they reveal insights into consumer attitudes, perceptions and emotions. Focus groups are especially useful for idea generation, concept testing and understanding group dynamics within your target audience.

4. Observational research

Observational research involves observing and recording participant behavior in a natural setting. This method is particularly valuable when studying consumer behavior in physical spaces, such as retail stores or public places. In some types of observational research, participants are aware you’re watching them; in other cases, you discreetly watch consumers without their knowledge, as they use your product. Either way, observational research provides firsthand insights into how people interact with products or environments.

5. Online research tools

You and your team can do your own secondary market research using online tools. These tools include data prospecting platforms and databases, as well as online surveys, social media listening, web analytics and sentiment analysis platforms. They help you gather data from online sources, monitor industry trends, track competitors, understand consumer preferences and keep tabs on online behavior. We’ll talk more about choosing the right market research tools in the sections that follow.

6. Experiments

Market research experiments are controlled tests of variables to determine causal relationships. While experiments are often associated with scientific research, they are also used in market research to assess the impact of specific marketing strategies, product features, or pricing and packaging changes.

7. Content analysis

Content analysis involves the systematic examination of textual, visual or audio content to identify patterns, themes and trends. It’s commonly applied to customer reviews, social media posts and other forms of online content to analyze consumer opinions and sentiments.

8. Ethnographic research

Ethnographic research immerses researchers into the daily lives of consumers to understand their behavior and culture. This method is particularly valuable when studying niche markets or exploring the cultural context of consumer choices.

How to do market research

Set clear objectives
Identify your target audience
Choose your research methods
Use the right market research tools
Collect data
Analyze data
Interpret your findings
Identify opportunities and challenges
Make informed business decisions
Monitor and adapt

Now that you have gained insights into the various market research methods at your disposal, let’s delve into the practical aspects of how to conduct market research effectively. Here’s a quick step-by-step overview, from defining objectives to monitoring market shifts.

1. Set clear objectives

When you set clear and specific goals, you’re essentially creating a compass to guide your research questions and methodology. Start by precisely defining what you want to achieve. Are you launching a new product and want to understand its viability in the market? Are you evaluating customer satisfaction with a product redesign?

Start by creating SMART goals — objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Not only will this clarify your research focus from the outset, but it will also help you track progress and benchmark your success throughout the process.

You should also consult with key stakeholders and team members to ensure alignment on your research objectives before diving into data collecting. This will help you gain diverse perspectives and insights that will shape your research approach.

2. Identify your target audience

Next, you’ll need to pinpoint your target audience to determine who should be included in your research. Begin by creating detailed buyer personas or stakeholder profiles. Consider demographic factors like age, gender, income and location, but also delve into psychographics, such as interests, values and pain points.

The more specific your target audience, the more accurate and actionable your research will be. Additionally, segment your audience if your research objectives involve studying different groups, such as current customers and potential leads.

If you already have existing customers, you can also hold conversations with them to better understand your target market. From there, you can refine your buyer personas and tailor your research methods accordingly.

3. Choose your research methods

Selecting the right research methods is crucial for gathering high-quality data. Start by considering the nature of your research objectives. If you’re exploring consumer preferences, surveys and interviews can provide valuable insights. For in-depth understanding, focus groups or observational research might be suitable. Consider using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to gain a well-rounded perspective.

You’ll also need to consider your budget. Think about what you can realistically achieve using the time and resources available to you. If you have a fairly generous budget, you may want to try a mix of primary and secondary research approaches. If you’re doing market research for a startup , on the other hand, chances are your budget is somewhat limited. If that’s the case, try addressing your goals with secondary research tools before investing time and effort in a primary research study.

4. Use the right market research tools

Whether you’re conducting primary or secondary research, you’ll need to choose the right tools. These can help you do anything from sending surveys to customers to monitoring trends and analyzing data. Here are some examples of popular market research tools:

Market research software: Crunchbase is a platform that provides best-in-class company data, making it valuable for market research on growing companies and industries. You can use Crunchbase to access trusted, first-party funding data, revenue data, news and firmographics, enabling you to monitor industry trends and understand customer needs.

Survey and questionnaire tools: SurveyMonkey is a widely used online survey platform that allows you to create, distribute and analyze surveys. Google Forms is a free tool that lets you create surveys and collect responses through Google Drive.
Data analysis software: Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets are useful for conducting statistical analyses. SPSS is a powerful statistical analysis software used for data processing, analysis and reporting.
Social listening tools: Brandwatch is a social listening and analytics platform that helps you monitor social media conversations, track sentiment and analyze trends. Mention is a media monitoring tool that allows you to track mentions of your brand, competitors and keywords across various online sources.
Data visualization platforms: Tableau is a data visualization tool that helps you create interactive and shareable dashboards and reports. Power BI by Microsoft is a business analytics tool for creating interactive visualizations and reports.

5. Collect data

There’s an infinite amount of data you could be collecting using these tools, so you’ll need to be intentional about going after the data that aligns with your research goals. Implement your chosen research methods, whether it’s distributing surveys, conducting interviews or pulling from secondary research platforms. Pay close attention to data quality and accuracy, and stick to a standardized process to streamline data capture and reduce errors.

6. Analyze data

Once data is collected, you’ll need to analyze it systematically. Use statistical software or analysis tools to identify patterns, trends and correlations. For qualitative data, employ thematic analysis to extract common themes and insights. Visualize your findings with charts, graphs and tables to make complex data more understandable.

If you’re not proficient in data analysis, consider outsourcing or collaborating with a data analyst who can assist in processing and interpreting your data accurately.

7. Interpret your findings

Interpreting your market research findings involves understanding what the data means in the context of your objectives. Are there significant trends that uncover the answers to your initial research questions? Consider the implications of your findings on your business strategy. It’s essential to move beyond raw data and extract actionable insights that inform decision-making.

Hold a cross-functional meeting or workshop with relevant team members to collectively interpret the findings. Different perspectives can lead to more comprehensive insights and innovative solutions.

8. Identify opportunities and challenges

Use your research findings to identify potential growth opportunities and challenges within your market. What segments of your audience are underserved or overlooked? Are there emerging trends you can capitalize on? Conversely, what obstacles or competitors could hinder your progress?

Lay out this information in a clear and organized way by conducting a SWOT analysis, which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Jot down notes for each of these areas to provide a structured overview of gaps and hurdles in the market.

9. Make informed business decisions

Market research is only valuable if it leads to informed decisions for your company. Based on your insights, devise actionable strategies and initiatives that align with your research objectives. Whether it’s refining your product, targeting new customer segments or adjusting pricing, ensure your decisions are rooted in the data.

At this point, it’s also crucial to keep your team aligned and accountable. Create an action plan that outlines specific steps, responsibilities and timelines for implementing the recommendations derived from your research.

10. Monitor and adapt

Market research isn’t a one-time activity; it’s an ongoing process. Continuously monitor market conditions, customer behaviors and industry trends. Set up mechanisms to collect real-time data and feedback. As you gather new information, be prepared to adapt your strategies and tactics accordingly. Regularly revisiting your research ensures your business remains agile and reflects changing market dynamics and consumer preferences.

Online market research sources

As you go through the steps above, you’ll want to turn to trusted, reputable sources to gather your data. Here’s a list to get you started:

Crunchbase: As mentioned above, Crunchbase is an online platform with an extensive dataset, allowing you to access in-depth insights on market trends, consumer behavior and competitive analysis. You can also customize your search options to tailor your research to specific industries, geographic regions or customer personas.

Product Image Advanced Search CRMConnected

Academic databases: Academic databases, such as ProQuest and JSTOR , are treasure troves of scholarly research papers, studies and academic journals. They offer in-depth analyses of various subjects, including market trends, consumer preferences and industry-specific insights. Researchers can access a wealth of peer-reviewed publications to gain a deeper understanding of their research topics.
Government and NGO databases: Government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and other institutions frequently maintain databases containing valuable economic, demographic and industry-related data. These sources offer credible statistics and reports on a wide range of topics, making them essential for market researchers. Examples include the U.S. Census Bureau , the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Pew Research Center .
Industry reports: Industry reports and market studies are comprehensive documents prepared by research firms, industry associations and consulting companies. They provide in-depth insights into specific markets, including market size, trends, competitive analysis and consumer behavior. You can find this information by looking at relevant industry association databases; examples include the American Marketing Association and the National Retail Federation .
Social media and online communities: Social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter (X) , forums such as Reddit and Quora , and review platforms such as G2 can provide real-time insights into consumer sentiment, opinions and trends.

Market research examples

At this point, you have market research tools and data sources — but how do you act on the data you gather? Let’s go over some real-world examples that illustrate the practical application of market research across various industries. These examples showcase how market research can lead to smart decision-making and successful business decisions.

Example 1: Apple’s iPhone launch

Apple ’s iconic iPhone launch in 2007 serves as a prime example of market research driving product innovation in tech. Before the iPhone’s release, Apple conducted extensive market research to understand consumer preferences, pain points and unmet needs in the mobile phone industry. This research led to the development of a touchscreen smartphone with a user-friendly interface, addressing consumer demands for a more intuitive and versatile device. The result was a revolutionary product that disrupted the market and redefined the smartphone industry.

Example 2: McDonald’s global expansion

McDonald’s successful global expansion strategy demonstrates the importance of market research when expanding into new territories. Before entering a new market, McDonald’s conducts thorough research to understand local tastes, preferences and cultural nuances. This research informs menu customization, marketing strategies and store design. For instance, in India, McDonald’s offers a menu tailored to local preferences, including vegetarian options. This market-specific approach has enabled McDonald’s to adapt and thrive in diverse global markets.

Example 3: Organic and sustainable farming

The shift toward organic and sustainable farming practices in the food industry is driven by market research that indicates increased consumer demand for healthier and environmentally friendly food options. As a result, food producers and retailers invest in sustainable sourcing and organic product lines — such as with these sustainable seafood startups — to align with this shift in consumer values.

The bottom line? Market research has multiple use cases and is a critical practice for any industry. Whether it’s launching groundbreaking products, entering new markets or responding to changing consumer preferences, you can use market research to shape successful strategies and outcomes.

Market research templates

You finally have a strong understanding of how to do market research and apply it in the real world. Before we wrap up, here are some market research templates that you can use as a starting point for your projects:

Smartsheet competitive analysis templates : These spreadsheets can serve as a framework for gathering information about the competitive landscape and obtaining valuable lessons to apply to your business strategy.
SurveyMonkey product survey template : Customize the questions on this survey based on what you want to learn from your target customers.
HubSpot templates : HubSpot offers a wide range of free templates you can use for market research, business planning and more.
SCORE templates : SCORE is a nonprofit organization that provides templates for business plans, market analysis and financial projections.
SBA.gov : The U.S. Small Business Administration offers templates for every aspect of your business, including market research, and is particularly valuable for new startups.

Strengthen your business with market research

When conducted effectively, market research is like a guiding star. Equipped with the right tools and techniques, you can uncover valuable insights, stay competitive, foster innovation and navigate the complexities of your industry.

Throughout this guide, we’ve discussed the definition of market research, different research methods, and how to conduct it effectively. We’ve also explored various types of market research and shared practical insights and templates for getting started.

Now, it’s time to start the research process. Trust in data, listen to the market and make informed decisions that guide your company toward lasting success.

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What Is Market Research?

How It Works
Primary vs. Secondary
How to Conduct Research

The Bottom Line

Marketing Essentials

How to Do Market Research, Types, and Example

Joules Garcia / Investopedia

Market research examines consumer behavior and trends in the economy to help a business develop and fine-tune its business idea and strategy. It helps a business understand its target market by gathering and analyzing data.

Market research is the process of evaluating the viability of a new service or product through research conducted directly with potential customers. It allows a company to define its target market and get opinions and other feedback from consumers about their interest in a product or service.

Research may be conducted in-house or by a third party that specializes in market research. It can be done through surveys and focus groups, among other ways. Test subjects are usually compensated with product samples or a small stipend for their time.

Key Takeaways

Companies conduct market research before introducing new products to determine their appeal to potential customers.
Tools include focus groups, telephone interviews, and questionnaires.
The results of market research inform the final design of the product and determine how it will be positioned in the marketplace.
Market research usually combines primary information, gathered directly from consumers, and secondary information, which is data available from external sources.

Market Research

How market research works.

Market research is used to determine the viability of a new product or service. The results may be used to revise the product design and fine-tune the strategy for introducing it to the public. This can include information gathered for the purpose of determining market segmentation . It also informs product differentiation , which is used to tailor advertising.

A business engages in various tasks to complete the market research process. It gathers information based on the market sector being targeted by the product. This information is then analyzed and relevant data points are interpreted to draw conclusions about how the product may be optimally designed and marketed to the market segment for which it is intended.

It is a critical component in the research and development (R&D) phase of a new product or service introduction. Market research can be conducted in many different ways, including surveys, product testing, interviews, and focus groups.

Market research is a critical tool that companies use to understand what consumers want, develop products that those consumers will use, and maintain a competitive advantage over other companies in their industry.

Primary Market Research vs. Secondary Market Research

Market research usually consists of a combination of:

Primary research, gathered by the company or by an outside company that it hires
Secondary research, which draws on external sources of data

Primary Market Research

Primary research generally falls into two categories: exploratory and specific research.

Exploratory research is less structured and functions via open-ended questions. The questions may be posed in a focus group setting, telephone interviews, or questionnaires. It results in questions or issues that the company needs to address about a product that it has under development.
Specific research delves more deeply into the problems or issues identified in exploratory research.

Secondary Market Research

All market research is informed by the findings of other researchers about the needs and wants of consumers. Today, much of this research can be found online.

Secondary research can include population information from government census data , trade association research reports , polling results, and research from other businesses operating in the same market sector.

History of Market Research

Formal market research began in Germany during the 1920s. In the United States, it soon took off with the advent of the Golden Age of Radio.

Companies that created advertisements for this new entertainment medium began to look at the demographics of the audiences who listened to each of the radio plays, music programs, and comedy skits that were presented.

They had once tried to reach the widest possible audience by placing their messages on billboards or in the most popular magazines. With radio programming, they had the chance to target rural or urban consumers, teenagers or families, and judge the results by the sales numbers that followed.

Types of Market Research

Face-to-face interviews.

From their earliest days, market research companies would interview people on the street about the newspapers and magazines that they read regularly and ask whether they recalled any of the ads or brands that were published in them. Data collected from these interviews were compared to the circulation of the publication to determine the effectiveness of those ads.

Market research and surveys were adapted from these early techniques.

To get a strong understanding of your market, it’s essential to understand demand, market size, economic indicators, location, market saturation, and pricing.

Focus Groups

A focus group is a small number of representative consumers chosen to try a product or watch an advertisement.

Afterward, the group is asked for feedback on their perceptions of the product, the company’s brand, or competing products. The company then takes that information and makes decisions about what to do with the product or service, whether that's releasing it, making changes, or abandoning it altogether.

Phone Research

The man-on-the-street interview technique soon gave way to the telephone interview. A telephone interviewer could collect information in a more efficient and cost-effective fashion.

Telephone research was a preferred tactic of market researchers for many years. It has become much more difficult in recent years as landline phone service dwindles and is replaced by less accessible mobile phones.

Survey Research

As an alternative to focus groups, surveys represent a cost-effective way to determine consumer attitudes without having to interview anyone in person. Consumers are sent surveys in the mail, usually with a coupon or voucher to incentivize participation. These surveys help determine how consumers feel about the product, brand, and price point.

Online Market Research

With people spending more time online, market research activities have shifted online as well. Data collection still uses a survey-style form. But instead of companies actively seeking participants by finding them on the street or cold calling them on the phone, people can choose to sign up, take surveys, and offer opinions when they have time.

This makes the process far less intrusive and less rushed, since people can participate on their own time and of their own volition.

How to Conduct Market Research

The first step to effective market research is to determine the goals of the study. Each study should seek to answer a clear, well-defined problem. For example, a company might seek to identify consumer preferences, brand recognition, or the comparative effectiveness of different types of ad campaigns.

After that, the next step is to determine who will be included in the research. Market research is an expensive process, and a company cannot waste resources collecting unnecessary data. The firm should decide in advance which types of consumers will be included in the research, and how the data will be collected. They should also account for the probability of statistical errors or sampling bias .

The next step is to collect the data and analyze the results. If the two previous steps have been completed accurately, this should be straightforward. The researchers will collect the results of their study, keeping track of the ages, gender, and other relevant data of each respondent. This is then analyzed in a marketing report that explains the results of their research.

The last step is for company executives to use their market research to make business decisions. Depending on the results of their research, they may choose to target a different group of consumers, or they may change their price point or some product features.

The results of these changes may eventually be measured in further market research, and the process will begin all over again.

Benefits of Market Research

Market research is essential for developing brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. Since it is unlikely for a product to appeal equally to every consumer, a strong market research program can help identify the key demographics and market segments that are most likely to use a given product.

Market research is also important for developing a company’s advertising efforts. For example, if a company’s market research determines that its consumers are more likely to use Facebook than X (formerly Twitter), it can then target its advertisements to one platform instead of another. Or, if they determine that their target market is value-sensitive rather than price-sensitive, they can work on improving the product rather than reducing their prices.

Market research only works when subjects are honest and open to participating.

Example of Market Research

Many companies use market research to test new products or get information from consumers about what kinds of products or services they need and don’t currently have.

For example, a company that’s considering starting a business might conduct market research to test the viability of its product or service. If the market research confirms consumer interest, the business can proceed confidently with its business plan . If not, the company can use the results of the market research to make adjustments to the product to bring it in line with customer desires.

What Are the Main Types of Market Research?

The main types of market research are primary research and secondary research. Primary research includes focus groups, polls, and surveys. Secondary research includes academic articles, infographics, and white papers.

Qualitative research gives insights into how customers feel and think. Quantitative research uses data and statistics such as website views, social media engagement, and subscriber numbers.

What Is Online Market Research?

Online market research uses the same strategies and techniques as traditional primary and secondary market research, but it is conducted on the Internet. Potential customers may be asked to participate in a survey or give feedback on a product. The responses may help the researchers create a profile of the likely customer for a new product.

What Are Paid Market Research Surveys?

Paid market research involves rewarding individuals who agree to participate in a study. They may be offered a small payment for their time or a discount coupon in return for filling out a questionnaire or participating in a focus group.

What Is a Market Study?

A market study is an analysis of consumer demand for a product or service. It looks at all of the factors that influence demand for a product or service. These include the product’s price, location, competition, and substitutes as well as general economic factors that could influence the new product’s adoption, for better or worse.

Market research is a key component of a company’s research and development (R&D) stage. It helps companies understand in advance the viability of a new product that they have in development and to see how it might perform in the real world.

Britannica Money. “ Market Research .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Market Research and Competitive Analysis .”

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A Plain-English Guide to Market Research

Published: January 21, 2021

In some circles, market research is a catch-all term for asking the industry what it wants. "Do we know what the demand is for this product? Who's even looking for our services? Let me do some market research to find out," someone might say.

But what does that actually mean?

Here's a simple definition of market research that encompasses all the possible goals of this practice, in fewer than 100 words:

Market Research Definition

Market research is the process of examining an industry's buyers, the product these buyers want, and where they're currently getting it. By engaging the right people and data, a business can use this research to position itself in the market and predict where the market will go in the future.

Market research can answer various questions about the state of an industry, but it's hardly a crystal ball that marketers can rely on for insights on their customers. Market researchers investigate several areas of the market, and it can take weeks or even months to paint an accurate picture of the business landscape.

However, researching just one of those areas can make you more intuitive to who your buyers are and how to deliver value that no other business is offering them right now.

Certainly you can make sound judgment calls based on your experience in the industry and your existing customers. However, keep in mind that market research offers benefits beyond those strategies. There are two things to consider:

Your competitors also have experienced individuals in the industry and a customer base. It's very possible that your immediate resources are, in many ways, equal to those of your competition's immediate resources. Seeking a larger sample size for answers can provide a better edge.
Your customers don't represent the attitudes of an entire market. They represent the attitudes of the part of the market that is already drawn to your brand.

Why is market research important?

Market research allows you to get information from a larger sample size of your target audience, eliminating bias and assumptions so that you can get to the heart of consumer attitudes. As a result, you can make better business decisions from knowing the bigger picture.

Here are some examples of insights you can gain from market research:

Consumer attitudes about a particular topic, pain, product, or brand
Whether there's demand for the business initiatives you're investing in
Where to advertise or sell to (geographically or online)
Unaddressed or underserved customer needs that can be flipped into selling opportunity
Attitudes about pricing for a particular product or service

Getting answers to these questions based on real data can help you make sound business decisions and minimize risk.

Types of Market Research

To give you an idea of how extensive market research can get, consider that it can either be qualitative or quantitative in nature -- depending on the studies you conduct and what you're trying to learn about your industry. Qualitative research is concerned with public opinion, and explores how the market feels about the products currently available in that market. Quantitative research is concerned with data, and looks for relevant trends in the information that's gathered from public records.

Let's talk about four different types of market research studies you can conduct , a potential goal of each one, and how these studies help you better understand your market.

Qualitative information

Interviews are the personal, one-on-one conversations you can have with the buyers in your industry. You can conduct interviews in person or over the phone.

Your interviewees can answer questions about themselves to help you design your buyer personas. These buyer personas describe your ideal customer's age, family size, budget, job title, the challenges they face at work, and similar aspects of their lifestyle. Having this buyer profile in hand can shape your entire marketing strategy, from the features you add to your product to the content you publish on your website.

Focus Groups

Focus groups are similar to interviews, but in this case, you're assembling a large group of people for one shared interview. A focus group consists of people who have at least one element of your buyer persona in common -- age or job title, for instance.

This type of market research can give you ideas for product differentiation, or the qualities of your product that make it unique in the marketplace. Consider asking your focus group questions about (and showing them examples of) your services, and ultimately use the group's feedback to make these services better.

Quantitative information

Surveys are a form of quantitative research, and you can distribute them over the phone, via email, or through an online survey. A survey could cater to people who've downloaded content from your website or interacted with a member of your business.

Enough completed surveys can help you determine your customer satisfaction level. This denotes how happy your customers are with what you're selling them. You might include questions like, "How well did we solve your problem?" and "Would you recommend our product to a friend?"

Secondary Data

The interviews, focus groups, and surveys are all sources of primary data. Secondary data , on the other hand, is the public information -- online and offline -- that characterizes your industry. This includes competitor websites, social media business pages, trade magazines, market reports, and even census data published by the government.

If you examine enough secondary data, you can learn how much brand awareness you have in the marketplace compared to the companies that provide the same product or service as you.

The market research you perform doesn't have to include every source of information described above. What data you collect will depend on the needs of your business and what you might be most interested in at the moment.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Understanding Market Research: Everything You Need to Know

Appinio Research · 13.12.2022 · 19min read

Conducting market research is the best way to ensure the success of your business idea, but it can seem daunting at times. Appinio got your back and came up with your ultimate guide for all the things market research, from the most common market research methodologies to how to identify the right method for your business case, everything you need to know is down below, keep reading.

What is market research?

Market research is the process of gathering information about consumers or markets. This information can be used to help businesses discover more about their customers, determine what products or services to offer, and gauge customer interest in new products or services. There are different ways to do market research. Some common types of market research include primary research , secondary market research , market intelligence, market segmentation, market sizing or market forecasting.Regardless of the method you use, market research helps you develop your products or services, and ensures that you are meeting the needs of your customers.

If you are looking to conduct market research on your own, there are a variety of tools and resources available to help you get started. For example, online market research platforms can make it easy to gather information from large groups of people, while market data and analysis tools can help you to understand trends, market size, and competitor activity. Whether you choose to do market research on your own or work with a market research firm, the key to success is understanding the needs of your customers and adapting your products or services accordingly. With the right market research, tools and strategies, you can gain valuable insights into your market and customers, helping you to achieve success with your business ideas.

How is market research used?

Market research is used by businesses of all sizes to gain actionable insights into their target markets and customers. This information can be used to inform product development, help to identify new market opportunities, understand customer needs and preferences, and track competitor activity. Usually companies use market research to make well informed decisions, improve their products and services, uncover trends and opportunities, and understand consumer behavior.

Who can benefit from market research?

Any business can benefit from market research, whether they are a small startup or a large multinational corporation. Market research helps businesses to better understand their target customers, identify interesting opportunities, and gain insights into consumer behavior.Any company would benefit from knowing what their customers want, how they rank against their competitors or validate their business decisions.

How can companies profit from market research?

Conducting market research process means helping businesses to better understand their customers and trends, identifying new product or service ideas, determining the demand for existing products or services, optimizing marketing campaigns and messaging, understanding consumer behavior and preferences, tracking competitor activity and market share, and ultimately improving sales, customers’ loyalty and brand image overall.

How to conduct market research

So how does the market research process work? There are a variety of tools and techniques that you can leverage, including customer surveys, focus groups , market analysis, and online platforms. Whatever approach you choose, it is important to stay organized and ensure that your data is accurate and reliable. With the right market research strategy in place, you can gain actionable insights into your market and customers, helping to ensure that your business or business idea is positioned for success. Here are our tips for conducting your own market research project successfully including setting clear goals and objectives, choosing the right methodologies based on your market and budget constraints, leveraging online market research tools to gather information from large numbers of people quickly and easily, and analyzing and interpreting your market data to make well informed decisions for your business. With the right market research strategy and tools, you can gain valuable insights into your market and customers, helping you to build a strong foundation for your business decisions and future growth.

Step one: define your research objectives

The first step in the market research process is to clearly define your goals and objectives. What do you want to know? Are you planning to launch a new product on the market or are you planning to launch your hero product in new unexplored markets? Depending on what you want to uncover you would need to include identifying market trends, market size, customer demographics and psychographics, competitor activity, and more.

Step two: choose the market research methods

Once you define your research objectives, you need to pick the tools that are best suited to your needs. Are you testing a new logo or a new name? Then you may need quite a few people and the best way to reach them could be a survey. Do you want to know consumers attitudes around your existing products? Then face-to-face interviews could be the way to go.

Step three: collect and analyze

Finally, you need to organize all the precious data into digestible data to provide actionable insights into your market and customers, usually in the form of a report and then you and your team will be able to use this information to make informed decisions, improve your business strategy and ultimately grow.

Looking forward to starting your first market research project already? Sign up for Appinio today!

Types of market research

There are quite a few types of market research but the first differentiation to make is between primary and secondary market research. Primary research is when a company collects information directly from its customers or market, while the latter involves gathering data that has already been collected by other companies or organizations.

Primary research

Primary market research can include surveys, focus groups, market analysis tools such as SWOT or PESTLE analysis, and online platforms like Google Trends. The advantages of primary research can include a more direct understanding of customer needs and preferences, gaining market insights that are not available through secondary market research, and being able to collect specific data about the market that is most relevant to your business. The disadvantages entail time and resources spent on this type of research. Depending on the research method you may need quite some time to complete all data collection and it could also turn out to be quite costly in terms of money, as you need to invest in recruiting the people that will reply to your questions.

Secondary research

Secondary research methods, such as analyzing industry data that has already been collected by other companies or organizations, can be an efficient way to gain a broad overview of the market and identify trends, gaps in knowledge, and more. This is often easier and less expensive to conduct than primary market research. It also allows businesses to access a wealth of market data that has already been collected by other organizations and companies, which can be useful for benchmarking, identifying trends, and gaining key insights into market conditions and customer needs. However, since this information may not be relevant to your specific business needs, it is important to always triangulate your data by combining results from multiple sources.

Qualitative market research

Another important distinction is between qualitative and quantitative market research.Qualitative research is a qualitative approach to quantitatively analyzing your market and customers. It can give you great insights into customer needs and preferences, helping you to craft better products and services that meet the needs of your market. One of the main advantages of qualitative research is understanding deeply how consumers think and even being able to understand how they talk about your service and product on an everyday basis, being able to connect with your consumers on a deeper level by , quite literally, “speaking their language”.Examples of qualitative market research tools include interviews and focus groups, which can help you understand your customers' behaviors, preferences, and needs. Ethnographic studies, in-depth interviews and in general, explorative research can also be a useful tool for gaining a deeper understanding of your market and customers.

Quantitative market research

Quantitative research is a systematic empirical investigation of quantifiable phenomena through the use of statistical, mathematical or computational techniques. In other words, quantitative research uses numbers and mathematical formulas to analyze data collected in order to understand a given problem or question. It is often used in the social sciences, business, and marketing research. This type of research has several advantages over other types of market research, including its ability to provide statistically significant results. This approach can involve gathering quantifiable data through techniques such as surveys, tracking customer activity with analytics tools, analyzing sales numbers and revenue trends, or testing new product ideas with pilot programs. Quantitative data can be used to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. One very common example of quantitative research in marketing is the use of surveys to measure customer satisfaction. Surveys can be used to ask customers about a variety of topics, such as how satisfied they are with a product or service, how likely they are to recommend it to others, and what changes they would like to see. Quantitative market research can be an effective way to gain valuable insights into your market, customers, and competitive landscape.No matter what type of market research you choose to conduct, it is important to always stay focused on your goals and business strategies. By understanding the current state of your market, you can make well informed decisions about how to grow and expand your business in the future.It is important to keep in mind that market research is a tool, not an endpoint. Always be sure to review your market research findings carefully and critically, and use them as a guide rather than as a definitive answer to your business questions. With the right approach, market research can be an incredibly powerful tool for success providing a competitive advantage in today's marketplace.

What different methodologies can be used?

There are many different market research methodologies that can be used, depending on the specific business needs and goals. As we mentioned above, some of the most common market research techniques include surveys, focus groups, interviews, questionnaires, field experiments, ethnographic research, explorative research, market testing, market intelligence reports, and industry analysis. Each of these methods has its own advantages and benefits, so the market research approach that is most appropriate for your business will depend on a variety of factors, including the type of market you are targeting, your budget and timeline, and the specific information you hope to glean from market research. Ultimately, choosing the most effective market research methodology is an important decision that should be made carefully and strategically, in order to get the most value from your market research investment.

Most common market research methodologies

The field of market research is wide and the methodologies vary depending on your research objectives. Once you define what you want to find out, how you'll find it out is the next step, here is a rundown of the most common market research methods.

Market research surveys

Surveys are a popular market research method, and can be used to gather information from both consumers' attitudes and businesses. Surveys typically involve sending out questionnaires or online surveys to large groups of people, often through email or social media platforms. They are an effective way to quickly gather large amounts of data in a relatively low-cost way. Market research surveys are a common way to gather information from customers. A survey can be administered in person, over the phone, or online. It typically includes a series of questions about the customer's needs, preferences, and buying habits.Surveys can be effective for understanding customer needs and preferences, determining market size and segmentation, and gauging customer interest in new products or services.

However, care should be taken to ensure that the questions are relevant and interesting to respondents, or they may not complete the survey.

Interviews are a one-on-one meeting with potential customers or market segments. The interviewer asks questions about the customer's needs and preferences, as well as their purchasing habits and intentions. Interviews can be conducted in person, online or over the phone, and they offer a more personal interaction with customers than other market research methods as the interviewer (a.k.a.market researcher) and the interviewee can naturally discuss the topic of interest. You can choose to go for structured, semi-structured or unstructured interviews depending on the research objective, but the main advantage of interviews is the serendipity factor, even in the most structured of interviews, the interaction between interviewer and interviewee can take unexpected turns (in a good and a bad way!).Interviews can provide actionable insights into why customers make certain purchasing decisions, their needs and wants, what might persuade them to buy a particular product or service and uncover the unexpected. However, interviews are also more expensive and time consuming than other methods and they cannot provide statistically significant results.

Focus groups

A focus group involves a small group of people (typically 8-10) who are brought together to discuss a product or service. The focus group is usually moderated by market researchers, who ask questions and encourage discussion among the participants. The aim is to get feedback on what people like and don't like about the product or service, as well as their suggestions for improvement.A focus group can provide insights into how people feel about a product or service, what features they like and don't like, and what potential improvements they would like to see. However, it is important to note that focus groups cannot provide statistically significant results, so they should be used in conjunction with other market research methods. Other common market research practices include intercept interviews, mystery shopping, market scans, social listening, and online panels.

Most common use cases in market research

Segmentation, target group analysis.

One of the most common uses of market research is to segment customers or identify a specific market segment.

Market segmentation allows you to understand your target audience more deeply and identify specific groups who may be interested in your product or service. Examples of target group analysis might include identifying geographic, demographic, or psychographic profiles for different market segments.

Utility analysis / Feature Prioritization

Another common use of market research is utility analysis or feature prioritization. This method can be used to understand which features are most important to potential customers, and how different products or services stack up against each other in terms of their functionality and usability.

MaxDiff analysis

A popular method to identify features or services to prioritize is the MaxDiff analysis (Maximum Difference Scaling, also known as "Best Worst Scaling), which involves asking participants to rate different features or options, from which they are to select the best and worst alternative for them.

Based on the results, you can identify concrete preference or importance rankings. This information can then be used to inform product development decisions and prioritize features for your customer base.

TURF Analysis

The abbreviation TURF stands for Total Unduplicated Reach & Frequency. To be precise, the TURF method is not a survey method per se, but can be applied to a variety of different question types — even after the survey is already done. The aim of the method is to determine which product portfolio, marketing mix or even product variants appeal to the highest number of customers and hence, expand the potential target group.

Conjoint Analysis

Conjoint analysis is used to understand consumer preferences and purchasing behavior.

By quantifying the relative importance of different product features, the conjoint analysis provides insights into which features are most important to potential customers and how they compare different options against each other.

This information can then be used to inform product development and marketing decisions, as well as understand customer needs and preferences in more detail.One common approach to conducting a conjoint analysis is to create multiple "choice tasks" or versions of the product, each with different features and attributes. Participants are then asked to rate each version based on their preferences, which can be quantified using statistical techniques such as regression analysis.

Kano analysis

The Kano analysis helps businesses understand the factors that drive customer satisfaction. By quantifying different product features and their impact on your customers, the Kano analysis will help you identify which aspects of your product or service are most important to them, as well as features that consumers see as irrelevant, or unexpected sources of value that can help set you apart from your competitors.

Driver Analysis

A driver analysis is a market research method that helps businesses identify the key factors driving customer behavior and purchasing decisions. By quantifying different product features and their impact on customers, the driver analysis can help businesses better understand which aspects of their products or services are most important to consumers, as well as any "drivers" or key variables that drive demand for their products.

Price analysis

Price analysis is a market research tool that helps businesses understand customer preferences and purchasing behavior around different price points. By quantifying the relative importance of different price levels, price analysis can help businesses identify the optimal pricing strategy for their products or services, as well as better understand customer demand at different price tiers.Some of the benefits of conducting price analysis include better understanding of customer preferences, more effective pricing strategies, and enhanced market insights.There are a variety of approaches to conducting price analysis.

Gabor-Granger Price Analysis

The Gabor-Granger price analysis is a market research method that uses statistical data & techniques to understand how customers respond to different pricing strategies. By quantifying the impact of different price points on customer demand. The Gabor-Granger price analysis can help businesses better understand consumer preferences and optimize their pricing strategy for maximum profitability.Some of the key advantages of Gabor-Granger price analysis include enhanced market insights, improved pricing accuracy, and more effective marketing campaigns. By understanding how customers respond to different price points, businesses can develop more targeted marketing strategies that appeal to their specific needs and preferences. Additionally, the Gabor-Granger price analysis can help businesses better understand areas where they may be missing opportunities or overcharging customers, allowing them to make more informed pricing decisions that maximize profitability.

Van Westendorp Pricing Analysis

The Van Westendorp pricing analysis is another market research methodology that helps companies and brands understand customer preferences around different price points. By quantifying the relative importance of different price levels, Van Westendorp pricing analysis can help businesses identify the optimal pricing strategy for their products or services and gain insights into customer behavior and purchasing decisions.

Perception and Evaluation

Implicit testing.

Implicit testing is another method for quantifying customer preferences and association. This technique involves asking participants to rate a set of products or services on various dimensions, such as quality, value, and desirability. The responses from these evaluations can then be quantified using statistical methods such as conjoint analysis and utility theory.

Best Online tools to conduct your market research project

Some of the best online tools to conduct your market research project and collect quantitative data include platforms like SurveyMonkey, Google Analytics, Qualtrics and Appinio. These tools make it easy to create an online survey, analyze data, and generate reports that can help you gain insights into your market segments.Disadvantages of market research online platforms include the potential for data bias and lower response rates from survey participants, which can impact the accuracy and reliability of your research results. Additionally, many market research platforms are subscription-based, so you will likely need to invest in a paid plan in order to take full advantage of their features and functionality. However, despite these disadvantages, online platforms offer a number of advantages that can make them a valuable tool for your market research project. First, they are often more affordable than traditional market research methods, such as focus groups and surveys. Additionally, they are quick and easy to use, and can help you generate results quickly. Finally, online platforms provide a wealth of data that you can use to analyze your target market and understand their needs and preferences.

Interested in how Appinio can help your business idea? Talk to us.

Recruitment panel partners

To conduct effective market research, you may need to work with a recruitment panel partner. Recruitment panels are groups of qualified individuals who have been selected based on specific criteria and can provide actionable insights into your target. Some of the key benefits of working with a recruitment panel partner include better understanding of your target market, more effective data collection strategies, and increased accuracy in quantifying customer preferences and behaviors as usually these partners have access to very big pools of consumers, and can often reach even very niche targets.Of course, there are also disadvantages when working with recruitment panels. One is the cost of contracting these partners, another is the potential sampling bias and other limitations that may impact the quality and reliability of your market research data, as you’re basically using a middle man to select your desired consumers.

Appinio, the all in one survey tool

If you're looking for a market research tool that can help you quickly and easily create online surveys, analyze and gather data, and generate reports, then Appinio is the perfect solution for you.Appinio is an all-in-one survey tool that makes it easy to collect data and generate beautiful charts and graphs. With Appinio, you can create surveys in minutes, and quickly analyze the results to get insights into your target market. Appinio also offers a number of handy features such as drag-and-drop question creation, automatic result analysis, and interactive graphs and charts. One of the advantages of Appinio is that it has a large proprietary panel in more than 90 countries. This means that you can reach a large number of survey participants quickly and easily. Additionally, Appinio's panel is carefully recruited and includes only qualified individuals who can provide valuable insights into your specific market. Despite being an all-in-one platform that you can use on your own, Appinio also offers consulting services. Appinio research consultants will help you design your research, selecting the best method for your specific research needs and will guide you through the entire process.Whether you are looking to gain a better understanding of your customers' purchasing behaviors or need market sizing estimates for product positioning, Appinio has the tools and functionality you need to succeed.

So if you're ready to take your market research efforts to the next level, sign up for Appinio today!

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Market Research: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How To Get It Right

What is market research?

What is market research used for? How important is it? And, how do you choose the right type of research for your business?

Sit back, take five, and I’ll explain the different types of research , what tools are best for the job, and how you can leverage them to grow your business and master your market .

Market research definition:

Market research means to systematically collect and analyze data about a target market or defined segment. It’s a multivariate process that uncovers key facts and insights to inform decisions.

Whether you’re launching a new product , looking for ways to expand a business, or seeking out efficiencies in an existing company, market research is a highly effective way to flesh-out ideas, innovate, and grow.

Advantages of market research

Market research helps you identify your greatest strengths, threats, and opportunities. It can help you find your way when markets become tough to predict and find efficient ways to grow your business .

Reduce costs
Define detailed customer personas
Make data-driven decisions
Find new opportunities for growth
Unpack competitor’s successes
Develop an informed content marketing strategy
Identify trends
Inform market analysis
Discover the best marketing channels to use
Find the best ways to communicate with customers
Benchmark performance against rivals

Online market research can help the whole business at any stage of its life. When practiced consistently and systematically, you can realize its many benefits.

Why is market research important?

Market research helps you identify your greatest threats. And it also gives you a clear picture of opportunities you can capitalize on for greater returns on your business investments, or ROI.

Understanding your specific market on different levels and from different perspectives helps you reach well-informed, data-informed decisions . The process can involve multiple phases. But, if you follow a systematic approach using a market research template , your efforts will pay off.

To skip ahead and start right now, download our free pack of market research templates.

Different types of market research

Market research is a questions and answers game. Once you’ve asked the important questions, you’ll need to choose the right type of research to get your answers. There are four core types of research, each of which can be applied to help you solve a problem or gather insights to inform key decisions.

Primary market research

Primary market research is the first-hand collection of data. It’s data that’s not available to others, and can be obtained in a number of ways. Here are the most common.

Web Metrics Use analytics software that provides traffic and engagement metrics to understand how audiences behave.
Observation To observe how users behave and navigate your site, you can install software that records visits and creates heatmaps. Such tools are useful for qualitative research regarding your UX/UI and at the same time, quantify the findings.
Customer surveys Survey questionnaires and polls can be distributed to any number of customers through email, SMS, your site, or social media. They let you collect both qualitative and quantitative data from respondents using open-ended questions.
Focus groups You select a small number of people for a group discussion. A moderator leads the session with questions and records the conclusions. This is also a form of qualitative research, and you would use it to get in-depth information.
Face-to-face interviews Another qualitative assessment method is one-on-one interviews. Consumers representative of your target audience or a segment of it are selected to answer questions about a specific research topic.
Phone calls To involve a larger number of people and get more answers, you can conduct surveys over the phone. These interviews would be less specific and include fewer questions.

Helpful: A complete guide to doing primary market research

Secondary market research

Secondary research is second-hand data that has already been produced. It’s available to all who wish to consume it. Using this type of data is preferred by those who wish to keep costs low, as it can be quicker and freely available.

Government reports and census data Annual, quarterly, and other periodic industry reports are a rich data source to tap into. Government organizations publish statistics in areas of trade, ecommerce, and finance.
Academic papers and educational resources University research is a source of high-quality information. This is useful for in-depth background information on a broad scale.
Online articles and case studies, public and commercial sources Industry-specific publications can be a valuable source of information for market segmentation, providing you with data and insights on market trends or a specific market segment or niche.

Further reading: A complete guide to doing desk research

Qualitative market research

Qualitative market research is one of the best ways to understand how people think or feel about a brand, product, or service. It takes more time to plan and analyze the results than other market research types. However, with tools like market research surveys , there are quick and effective ways to do it.

As some of the methods are outlined in the primary and secondary research sections, I’ve included a short list of qualitative research methods below.

Focus groups
Case study or whitepaper
Online forums
Biometrics
Ethnography

Helpful: Read the complete guide to qualitative research and 83 qualitative research questions & examples

Quantitative market research

Quantitative market research is all about numbers. It collects numerical data to help answer specific research questions . The information collected can be easily quantified and analyzed to establish trends, insights, and patterns.

With this type of research, you’ve got three core data collection methods. However, you’ve also got to consider the design of the research, which can impact which method is used.

What is market research used for?

The applications for market research are virtually limitless. Market research can help you unravel the most complex of business challenges to reach data-driven decisions , and when used consistently, it can help you navigate turbulent times, fuel growth, and support your success . Here are just a few examples of what market research is used for, with a few real-world examples thrown in for good measure.

1. Company research

Market research allows you to shine a spotlight on any business and unpack its wins and losses for your own gain. Let’s say you are doing market research for a business plan ; you’ll likely want to evaluate the successes of others in your industry. Doing systematic company research is a proven way to inform a SWOT analysis .

Doing industry analysis can show you who your industry leaders are , along with any emerging players showing exponential growth.

Industry Leaders from Similarweb's Market Research Tool

Let’s say I want to find out which companies to research, I would use Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence to analyze an industry. Here, I can see who my top companies to watch are instantly. It also shows me other companies showing rapid growth in my market.

Read More: How to Research a Company: The Ultimate Guide

2. Competitive benchmarking

Most of your relevant data will come from your competition. If you plan to offer something that’s new for you but already exists in the market, learn from other’s mistakes and successes. If your goal is to evaluate and optimize, collect competitors’ data, and compare it to yours. See what works for them, find their weak spots, and improve on them.

What is market research for - competitive analysis

What market research gives you here, is the ability to systematically compare each of your rivals. And, it’s not as complex as it sounds either. Simply choose a type of competitive analysis frameworks to use, complete the template for each; then compare the results to uncover relevant insights.

Read More: The Why and How of Competitive Benchmarking

3. Trendspotting

Another objective for market researchers is to forecast upcoming trends. Data collection over time helps you understand the dynamics of the market. Some markets have strong seasonal fluctuations. Increased shopping during December is an obvious example, but often these shifts are not always evident unless you measure and analyze them specifically.

With the data from your historical market research, you can evaluate their impact and the likelihood you will keep seeing these trends. Based on that, you can make predictions about future developments.

4. Audience analysis

Who will find your product most useful and why?

Examining the size of your audience and the existing demand for your product or services is crucial. Understanding your target audience allows you to build your product offering and marketing strategy more efficiently. You also want to learn first-hand where people buy this type of product and how much they are willing to spend so that you can estimate your reachable market share .

Audience Data from Similarweb Audience Analysis Tools

Here’s a quick example of how we use Similarweb to do effective audience analysis . You can unpack key audience demographics for any site you choose. And get up-to-date stats about gender, age, location, interests, browsing habits, and more.

5. Market segmentation

There are lots of ways to segment a market. Doing this well can deliver higher conversions, reduce costs, redefine marketing strategies, and help you connect with customers on a more personal level. Market research can help you do most types of market segmentation, the most widely adopted of all is demographic segmentation. Here, you look for shared but specific characteristics of a target audience.

Using Similarweb, I can view audience demographics for a website, and compare it side-by-side with rival sites. In this example, I am looking at hotel booking sites to try and spot any difference between the respective audiences of each.

Helpful: Read our complete guide to market segmentation

6. Marketing strategy

Market research can also help you reach the right decision regarding where to advertise or market your business. After analyzing the data, you’ll know which marketing channels are most effective with your target audience. You can also use research to look at the specific keywords and ad creatives that are generating the best responses and ROI.

Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence makes this type of research effortless. Within the marketing channels tab, you can analyze an entire industry or hone in on a specific site of interest. View the various channels across social media, email, direct, organic search, paid search, and display ads to see which channels convert and where the highest channel traffic comes from.

7. Customer experience

Market research is your best way to get information that isn’t naturally visible but that may significantly affect your business. Just think, the fact that your users don’t complain doesn’t necessarily mean they are all delighted with what you offer.

While some customers tend to keep their criticism to themselves, others will be vocal and leave reviews online. Market research is a powerful tool to help inform improvements to services and products alike. Asking for feedback, listening to it, and looking at the feedback left for rivals in your market can uncover telling insights that can shape service offerings, marketing campaigns, and new feature development.

To see what people use market research for and view real-world instances of research in action, head over to our market research examples page.

Tools for market research

When we look at what market research is, the answer is always rooted in data . Over 100 years ago, vehicle manufacturers undertook extensive research to help them develop different models to suit various segments of society. Fast-forward 100 years, and we find similar applications still exist. However, what’s changed are the tools being used and, more importantly, the accessibility of those tools to a far broader audience .

There are more market intelligence tools in existence today than ever before. Here’s a quick summary of a few you can use to collect information for your market research.

Google Trends Google Trends is a valuable resource for quantitative research data about market tendencies and user behavior.

Similarweb Research Intelligence Get the freshest digital intelligence from a platform that shows the insights that count. With the ability to analyze an entire market in an instant and unpick competitors’ wins and losses online, you can count on it to help you perform quick and effective market research.
Hotjar The digital tool lets you observe and record user behavior on your website. It also creates heatmaps of your pages so you can analyze how visitors navigate.
SurveyMonkey Create your own online survey with this free tool. SurveyMonkey provides templates for questionnaires and lets you distribute them through your various channels, then collect and interpret results.
YouGov This platform offers its users daily with thousands of data points and statistics on consumer attitudes, opinions, and behavior.
Pew Research Center This non-profit organization conducts and publishes public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis, and other data-driven social science research.
Living Facts The site provides current statistics about the American population, including demographics, social and health issues, opinions, and more.

Read this post to see what market research tools are hot right now.

Wrapping up: what is market research

Market research is insight. It gives you information to fuel key decisions in your business. Without it, companies must navigate their market uncertainly and make key decisions based on instinct or outdated data.

Similarweb transforms the way companies do market research . There’s no expensive outlay for prolonged research reports that take an age to produce. The data is the freshest there is; it’s credible and shows traffic trends and comparable performance like no other.

Try using it to answer your next big market research question.

Stop Guessing, Start Analyzing

Get actionable insights for market research here

What are the benefits of market research?

Effective market research helps businesses understand and improve their position while also identifying potential threats and opportunities, while also spotting emerging trends .

What is the main purpose of market research?

The main benefit of market research is insight. It can give you access to the data you need to make decisions in your business. Before you invest money or time in any venture, use market research to inform your decision.

What’s the difference between primary and secondary market research?

Primary research is research you conduct on your own that uses numbers and metrics, and secondary research is research that was done by someone else with a qualitative focus.

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Wondering what similarweb can do for you.

Here are two ways you can get started with Similarweb today!

Market Research: The Definitive Guide (2023 Update)

2 years ago

A man at his desk drawing on his notebook

Starting a business is a challenging endeavor that requires time, money, and continuous learning. In our blogs, we cover how to start a business with brief overviews. In our hub, we aim to provide you with everything you need to go through each step. Our first step is conducting market research.

Throughout the steps, we’ll provide insights from Paul Akers, the owner of FastCap, and a Lean Expert who has created hundreds of products for woodworkers and cabinet makers.

There are four basic steps to conducting market research:

Understand “what is marketing research and which type is right for my business?
Perform market research.
Analyze the data.
Use the research to make decisions.

We’ll start by exploring some of the concepts involved in market research analysis to help you perform it yourself.

Step 1: What is market research in business?

Market research is the process of gathering information about target customers to better understand their views about a product or service. The primary ways of classifying market research are:

The method of the collection
Common types of market research

Let’s look at each.

The method of collection

Market research normally uses six methods of collection when looking for answers:

Primary market research

Secondary market research.

Qualitative research

Quantitative research

Exploratory research.

Specific Research

A white note pad and two pencils on a desk

Primary research is the original research conducted directly by an organization. It is used to find out what customers are interested in. It can be done through questionnaires, interviews, or videos. Primary market research is used for understanding the underlying needs and desires of consumers.

Primary market research helps us to understand the needs, wants, and behaviors of potential buyers. It is the basis for the buyers’ persona. It helps us to formulate marketing strategies that can be used to meet those needs and wants.

Secondary market research is a process of finding information about a product or service through other sources. This includes looking up other companies that are in the same market as your company and finding out what they are doing.

A company should conduct secondary market research to find out if the product or service has been done before, which will help them figure out how they can differentiate their product from competitors.

Secondary research can be used to gain information about competitors, pricing, distribution channels, etc. It also helps the company save time by not having to conduct primary research that has already been performed.

Researching competitors before you start your business is not only crucial for success but essential for survival in the business world where everyone is trying to get ahead.

What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative research?

One is focused on themes while the other is focused on information that can be processed numerically. Let’s look at each.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is focused on finding themes that run through interviews and surveys. This type of research is more focused on opinions and is more art than statistical analysis, but in some cases, you can turn this type of research into data that can use statistical analysis.

For instance, a question like the one below converts a qualitative data point into a quantitative data point, making it easier to compare how happy someone was with their food.

An image of Google form to collect data from customers

You might perform qualitative research along with market validation after you have created a prototype of a new product.

This research is focused on information that can be easily processed with statistical analysis software. For instance, median household income would be easy to statistically calculate if you gather the data for the target customers’ income. Market research analysts love this kind of data because it is easier to process.

Exploratory research is market research that looks for a better understanding. For instance, you may have come to this site doing exploratory research about how to do market research for a startup. After you’ve gained broader information about marketing research methods, you might move on to more specific research.

Specific research

Specific research is when market researchers are looking to answer a very specific question using market data. This research might include searching for a specific concept or item. For example, the lowest cost statistical software for a company that will have ten users of the software. You might also want to research the history of a business location before deciding to sign a lease because some shopping centers have high turnover.

To find the answer, you’ll probably want to go with Google Workspace because Forms, Sheets, and other useful business tools are included in the same package as your email. Google is the primary email provider for small and medium-sized businesses.

Market research may include a combination of primary and secondary data, quantitative and qualitative data, exploratory and specific research. Now that you understand the market research definition, let’s look at the common market research methods and what questions they are trying to answer.

Common types of market research methods

Most companies will perform 13 types of market research:

Literature reviews

Focus Groups

Observation, customer utilization research.

Buyer Persona Research

Market Segmentation Research

Pricing research, competitive analysis research, customer satisfaction and loyalty research, brand awareness research, campaign research.

In each of these, market researchers attempt to answer different questions. Let’s discuss each.

Literature Reviews

One of the leanest ways to do market research is a literature review. With your laptop or cell phone, you can easily find vast amounts of data about your market through sources like:

Statista – Provides graphs that are easy to process for most economic subjects
Competitors’ research – Your competitors have probably already done the research. Find it so you don’t have to duplicate the effort.
Industry trade organizations – Companies
Think with Google – Helps marketers gather information using Google’s extensive database of consumer behaviors
Census Bureau – The U.S. Census Bureau is a government agency that collects data on a variety of subjects including a full count of the U.S. population every decade.

After you’ve gathered everything available through market research, it’s time to create some surveys.

Surveys are the most common type of market research because they are so easy to conduct and are low-cost. With software like Google Forms and Facebook, you can easily create a survey, distribute it, and analyze the data on your own.

When creating a survey, it is important to be aware of some best principles including:

Use a variety of style questions: scaled, multiple-choice, and open-ended questions are typically used with success.
Avoid biased questions that lead the survey participants to a preferred answer. They will harm the validity of your research.
Be respectful of the participants’ time. Unless you are paying them, try to keep the survey to 10 questions or less. If you are paying them, $50-$100 per hour is typically what market research firms will pay for longer surveys.
Make sure to gather demographic data and contact information for follow-up.
Practice proper sampling methods. In most cases, you won’t need more than 1,000 survey participants, but you can use the table below to establish how many people to include in your survey.

You can normally gather the data you need through this method for under $5 per survey participant, making it one of the most effective and lean methods of gathering market research.

Another great tool is a market research interview. They follow the same principles of surveys but have the benefit of the ability to ask follow-up questions. Using these with select survey participants who gave meaningful input might be useful.

Interviews are much more labor and capital intensive than surveys, so only use them for follow-up questions for your target market.

Keep reading to learn about focus groups.

A focus group brings 5-10 people together to discuss a product or service with a moderator. These will typically run $4K-$10K per group, and they are not conducive to being conducted by novices because of the challenges involving focus groups dynamics.

If you are going to use this type of research, we’d suggest hiring a professional market research firm to assist you in the recruiting and managing of a focus group. If you are trying to run lean market research, you should skip focus groups entirely.

Keep reading to learn about observations as a market research tool.

Observation can be an extremely powerful market research tool. Using observation, you can learn how people actually interact with your product and service, but it doesn’t allow you to actually communicate with them.

Observation is particularly powerful for software products because tools like Google Analytics and Crazy Egg help you see how people interact with the software. This makes it easier to fix areas where customers stop interacting with the application.

You can perform market research through observation in different ways. The primary ways of conducting market research through observation are covert observation and overt observation.

Covert observation is collecting market research data without the participants’ knowledge. This type of data collection can be achieved through analytics software on the web or using security cameras in stores where people can test your product.

Overt observation is when the participants are aware of the marketing research and provide feedback to questions. When you conduct market research about a product or service this way you will get more information about potential customers’ opinions, but it may be influenced by their awareness that you are conducting market research.

Effective market research can gain actionable insights from both methods. Overt observation is better when you know who your potential customers are and you want to establish whether they like your business idea, while covert observation is helpful for establishing who naturally gravitates to a product or service.

You’ll want to take notes any time someone performs a desired or undesired action. If the participant is aware of the market research analysts, you’ll also want to ask them what influenced the decision.

Cautionary Tale: During the early stages of FastCap, Paul would gain actionable insights from conventions, but he stopped conducting research at such events because he found them costly to collect data. He also found that competitors would try to steal his ideas.

To truly make the most out of this tool, you’ll need to combine it with other research methods like surveys to gain user input after the observation.

A white envelope and a piece of paper on a wooden square plate

Customer utilization research is focused on how your current customers use your products or services. Marketing professionals will normally use customer surveys to perform this exploratory research. The following questions are questions that an online survey might include:

How often do you use our product or service?
What do you like most about our product or service?
With 1 being highly dissatisfied and 5 being highly satisfied how would you rank our product?
What do you like least about our product or service?
With 1 being highly dissatisfied and 5 being highly satisfied how would you rank our customer service?
Have you tried any of the competitors’ products? If so, which ones? How does our product compare to theirs?
What features would you like added to our product?
With 1 being highly dissatisfied and 5 being highly satisfied how would you rank our pricing?

You can replace “product” with “services” in any of the questions above. In addition, it would make sense to include the name of the specific product or service they bought instead of the word product or service.

These questions will help you establish what real customers think of your products and services. This type of market research data provides insight into aspects including competitive advantage and creating buyer personas for potential clients based on the data collected.

FastCap has an interesting take on this type of market research. They actually offer tradesmen a 2-5% royalty for product suggestions that they decide to take to market.

Buyer Persona: Identify Your Target Market

A user persona is a character that represents your target market. A user persona will include aspects including:

Demographics – age, gender, location, marital status, number of kids (if applicable to your product)
Financial Information – Employment status, job title, household income, homeowner status
Behaviors and Interests – Hobbies, products they like, buying habits, where they get information about products and services
Market size and market trends

You can create similar personas for B2B businesses using stats like:

Number of employees
Age of company
Titles of decision-makers
Market size

If you are using analytic tools, they collect most of this information. You can add a form to check out or that opens when the user is leaving the site to ask questions about:

Who are they? In FastCap’s case, they would be carpenters and cabinet makers.
What are they trying to achieve? They don’t want exposed screw holes in their cabinets.
What is the main obstacle? The products on the market are ugly, difficult to use, and expensive.

What if you find that your buyer persona is too broad to use to identify potential clients? We’ll discuss how to address that next

A small business might need to do market segmentation research if all their clients don’t fit neatly into a single user persona. For instance, FastCap would have at least three market segments that they might want to prepare marketing materials for:

Distributors that will be selling their products to carpenters
Tradespeople who will be using their products
Coffee shops that buy caps for drinks so people don’t burn themselves (it’s an ancillary use for a FastCap that he decided to market to restaurants with To-Go cups)

As you can guess, each market segment would have characteristics that make them different, and you wouldn’t want to market to them all the same. You’d use market segmentation research to identify what those key characteristics are and create a user persona for each.

The term pricing research is refers to establishing a fair price. Pricing research should be done before you open a business or launch a new product because it can impact whether the business is worth starting.

To understand the benefits of pricing research I should discuss pricing strategies first. Businesses normally use either the value-added method or the cost of doing business.

The value-added method charges a price that is based on the value that is provided to a client. An example of this pricing is how Tesla prices solar roofs. They determine the price using the cost of a comparable roof plus the net present value of 30 years of energy in the target market.

The cost of doing business is calculated by adding up all your expenses (including taxes) and adding the amount of profit you want to make, then dividing by the number of units you want to sell.

Both of these pricing strategies have issues though. In the value-added method, how do you determine the value that is added? In the cost of doing business method, what is the maximum your target market can sustain? Both of these are answered by researching comparable products.

While there may not be something identical on the market, there is always something that serves a similar purpose. For instance, when portable MP3 players were created, the cost of the MP3 player plus downloading songs should have been compared to the cost of a portable CD player plus the cost of all the CDs.

Competitive analysis research is focused on developing a thorough understanding of the market and identifying how you want to differentiate yourself in a market of comparable competitors. This type of research will be included in a business plan . You’ll want to focus on aspects of the industry including:

Identify competitors and the products they offer. This can be done through their websites.
Analyze sales trends. You can use industry resources and company quarterly reports.
Research how economic indicators impact the industry. For instance, consumer staples tend to do better during a recession, while consumer discretionary products tend to do better as an expansionary cycle matures.
Understand the impact government agencies have on the industry.
Has the industry reached market saturation? If 9 out of 10 people have already purchased the product you are selling, you are probably late to the game. Before you spend money in an industry that is at capacity, you should review the following bullet point.
What is the job outlook for the industry? The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) creates an occupational outlook handbook for every industry. You want to be aware of the growth prospects. If both of the last two bullet points are going in the wrong direction stay clear.

The document you create from this research should be detail-oriented, contain lots of external links to prove sources, and show analytical skills that show an understanding of the industry. This research and the communication skills used to present it are often deciding factors when applying for loans.

Customer satisfaction and loyalty research are focused on building relationships that increase the lifetime value of your existing customers. With big data and rewards programs becoming more affordable, small business owners can now offer similar types of rewards to what people see at major chains.

You’ll want to use the market research process to establish the answer to questions like:

Should I use a point system or a number-of-purchases reward system?
How big of a reward should I offer for repeat customers?
Should I offer referral bonuses? If so, how much is meaningful?
What are my competitors doing?

To answer these questions, you’ll need to establish:

How often your average customer buys your product or services. You can find this in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. Alternatively, you can sort receipts by credit card if you don’t already have an app or loyalty program that people sign up for.
If you have a CRM, establish what percent of customers interact with your business daily, weekly, monthly, or irregularly. Also, calculate the first two bullet points for each group to see if different promotions make sense.
How much your average customer spends on each trip. Calculate revenue or number of receipts.

For example, you might target people differently by offering daily customers a free upgrade every $50 spent, while weekly customers you might want to offer every 5th visit they get a free product. In both scenarios, this can reward customer loyalty and encourage more spending in the future by slightly shifting their habits.

Let’s look at how to understand brand awareness.

Brand awareness research is focused on establishing what your target audience knows about your business, how they perceive it and giving you input on improving brand awareness.

Facebook has a feature for brands running ads that is really useful for establishing brand awareness called Brand Survey Tests . It is currently an experimental stage, but here’s how it works:

Divides target market into two groups, one that is shown ads and one that is not shown ads.
Collects data on both groups’ clicks, purchases, and other actions with your company
Required: “Do you recall seeing an ad for [page name] online or on a mobile device in the last two days?”
“Have you heard of [page name]?”
“How would you describe your overall opinion of [page name]?”
“Are you familiar with [Page name]?”
“Will you recommend [page name] to a friend?”
Provides an analysis of what the market research process found.

This can be a great tool for understanding if people recognize your brand name .

Campaign research is focused on reviewing past business strategies to promote your products and services so that you can establish what worked, what didn’t, and why. In today’s marketing boom, people often forget the importance of including lessons learned when closing a project.

During this process, you’ll want to look at questions like:

Did we reach enough people to be a representative sample? Typically, over 500 will be enough to count as a representative sample,
What was the return on investment?
Where did people drop out of the sales funnel?
Did the campaign have a favorable reception?
Should we try to duplicate the content in future campaigns?
What should we avoid in future campaigns?

Now that you know about some of the types of market research techniques, keep reading to learn why market research is so important.

Why is market research important?

Because market research is the act of investigating consumer preferences as well as economic, social, and statistical data, it helps to better understand the customer and guides business decisions in the areas of:

Customer insights – Market research can be used to gain insight into how customers behave, what they like and dislike about products, and what they think about different marketing strategies.
Marketing strategy development – Market research can be used to develop a marketing strategy by identifying the needs of the market, target audience, and competitors in the industry.
Product development – Market research is key for product development because it helps companies discover what customers want to buy or use next. It also helps companies see how their product will fare against other similar products on the market today or in the future.
Product pricing considerations – Market research helps companies determine prices for their products by understanding expenses to continue production.

Now that you understand why market research matters so much to businesses, let’s take a look at how to conduct market research.

Step 2: Conduct market research

As you begin to get a handle on your goals and the questions you need to answer, it’s time to do the market research. At UpFlip, we are fans of Lean methodologies , so we figured we’d give you an introduction to lean market research.

Put together the list of questions you are trying to answer based on the previous sections. Structure them in a way that answers can be analyzed easily.
Seek out data that is already available and document the findings that impact you under each question.
Establish the minimum number of online surveys or observations needed for a statistically accurate sample using our calculator.
Find participants and gather data. When possible use software for collecting data.
Proceed to analyze data.
Implement business strategies.

Using these strategies will make it easier to do effective market research quicker and at a lower cost. No need for costly market research analysts.

If you’d like to learn more about how one of the United State’s most successful Lean practitioners approaches market research check out our interview with Paul below.

Keep reading to learn about analyzing the results

Step 3: Analyze the results

Market research analysts look for trends in data gathered from market research. The analysis involves both statistics and looking for patterns. To make it easier to analyze data, it is helpful to use software while gathering the data. If you don’t, you’ll have to input it into a spreadsheet manually.

The first step is to clean up data. This means fixing misspellings and other improper collection like zip codes where state names should be. Next, remove obvious deviations from the sample. (If someone says they buy your products 100 times per day, that’s probably not right.)

After that, you can do data analysis using functions like:

Mean – sum divided by the number of surveys
Median – (Number of surveys+1)/2
Mode – Most common answer
These can also use conditional statements such as “IF male and Under 45 mean”

With some forms of data, you might find visualization easier, so we are providing some market research examples of visualization of data. Let’s look at some common visualization methods.

The flow model is simply a visual representation of how interactions occur. Check out the behavioral flow for website visitors in Google Analytics. This model can be useful for establishing where issues occur and how processes work.

Affinity Diagram

An affinity diagram is used to group people, businesses, or other items together by a common feature. For instance, you might group by male and female, profession, or age. This can make it easier to tell whether one group tends to prefer your product or service more than another group does.

If you want to learn how to do this in Microsoft Excel, check out the video below.

Lucidcharts is another software you can use for affinity diagrams.

Customer Journey Map

A customer journey map is a visual representation of the path people take from being unaware of your product to becoming a paying customer, and eventually a potential advocate. Customer journeys are typically broken into five steps in the process:

Awareness – The customer knows about the product
Consideration – When the customer starts researching the product
Purchase – The customer buys the product
Retention –Keeping the customer happy, repeating purchases
Advocacy – When the customer goes from being a satisfied customer to singing your praises to others.

The stages can vary for different groups of people, but awareness is typically a matter of advertising. This can be in the form of an online ad, a coming soon sign when preparing to open up a location, or even current customers (or influencers) advocating for your brand.

Consideration begins when the customer starts researching your company. This phase might be:

Short : Searching “gas stations near me” and immediately going to get gas
Long : Spending hours researching the best shoe, best price, and best place to buy it.

The point of understanding a journey map is to be able to understand how many points of reference a person has before buying your product. Then you can use that to speed up the awareness and consideration phases while encouraging advocacy by your long-term customers.

Now that you understand “what is market research?” how to perform the market research, and how to analyze the research, there’s only one thing left…

Step 4: Use the info for decision making

An iPad and colored pencils on a white desk

The final and most important part of performing your own market research is converting the research into business practices to improve revenue. Depending on what you find in the research, this step may include:

Adding new user personas and marketing campaigns
Narrowing your target audience
Discontinuing marketing campaigns
Investing in software to increase customer loyalty or lifetime value
Documenting the planned strategies for a business plan
Rejecting the business idea completely

Thank you for reading!

Wherever the research leads you, UpFlip is here to help you run a better business. We use your feedback to create content that helps you build a better business. Which sections of this did you find beneficial and which would you like to learn more about?

Brandon Boushy

Brandon Boushy lives to improve people’s lives by helping them become successful entrepreneurs. His journey started nearly 30 years ago. He consistently excelled at everything he did, but preferred to make the rules rather than follow him. His exploration of self and knowledge has helped him to get an engineering degree, MBA, and countless certifications. When freelancing and rideshare came onto the scene, he recognized the opportunity to play by his own rules. Since 2017, he has helped businesses across all industries achieve more with his research, writing, and marketing strategies. Since 2021, he has been the Lead Writer for UpFlip where he has published over 170 articles on small business success.

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How To Do Market Research: Definition, Types, Methods

Jan 2, 2024

11 min. read

Market research isn’t just collecting data. It’s a strategic tool that allows businesses to gain a competitive advantage while making the best use of their resources. Research reveals valuable insights into your target audience about their preferences, buying habits, and emerging demands — all of which help you unlock new opportunities to grow your business.

When done correctly, market research can minimize risks and losses, spur growth, and position you as a leader in your industry.

Let’s explore the basic building blocks of market research and how to collect and use data to move your company forward:

Table of Contents

What Is Market Research?

Why is market research important, market analysis example, 5 types of market research, what are common market research questions, what are the limitations of market research, how to do market research, improving your market research with radarly.

Market Research Definition: The process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information about a market or audience.

Market research studies consumer behavior to better understand how they perceive products or services. These insights help businesses identify ways to grow their current offering, create new products or services, and improve brand trust and brand recognition .

You might also hear market research referred to as market analysis or consumer research .

Traditionally, market research has taken the form of focus groups, surveys, interviews, and even competitor analysis . But with modern analytics and research tools, businesses can now capture deeper insights from a wider variety of sources, including social media, online reviews, and customer interactions. These extra layers of intel can help companies gain a more comprehensive understanding of their audience.

With consumer preferences and markets evolving at breakneck speeds, businesses need a way to stay in touch with what people need and want. That’s why the importance of market research cannot be overstated.

Market research offers a proactive way to identify these trends and make adjustments to product development, marketing strategies , and overall operations. This proactive approach can help businesses stay ahead of the curve and remain agile as markets shift.

Market research examples abound — given the number of ways companies can get inside the minds of their customers, simply skimming through your business’s social media comments can be a form of market research.

A restaurant chain might use market research methods to learn more about consumers’ evolving dining habits. These insights might be used to offer new menu items, re-examine their pricing strategies, or even open new locations in different markets, for example.

A consumer electronics company might use market research for similar purposes. For instance, market research may reveal how consumers are using their smart devices so they can develop innovative features.

Market research can be applied to a wide range of use cases, including:

Testing new product ideas
Improve existing products
Entering new markets
Right-sizing their physical footprints
Improving brand image and awareness
Gaining insights into competitors via competitive intelligence

Ultimately, companies can lean on market research techniques to stay ahead of trends and competitors while improving the lives of their customers.

Market research methods take different forms, and you don’t have to limit yourself to just one. Let’s review the most common market research techniques and the insights they deliver.

1. Interviews

3. Focus Groups

4. Observations

5. AI-Driven Market Research

One-on-one interviews are one of the most common market research techniques. Beyond asking direct questions, skilled interviewers can uncover deeper motivations and emotions that drive purchasing decisions. Researchers can elicit more detailed and nuanced responses they might not receive via other methods, such as self-guided surveys.

Interviews also create the opportunity to build rapport with customers and prospects. Establishing a connection with interviewees can encourage them to open up and share their candid thoughts, which can enrich your findings. Researchers also have the opportunity to ask clarifying questions and dig deeper based on individual responses.

Market research surveys provide an easy entry into the consumer psyche. They’re cost-effective to produce and allow researchers to reach lots of people in a short time. They’re also user-friendly for consumers, which allows companies to capture more responses from more people.

Big data and data analytics are making traditional surveys more valuable. Researchers can apply these tools to elicit a deeper understanding from responses and uncover hidden patterns and correlations within survey data that were previously undetectable.

The ways in which surveys are conducted are also changing. With the rise of social media and other online channels, brands and consumers alike have more ways to engage with each other, lending to a continuous approach to market research surveys.

3. Focus groups

Focus groups are “group interviews” designed to gain collective insights. This interactive setting allows participants to express their thoughts and feelings openly, giving researchers richer insights beyond yes-or-no responses.

focus group as part of a market research

One of the key benefits of using focus groups is the opportunity for participants to interact with one another. They spark discussions while sharing diverse viewpoints. These sessions can uncover underlying motivations and attitudes that may not be easily expressed through other research methods.

Observing your customers “in the wild” might feel informal, but it can be one of the most revealing market research techniques of all. That’s because you might not always know the right questions to ask. By simply observing, you can surface insights you might not have known to look for otherwise.

This method also delivers raw, authentic, unfiltered data. There’s no room for bias and no potential for participants to accidentally skew the data. Researchers can also pick up on non-verbal cues and gestures that other research methods may fail to capture.

5. AI-driven market research

One of the newer methods of market research is the use of AI-driven market research tools to collect and analyze insights on your behalf. AI customer intelligence tools and consumer insights software like Meltwater Radarly take an always-on approach by going wherever your audience is and continuously predicting behaviors based on current behaviors.

By leveraging advanced algorithms, machine learning, and big data analysis , AI enables companies to uncover deep-seated patterns and correlations within large datasets that would be near impossible for human researchers to identify. This not only leads to more accurate and reliable findings but also allows businesses to make informed decisions with greater confidence.

Tip: Learn how to use Meltwater as a research tool , how Meltwater uses AI , and learn more about consumer insights and about consumer insights in the fashion industry .

No matter the market research methods you use, market research’s effectiveness lies in the questions you ask. These questions should be designed to elicit honest responses that will help you reach your goals.

Examples of common market research questions include:

Demographic market research questions

What is your age range?
What is your occupation?
What is your household income level?
What is your educational background?
What is your gender?

Product or service usage market research questions

How long have you been using [product/service]?
How frequently do you use [product/service]?
What do you like most about [product/service]?
Have you experienced any problems using [product/service]?
How could we improve [product/service]?
Why did you choose [product/service] over a competitor’s [product/service]?

Brand perception market research questions

How familiar are you with our brand?
What words do you associate with our brand?
How do you feel about our brand?
What makes you trust our brand?
What sets our brand apart from competitors?
What would make you recommend our brand to others?

Buying behavior market research questions

What do you look for in a [product/service]?
What features in a [product/service] are important to you?
How much time do you need to choose a [product/service]?
How do you discover new products like [product/service]?
Do you prefer to purchase [product/service] online or in-store?
How do you research [product/service] before making a purchase?
How often do you buy [product/service]?
How important is pricing when buying [product/service]?
What would make you switch to another brand of [product/service]?

Customer satisfaction market research questions

How happy have you been with [product/service]?
What would make you more satisfied with [product/service]?
How likely are you to continue using [product/service]?

Bonus Tip: Compiling these questions into a market research template can streamline your efforts.

Market research can offer powerful insights, but it also has some limitations. One key limitation is the potential for bias. Researchers may unconsciously skew results based on their own preconceptions or desires, which can make your findings inaccurate.

Depending on your market research methods, your findings may be outdated by the time you sit down to analyze and act on them. Some methods struggle to account for rapidly changing consumer preferences and behaviors.
There’s also the risk of self-reported data (common in online surveys). Consumers might not always accurately convey their true feelings or intentions. They might provide answers they think researchers are looking for or misunderstand the question altogether.
There’s also the potential to miss emerging or untapped markets . Researchers are digging deeper into what (or who) they already know. This means you might be leaving out a key part of the story without realizing it.

Still, the benefits of market research cannot be understated, especially when you supplement traditional market research methods with modern tools and technology.

Let’s put it all together and explore how to do market research step-by-step to help you leverage all its benefits.

Step 1: Define your objectives

You’ll get more from your market research when you hone in on a specific goal : What do you want to know, and how will this knowledge help your business?

This step will also help you define your target audience. You’ll need to ask the right people the right questions to collect the information you want. Understand the characteristics of the audience and what gives them authority to answer your questions.

Step 2: Select your market research methods

Choose one or more of the market research methods (interviews, surveys, focus groups, observations, and/or AI-driven tools) to fuel your research strategy.

Certain methods might work better than others for specific goals . For example, if you want basic feedback from customers about a product, a simple survey might suffice. If you want to hone in on serious pain points to develop a new product, a focus group or interview might work best.

You can also source secondary research via secondary research companies , such as industry reports or analyses from large market research firms. These can help you gather preliminary information and inform your approach.

team analyzing the market research results

Step 3: Develop your research tools

Prior to working with participants, you’ll need to craft your survey or interview questions, interview guides, and other tools. These tools will help you capture the right information , weed out non-qualifying participants, and keep your information organized.

You should also have a system for recording responses to ensure data accuracy and privacy. Test your processes before speaking with participants so you can spot and fix inefficiencies or errors.

Step 4: Conduct the market research

With a system in place, you can start looking for candidates to contribute to your market research. This might include distributing surveys to current customers or recruiting participants who fit a specific profile, for example.

Set a time frame for conducting your research. You might collect responses over the course of a few days, weeks, or even months. If you’re using AI tools to gather data, choose a data range for your data to focus on the most relevant information.

Step 5: Analyze and apply your findings

Review your findings while looking for trends and patterns. AI tools can come in handy in this phase by analyzing large amounts of data on your behalf.

Compile your findings into an easy-to-read report and highlight key takeaways and next steps. Reports aren’t useful unless the reader can understand and act on them.

Tip: Learn more about trend forecasting , trend detection , and trendspotting .

Meltwater’s Radarly consumer intelligence suite helps you reap the benefits of market research on an ongoing basis. Using a combination of AI, data science, and market research expertise, Radarly scans multiple global data sources to learn what people are talking about, the actions they’re taking, and how they’re feeling about specific brands.

Meltwater Radarly screenshot for market research

Our tools are created by market research experts and designed to help researchers uncover what they want to know (and what they don’t know they want to know). Get data-driven insights at scale with information that’s always relevant, always accurate, and always tailored to your organization’s needs.

Learn more when you request a demo by filling out the form below:

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What Is Market Research?

Summary: Market research is a structured process to identify, gather, and analyze information to support business decisions. Market research can provide insights into the customer journey and guide decisions related to product development, marketing strategy, pricing strategy, and points of sales (online and offline) to create a customer experience that supports customer acquisition and retention.

8 minutes to read. By author Michaela Mora on July 10, 2021 Topics: Relevant Methods & Tips , Business Strategy , Market Research

Market research is a discipline with roots in psychology and sociology and involves the identification, collection, analysis, and use of information to make business decisions.

Market research and marketing research are so connected that the nuances are lost and both terms are used interchangeably in practice. For this article, I’ll use the term market research.

We use market research to identify and solve problems in different business areas, often connected to the four Ps in marketing:

Place (distribution, point of sale)
Promotion (advertising)

Overall, these four aspects of any product or service are drivers of the customer experience as customers interact with each of them through the customer journey from product development, pre-sale, point-of-sale, and post-sale.

Market Research to Identify Problems

The use of market research to identify problems aims at the discovery of what we don’t know. It is often called “generative research” in the context of product development as we look for new product ideas. At a very high level is exploratory in its goals and it can use qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis techniques.

We use market research for problem discovery when we design research to:

Identify unmet market needs and their market potential.
Size the market share for specific products or services.
Monitor brand image issues of our brand and competitors.
Profile market segments.
Analyze sales trends.
Forecast future trends.
Identify business trends.

Market Research to Solve Problems

Once a business discovers market opportunities through an understanding of unmet needs, or issues related to its branding, pricing of distribution that may impact the customer experience, the next step is to generate solutions and validate them.

The solutions may be new products and services, new product features to improve the customer experience, a pricing strategy, a brand positioning, a marketing strategy including customization of marketing messages and content for different marketing channels, a redesign of points of sales (online and offline), an internal reorganization to align systems and employees with the customer experience, etc.

For each need or issue discovered there are many potential solutions limited by resources available to the business. The more limited the resources are, the higher the need to use them effectively. Market research can help design solutions for high business impact.

We use market research to solve problems when we design research to:

Identify actionable market segments for products or services (digital or physical)
Develop new products (digital or physical)
Establish a pricing strategy and identify optimal price points.
Determine effective ways to advertise products and services and optimize marketing channels.
Identify distribution issues and barriers to the path to purchase.
Improve customer experience to support customer acquisition and retention strategies.

The Market Research Process

For any given market research project, the process usually includes six major steps:

Business problem definition and translation to a research problem
Development of an approach to the research problem
Research design selection
Data collection or fieldwork
Data processing
Analysis and reporting

Market Research Design Categories

There are different ways to categorize market research depending on:

The focus on the problem at hand: Primary vs. Secondary.
The research design goal: Exploratory vs. Descriptive, vs. Causal
The type of data and collection methods used: Qualitative vs. Quantitative.

Each of these categories helps us guide how to select different research designs, data collection methods, and analysis techniques to gather the information we need to help solve the research problem and provide insights to support business decisions.

Primary Vs. Secondary

First, we try to determine whether we need to conduct secondary or primary research.

Primary research is based on data collection designed to address specific problems.

Secondary research is based on data that have already been collected for other purposes but may be related to the topic at hand. Secondary research should be a prerequisite to the collection of primary data, which would be appropriate when the secondary data sources have been exhausted or yield minimal returns.

Exploratory vs. Descriptive vs. Causal

Exploratory research designs are used to provide insights into problems we don’t fully understand or have not been discovered yet. This is often the type of research we start with when we use market research to identify problems.

We conduct descriptive market research when we try to describe characteristics of target markets or segments of interest, frequency of certain behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions, market trends, etc.

Causal market research, on the other hand, tries to find evidence of cause-and-effect relationships to understand which variables are the cause of behaviors, attitudes, perceptions , or other phenomena of interest.

Qualitative vs. Quantitative

This categorization helps us separate data collection and analysis methods based on their:

Objectives.
Sample design.
Type of data and analysis they allow.
Type of decisions they support.

Generally, qualitative research helps us explore and get a deeper understanding of a problem, while we use quantitative research to quantify and validate findings and test hypotheses. The latter may come from qualitative research, secondary research, or just assumptions made by the business.

Note that different combinations of the four criteria mentioned may render a research design qualitative or quantitative. For example, surveys with small samples may provide only directional results more appropriate for qualitative analysis.

Primary Market Research Data Collection Methods

As describe above, once we decide to design research to answer a specific business and research problem, we are on our way to conduct primary research.

We use a myriad of data collection methods in primary market research depending on the research objectives and research design selected.

Ideally, we should combine qualitative and quantitative methods since they provide different types of data and insights.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative Research is one type of exploratory market research methodology based on semi-structured or unstructured data collection. Data collection methods used in primary qualitative research can be classified as direct or indirect .

Direct methods are those in which we disclose the research objective to participants. These data collection methods include:

In-depth Interviews (IDIs) – Online , In-person, Phone
Focus Groups , Online, In-person
Online bulletin boards
Diary Studies
Usability Testing , Online, In-person
Usability Expert Reviews
Contextual inquiry
Shop-alongs
Ethnographic observation

Indirect methods are those for which the true purpose of the research is not disclosed to participants. These are based on projective techniques, which are unstructured questioning techniques to encourage respondents to reveal underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings regarding particular issues.

These techniques are usually embedded into direct data collection methods and are classified into four major groups:

Association
Construction

Quantitative Research

Primary quantitative data collection methods include surveys and observational methods .

Surveys involve the administration of a questionnaire through different modes (online, phone, mail, in-person) to groups of interest. As a best practice, we try to always use qualitative research to design good surveys .

We use the survey format, particularly in the online mode, to implement many different question types that sometimes are considered “research methods” by those new to research, especially in the UX field. Surveys used in online unmoderated, remote usability tests are an example.

These are just surveys with very special question formats for very specific purposes.

Observation, on the other hand, doesn’t include communicating with the people being observed and can be conducted through different structured and unstructured, direct and indirect methods and performed in natural or lab environments.

Quantitative observational methods include:

Digital transaction/behavior tracking (e.g., sales tracking, web traffic tracking, A/B testing).
Biometric measurement
Audit and inventory analysis.
Content analysis.
Trace analysis from past behaviors.

Although these data collection methods are very different, they should not be seen as mutually exclusive. Each method has advantages and disadvantages and can be used productively in combination.

Market Research Career

To emphasize the value of market research in supporting business decisions and get away from being mainly associated with data collection, the market research industry went through a rebranding process a few years ago. The American Market Research Association is now called the Insights Association , and many market researchers have changed their titles to “Insights” professionals.

You will find insights professionals in research agencies, like ours, and in nonprofit and profit organizations. The latter group is often referred to as corporate researchers. They often in a group within the marketing department or as independent centralized function serving other departments or functional areas in a company. Nowadays, this group goes by names such as “Customer Insights,” “Insights & Analytics,” “Voice of the Customer,” “Consumer Insights,” and the like.

As of 2021, many digital-first companies don’t have a market research/consumer insight group. These companies tend to be organized around digital products (app, software, online service) and prioritize UX research if any research is conducted at all.

Unfortunately, many don’t understand that UX research is a specific application of market research used to solve a particular set of problems.

Market researchers in agencies or inside organizations are involved with all or some steps of the research process depending on whether they do the work themselves or partner with other research vendors in the market research ecosystem.

Market Research Ecosystem

There are many specialists in the market research echo system offering services in line with different steps of the research process or servicing specific industries.

Overall, the market research ecosystem includes providers in areas such as:

Participant sample (online panels, phone list, mail lists, qualitative panels)
Data collection tools for different modes (online survey tools, online qualitative tools, phone surveys, mail surveys, eye tracking, biometrics, usability testing tools)
In-person interviewing services (for onsite, intercept interviews at public places, stores, etc.)
Mystery shopping services
Facilities for in-person research (focus groups, interviews, food testing, product testing)
Data aggregators (syndicated data services, omnibus services)
Qualitative moderation (focus group moderators, in-depth interview moderators)
Analytic software tools (Tools for statistical analyses, crosstabulations, advanced procedures, text analytics )
Panel and community technology platforms (to create proprietary panels and branded research communities)
Recruitment services (for qualitative research and hard to reach audiences)
Open-ended question coding services
Transcription services
Data and reporting visualization tools
Software development for specific applications and methodologies

I hope this summary gives you an idea of what the market research/insights profession is about and how this discipline can be used to find information needed to support business decisions.

Many who are not familiar with the field confuse market research with specific data collection methods (e.g., surveys, focus groups) and tools that facilitate data collection (e.g., online survey tools), but market research is more than its tools.

As researchers, we need to have expertise in research methodology to avoid providing biased insights. This knowledge of methodology is applied in the context of business problems related to product development, customer experience, branding, and financial outcomes. Our goal is to guide decisions that have a business impact.

To read more about how to use market research, check the article 10 Key Pieces of Advice On How to Do And Use Market Research .

How to Align Business Goals With Market Research
Why Faster, Cheaper, and Better Market Research Is a Dangerous Illusion
Why Your Business Needs Discovery Research
Your Market Research Plan to Succeed As a Startup
Top Reason Why Businesses Fail & What To Do About It
How Customer Acquisition and Retention Goals Should Guide Your Market Research Efforts
10 Key Pieces of Advice On How to Do And Use Market Research
What To Value In A Market Research Vendor
How To Build A Brand By Understanding Buying Decisions
How To Research The Irrational Consumer
Examining Research Client-Side Priorities
When Do You Need A Market Research Vendor?
Use Research Insights to Connect with Your Customers
Insightful Planning On A Tight Market Research Budget
Savvy Businesses Realize the Value of Market Research
Don’t Let The Budget Dictate Your Market Research Approach
How To Use Research To Find High-Order Brand Benefits
10 Cognitive Biases You Shouldn’t Ignore In Research
How To Prioritize What To Research
How to Use Surveys in Cause-Effect Research
Don’t Just Trust Your Gut — Do Research
Step by Step Guide to the Market Research Process

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How to do market research in 4 steps: a lean approach to marketing research

From pinpointing your target audience and assessing your competitive advantage, to ongoing product development and customer satisfaction efforts, market research is a practice your business can only benefit from.

Learn how to conduct quick and effective market research using a lean approach in this article full of strategies and practical examples.

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A comprehensive (and successful) business strategy is not complete without some form of market research—you can’t make informed and profitable business decisions without truly understanding your customer base and the current market trends that drive your business.

In this article, you’ll learn how to conduct quick, effective market research using an approach called 'lean market research'. It’s easier than you might think, and it can be done at any stage in a product’s lifecycle.

How to conduct lean market research in 4 steps

What is market research, why is market research so valuable, advantages of lean market research, 4 common market research methods, 5 common market research questions, market research faqs.

We’ll jump right into our 4-step approach to lean market research. To show you how it’s done in the real world, each step includes a practical example from Smallpdf , a Swiss company that used lean market research to reduce their tool’s error rate by 75% and boost their Net Promoter Score® (NPS) by 1%.

Research your market the lean way...

From on-page surveys to user interviews, Hotjar has the tools to help you scope out your market and get to know your customers—without breaking the bank.

The following four steps and practical examples will give you a solid market research plan for understanding who your users are and what they want from a company like yours.

1. Create simple user personas

A user persona is a semi-fictional character based on psychographic and demographic data from people who use websites and products similar to your own. Start by defining broad user categories, then elaborate on them later to further segment your customer base and determine your ideal customer profile .

How to get the data: use on-page or emailed surveys and interviews to understand your users and what drives them to your business.

How to do it right: whatever survey or interview questions you ask, they should answer the following questions about the customer:

Who are they?

What is their main goal?

What is their main barrier to achieving this goal?

Pitfalls to avoid:

Don’t ask too many questions! Keep it to five or less, otherwise you’ll inundate them and they’ll stop answering thoughtfully.

Don’t worry too much about typical demographic questions like age or background. Instead, focus on the role these people play (as it relates to your product) and their goals.

How Smallpdf did it: Smallpdf ran an on-page survey for a couple of weeks and received 1,000 replies. They learned that many of their users were administrative assistants, students, and teachers.

#One of the five survey questions Smallpdf asked their users

Next, they used the survey results to create simple user personas like this one for admins:

Who are they? Administrative Assistants.

What is their main goal? Creating Word documents from a scanned, hard-copy document or a PDF where the source file was lost.

What is their main barrier to achieving it? Converting a scanned PDF doc to a Word file.

💡Pro tip: Smallpdf used Hotjar Surveys to run their user persona survey. Our survey tool helped them avoid the pitfalls of guesswork and find out who their users really are, in their own words.

You can design a survey and start running it in minutes with our easy-to-use drag and drop builder. Customize your survey to fit your needs, from a sleek one-question pop-up survey to a fully branded questionnaire sent via email.

We've also created 40+ free survey templates that you can start collecting data with, including a user persona survey like the one Smallpdf used.

2. Conduct observational research

Observational research involves taking notes while watching someone use your product (or a similar product).

Overt vs. covert observation

Overt observation involves asking customers if they’ll let you watch them use your product. This method is often used for user testing and it provides a great opportunity for collecting live product or customer feedback .

Covert observation means studying users ‘in the wild’ without them knowing. This method works well if you sell a type of product that people use regularly, and it offers the purest observational data because people often behave differently when they know they’re being watched.

Tips to do it right:

Record an entry in your field notes, along with a timestamp, each time an action or event occurs.

Make note of the users' workflow, capturing the ‘what,’ ‘why,’ and ‘for whom’ of each action.

#Sample of field notes taken by Smallpdf

Don’t record identifiable video or audio data without consent. If recording people using your product is helpful for achieving your research goal, make sure all participants are informed and agree to the terms.

Don’t forget to explain why you’d like to observe them (for overt observation). People are more likely to cooperate if you tell them you want to improve the product.

💡Pro tip: while conducting field research out in the wild can wield rewarding results, you can also conduct observational research remotely. Hotjar Recordings is a tool that lets you capture anonymized user sessions of real people interacting with your website.

Observe how customers navigate your pages and products to gain an inside look into their user behavior . This method is great for conducting exploratory research with the purpose of identifying more specific issues to investigate further, like pain points along the customer journey and opportunities for optimizing conversion .

With Hotjar Recordings you can observe real people using your site without capturing their sensitive information

How Smallpdf did it: here’s how Smallpdf observed two different user personas both covertly and overtly.

Observing students (covert): Kristina Wagner, Principle Product Manager at Smallpdf, went to cafes and libraries at two local universities and waited until she saw students doing PDF-related activities. Then she watched and took notes from a distance. One thing that struck her was the difference between how students self-reported their activities vs. how they behaved (i.e, the self-reporting bias). Students, she found, spent hours talking, listening to music, or simply staring at a blank screen rather than working. When she did find students who were working, she recorded the task they were performing and the software they were using (if she recognized it).

Observing administrative assistants (overt): Kristina sent emails to admins explaining that she’d like to observe them at work, and she asked those who agreed to try to batch their PDF work for her observation day. While watching admins work, she learned that they frequently needed to scan documents into PDF-format and then convert those PDFs into Word docs. By observing the challenges admins faced, Smallpdf knew which products to target for improvement.

“Data is really good for discovery and validation, but there is a bit in the middle where you have to go and find the human.”

3. Conduct individual interviews

Interviews are one-on-one conversations with members of your target market. They allow you to dig deep and explore their concerns, which can lead to all sorts of revelations.

Listen more, talk less. Be curious.

Act like a journalist, not a salesperson. Rather than trying to talk your company up, ask people about their lives, their needs, their frustrations, and how a product like yours could help.

Ask "why?" so you can dig deeper. Get into the specifics and learn about their past behavior.

Record the conversation. Focus on the conversation and avoid relying solely on notes by recording the interview. There are plenty of services that will transcribe recorded conversations for a good price (including Hotjar!).

Avoid asking leading questions , which reveal bias on your part and pushes respondents to answer in a certain direction (e.g. “Have you taken advantage of the amazing new features we just released?).

Don't ask loaded questions , which sneak in an assumption which, if untrue, would make it impossible to answer honestly. For example, we can’t ask you, “What did you find most useful about this article?” without asking whether you found the article useful in the first place.

Be cautious when asking opinions about the future (or predictions of future behavior). Studies suggest that people aren’t very good at predicting their future behavior. This is due to several cognitive biases, from the misguided exceptionalism bias (we’re good at guessing what others will do, but we somehow think we’re different), to the optimism bias (which makes us see things with rose-colored glasses), to the ‘illusion of control’ (which makes us forget the role of randomness in future events).

How Smallpdf did it: Kristina explored her teacher user persona by speaking with university professors at a local graduate school. She learned that the school was mostly paperless and rarely used PDFs, so for the sake of time, she moved on to the admins.

A bit of a letdown? Sure. But this story highlights an important lesson: sometimes you follow a lead and come up short, so you have to make adjustments on the fly. Lean market research is about getting solid, actionable insights quickly so you can tweak things and see what works.

💡Pro tip: to save even more time, conduct remote interviews using an online user research service like Hotjar Engage , which automates the entire interview process, from recruitment and scheduling to hosting and recording.

You can interview your own customers or connect with people from our diverse pool of 200,000+ participants from 130+ countries and 25 industries. And no need to fret about taking meticulous notes—Engage will automatically transcribe the interview for you.

4. Analyze the data (without drowning in it)

The following techniques will help you wrap your head around the market data you collect without losing yourself in it. Remember, the point of lean market research is to find quick, actionable insights.

A flow model is a diagram that tracks the flow of information within a system. By creating a simple visual representation of how users interact with your product and each other, you can better assess their needs.

#Example of a flow model designed by Smallpdf

You’ll notice that admins are at the center of Smallpdf’s flow model, which represents the flow of PDF-related documents throughout a school. This flow model shows the challenges that admins face as they work to satisfy their own internal and external customers.

Affinity diagram

An affinity diagram is a way of sorting large amounts of data into groups to better understand the big picture. For example, if you ask your users about their profession, you’ll notice some general themes start to form, even though the individual responses differ. Depending on your needs, you could group them by profession, or more generally by industry.

We wrote a guide about how to analyze open-ended questions to help you sort through and categorize large volumes of response data. You can also do this by hand by clipping up survey responses or interview notes and grouping them (which is what Kristina does).

“For an interview, you will have somewhere between 30 and 60 notes, and those notes are usually direct phrases. And when you literally cut them up into separate pieces of paper and group them, they should make sense by themselves.”

Pro tip: if you’re conducting an online survey with Hotjar, keep your team in the loop by sharing survey responses automatically via our Slack and Microsoft Team integrations. Reading answers as they come in lets you digest the data in pieces and can help prepare you for identifying common themes when it comes time for analysis.

Hotjar lets you easily share survey responses with your team

Customer journey map

A customer journey map is a diagram that shows the way a typical prospect becomes a paying customer. It outlines their first interaction with your brand and every step in the sales cycle, from awareness to repurchase (and hopefully advocacy).

The above customer journey map , created by our team at Hotjar, shows many ways a customer might engage with our tool. Your map will be based on your own data and business model.

📚 Read more: if you’re new to customer journey maps, we wrote this step-by-step guide to creating your first customer journey map in 2 and 1/2 days with free templates you can download and start using immediately.

Next steps: from research to results

So, how do you turn market research insights into tangible business results? Let’s look at the actions Smallpdf took after conducting their lean market research: first they implemented changes, then measured the impact.

#Smallpdf used lean market research to dig below the surface, understand their clients, and build a better product and user experience

Implement changes

Based on what Smallpdf learned about the challenges that one key user segment (admins) face when trying to convert PDFs into Word files, they improved their ‘PDF to Word’ conversion tool.

We won’t go into the details here because it involves a lot of technical jargon, but they made the entire process simpler and more straightforward for users. Plus, they made it so that their system recognized when you drop a PDF file into their ‘Word to PDF’ converter instead of the ‘PDF to Word’ converter, so users wouldn’t have to redo the task when they made that mistake.

In other words: simple market segmentation for admins showed a business need that had to be accounted for, and customers are happier overall after Smallpdf implemented an informed change to their product.

Measure results

According to the Lean UX model, product and UX changes aren’t retained unless they achieve results.

Smallpdf’s changes produced:

A 75% reduction in error rate for the ‘PDF to Word’ converter

A 1% increase in NPS

Greater confidence in the team’s marketing efforts

"With all the changes said and done, we've cut our original error rate in four, which is huge. We increased our NPS by +1%, which isn't huge, but it means that of the users who received a file, they were still slightly happier than before, even if they didn't notice that anything special happened at all.”

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Market research (or marketing research) is any set of techniques used to gather information and better understand a company’s target market. This might include primary research on brand awareness and customer satisfaction or secondary market research on market size and competitive analysis. Businesses use this information to design better products, improve user experience, and craft a marketing strategy that attracts quality leads and improves conversion rates.

David Darmanin, one of Hotjar’s founders, launched two startups before Hotjar took off—but both companies crashed and burned. Each time, he and his team spent months trying to design an amazing new product and user experience, but they failed because they didn’t have a clear understanding of what the market demanded.

With Hotjar, they did things differently . Long story short, they conducted market research in the early stages to figure out what consumers really wanted, and the team made (and continues to make) constant improvements based on market and user research.

Without market research, it’s impossible to understand your users. Sure, you might have a general idea of who they are and what they need, but you have to dig deep if you want to win their loyalty.

Here’s why research matters:

Obsessing over your users is the only way to win. If you don’t care deeply about them, you’ll lose potential customers to someone who does.

Analytics gives you the ‘what’, while research gives you the ‘why’. Big data, user analytics , and dashboards can tell you what people do at scale, but only research can tell you what they’re thinking and why they do what they do. For example, analytics can tell you that customers leave when they reach your pricing page, but only research can explain why.

Research beats assumptions, trends, and so-called best practices. Have you ever watched your colleagues rally behind a terrible decision? Bad ideas are often the result of guesswork, emotional reasoning, death by best practices , and defaulting to the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion (HiPPO). By listening to your users and focusing on their customer experience , you’re less likely to get pulled in the wrong direction.

Research keeps you from planning in a vacuum. Your team might be amazing, but you and your colleagues simply can’t experience your product the way your customers do. Customers might use your product in a way that surprises you, and product features that seem obvious to you might confuse them. Over-planning and refusing to test your assumptions is a waste of time, money, and effort because you’ll likely need to make changes once your untested business plan gets put into practice.

Lean User Experience (UX) design is a model for continuous improvement that relies on quick, efficient research to understand customer needs and test new product features.

Lean market research can help you become more...

Efficient: it gets you closer to your customers, faster.

Cost-effective: no need to hire an expensive marketing firm to get things started.

Competitive: quick, powerful insights can place your products on the cutting edge.

As a small business or sole proprietor, conducting lean market research is an attractive option when investing in a full-blown research project might seem out of scope or budget.

There are lots of different ways you could conduct market research and collect customer data, but you don’t have to limit yourself to just one research method. Four common types of market research techniques include surveys, interviews, focus groups, and customer observation.

Which method you use may vary based on your business type: ecommerce business owners have different goals from SaaS businesses, so it’s typically prudent to mix and match these methods based on your particular goals and what you need to know.

1. Surveys: the most commonly used

Surveys are a form of qualitative research that ask respondents a short series of open- or closed-ended questions, which can be delivered as an on-screen questionnaire or via email. When we asked 2,000 Customer Experience (CX) professionals about their company’s approach to research , surveys proved to be the most commonly used market research technique.

What makes online surveys so popular?

They’re easy and inexpensive to conduct, and you can do a lot of data collection quickly. Plus, the data is pretty straightforward to analyze, even when you have to analyze open-ended questions whose answers might initially appear difficult to categorize.

We've built a number of survey templates ready and waiting for you. Grab a template and share with your customers in just a few clicks.

💡 Pro tip: you can also get started with Hotjar AI for Surveys to create a survey in mere seconds . Just enter your market research goal and watch as the AI generates a survey and populates it with relevant questions.

Once you’re ready for data analysis, the AI will prepare an automated research report that succinctly summarizes key findings, quotes, and suggested next steps.

An example research report generated by Hotjar AI for Surveys

2. Interviews: the most insightful

Interviews are one-on-one conversations with members of your target market. Nothing beats a face-to-face interview for diving deep (and reading non-verbal cues), but if an in-person meeting isn’t possible, video conferencing is a solid second choice.

Regardless of how you conduct it, any type of in-depth interview will produce big benefits in understanding your target customers.

What makes interviews so insightful?

By speaking directly with an ideal customer, you’ll gain greater empathy for their experience , and you can follow insightful threads that can produce plenty of 'Aha!' moments.

3. Focus groups: the most unreliable

Focus groups bring together a carefully selected group of people who fit a company’s target market. A trained moderator leads a conversation surrounding the product, user experience, or marketing message to gain deeper insights.

What makes focus groups so unreliable?

If you’re new to market research, we wouldn’t recommend starting with focus groups. Doing it right is expensive , and if you cut corners, your research could fall victim to all kinds of errors. Dominance bias (when a forceful participant influences the group) and moderator style bias (when different moderator personalities bring about different results in the same study) are two of the many ways your focus group data could get skewed.

4. Observation: the most powerful

During a customer observation session, someone from the company takes notes while they watch an ideal user engage with their product (or a similar product from a competitor).

What makes observation so clever and powerful?

‘Fly-on-the-wall’ observation is a great alternative to focus groups. It’s not only less expensive, but you’ll see people interact with your product in a natural setting without influencing each other. The only downside is that you can’t get inside their heads, so observation still isn't a recommended replacement for customer surveys and interviews.

The following questions will help you get to know your users on a deeper level when you interview them. They’re general questions, of course, so don’t be afraid to make them your own.

1. Who are you and what do you do?

How you ask this question, and what you want to know, will vary depending on your business model (e.g. business-to-business marketing is usually more focused on someone’s profession than business-to-consumer marketing).

It’s a great question to start with, and it’ll help you understand what’s relevant about your user demographics (age, race, gender, profession, education, etc.), but it’s not the be-all-end-all of market research. The more specific questions come later.

2. What does your day look like?

This question helps you understand your users’ day-to-day life and the challenges they face. It will help you gain empathy for them, and you may stumble across something relevant to their buying habits.

3. Do you ever purchase [product/service type]?

This is a ‘yes or no’ question. A ‘yes’ will lead you to the next question.

4. What problem were you trying to solve or what goal were you trying to achieve?

This question strikes to the core of what someone’s trying to accomplish and why they might be willing to pay for your solution.

5. Take me back to the day when you first decided you needed to solve this kind of problem or achieve this goal.

This is the golden question, and it comes from Adele Revella, Founder and CEO of Buyer Persona Institute . It helps you get in the heads of your users and figure out what they were thinking the day they decided to spend money to solve a problem.

If you take your time with this question, digging deeper where it makes sense, you should be able to answer all the relevant information you need to understand their perspective.

“The only scripted question I want you to ask them is this one: take me back to the day when you first decided that you needed to solve this kind of problem or achieve this kind of a goal. Not to buy my product, that’s not the day. We want to go back to the day that when you thought it was urgent and compelling to go spend money to solve a particular problem or achieve a goal. Just tell me what happened.”

— Adele Revella , Founder/CEO at Buyer Persona Institute

Bonus question: is there anything else you’d like to tell me?

This question isn’t just a nice way to wrap it up—it might just give participants the opportunity they need to tell you something you really need to know.

That’s why Sarah Doody, author of UX Notebook , adds it to the end of her written surveys.

“I always have a last question, which is just open-ended: “Is there anything else you would like to tell me?” And sometimes, that’s where you get four paragraphs of amazing content that you would never have gotten if it was just a Net Promoter Score [survey] or something like that.”

What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative research?

Qualitative research asks questions that can’t be reduced to a number, such as, “What is your job title?” or “What did you like most about your customer service experience?”

Quantitative research asks questions that can be answered with a numeric value, such as, “What is your annual salary?” or “How was your customer service experience on a scale of 1-5?”

→ Read more about the differences between qualitative and quantitative user research .

How do I do my own market research?

You can do your own quick and effective market research by

Surveying your customers

Building user personas

Studying your users through interviews and observation

Wrapping your head around your data with tools like flow models, affinity diagrams, and customer journey maps

What is the difference between market research and user research?

Market research takes a broad look at potential customers—what problems they’re trying to solve, their buying experience, and overall demand. User research, on the other hand, is more narrowly focused on the use (and usability ) of specific products.

What are the main criticisms of market research?

Many marketing professionals are critical of market research because it can be expensive and time-consuming. It’s often easier to convince your CEO or CMO to let you do lean market research rather than something more extensive because you can do it yourself. It also gives you quick answers so you can stay ahead of the competition.

Do I need a market research firm to get reliable data?

Absolutely not! In fact, we recommend that you start small and do it yourself in the beginning. By following a lean market research strategy, you can uncover some solid insights about your clients. Then you can make changes, test them out, and see whether the results are positive. This is an excellent strategy for making quick changes and remaining competitive.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld, and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.

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Market Research

Market research definition.

Market research is a method that helps companies understand what their target audience wants and needs. It often involves surveying customers or potential buyers to get their opinions about products and services. Market research also allows companies to better understand their competition and to compete effectively. Good market research helps to understand the trends and developments in the market and to develop a better understanding of the customer base. Using the results, companies can adapt their products accordingly and develop tailored campaigns to engage their target audience. This can help increase customer satisfaction and sales. Market research can also help companies respond better to changes in the industry. With the help of market research data, companies receive important information about new technologies or the entry of new competitors into the market. This gives them more time to develop strategies to adapt to changes in the industry.

Overall, it is clear that without strategically thought-out market research, companies run the risk of falling behind not only in terms of customer satisfaction, but also in other areas of business operations. Therefore, market research must be considered an indispensable investment - for both large and small businesses - to ensure the company's success. By knowing what your target audience's needs are and how best to satisfy them, you can stay ahead of your competitors and implement a long-term growth strategy.

Market Research Goals

Market research is an important tool for companies to know their customers' wants and needs and to stay in touch with them. There are many different objectives of market research, but they all have the same goal: to help companies adapt to their customers' needs by gathering information about their attitudes and behavior . By conducting market research studies, companies can also determine how the market is changing and how customers are reacting to new products and services.

One of the main goals of market research is to identify existing customers in order to provide them with a better customer experience. Companies can collect data on demographic characteristics such as age, gender and income group to find out which groups use their products the most. This way, companies can create specifically tailored campaigns and target new clientele to increase the growth of their business. Market research studies also help companies develop new products or services. With the help of surveys, companies can find out what people like about certain products or what they would like to do differently. In this way, the management of a company can make more informed decisions and develop targeted innovative strategies to increase the company's success in the long term. Market research is also very useful as a tool to determine the company's positioning in the market. It enables company target group segmentation by analyzing consumer behavior and preferences as well as measuring the market shares of competitor company in terms of pricing and distribution. Overall, market research helps company managers to initiate informed decision-making processes with the goal of profit-oriented growth. It is evident that all types of organizational units - from small business owners to large corporations - can reap benefits from using effective market research strategies. With the right tools, companies are not only able to find out what their audience wants and needs, but also make knowledge-based decision and develop and implement business strategies.

Methods of Market Research

Companies need to be constantly aware of their target markets to ensure that their product or service meets customer expectations. Market research methods help companies gather meaningful information about potential customers and expand the reach of their brand. This information can help companies develop advertising campaigns, new product design, and other strategic decision-making processes.

Primary Method of Market Research

The primary methods of market research are a combination of field research and survey techniques. Both techniques allow companies to get direct responses from consumers to find out what they want and what their expectations are of the brand. Examples of primary methods of market research are:

Face-to-Face-Interviews : The traditional type of interview in which interviewers ask consumers questions.
Telephone Interview s: A convenient option for interviewers to ask consumers questions.
Online Surveys: An efficient way to reach a large number of consumers at once.
Focus Group Discussions: An informal dialogue between a group of consumers and a facilitator in which ideas and opinions are exchanged.
Observational research: A method in which data collection is conducted through observation of proposed situation or environment.
Field Studies: An approach to collect qualitative data on actual consumer behaviors in their natural environment.

Secondary Method of Market Research

In addition to primary methods, there are also secondary methods of market research. Secondary research is more descriptive than exploratory research - it focuses more on evaluating existing data collection than collecting it. Examples of secondary research methods include:

Desk Research : Desk research is the survey of existing data collections from print and online resources and internal corporate knowledge repositories.
Short-Term Forecasting : Short-term forecasts are based on short-term trends that can be used to predict the effects of certain actions in the near future (e.g., price changes).
Data Mining : Data mining is a technique used to identify which factors may have effects on potential customer groups; usually based on secondary data collections as well as external sources such as social media or web traffic trends.

Evaluation and Interpretation of Market Research Data

It is important that companies carefully evaluate and interpret their market research data . This data provides useful insights into customers' thoughts and attitudes about a product or service. By interpreting this data, companies can find out what people think about their brand and how they feel about the brand. Market research data can be interpreted in a number of ways, depending on the results you want to achieve.

One popular method is qualitative market research . Here, customer interviews, online surveys or group discussions are conducted to gain deeper insights into customers' thought processes. The results of this type of research can then be used to create profiles to see what characteristics a particular consumer segment has and what motivations guide them. Another way of evaluating market research data is to use quantitative methods. Here, a representative sample is drawn and surveyed to determine general trends and preferences. The results are then analyzed to give decision-makers a better overview of consumer behavior and to make recommendations.

Finally, any type of market research data analysis can be improved with computer simulation techniques. These techniques help companies identify new markets or better understand existing markets. In addition, companies can also use these techniques to support better decision making, allowing them to identify and predict potential problems early on. Evaluating and interpreting market research data is a key aspect of any marketing strategy. With the right methods, a company can improve its customer experience and thereby gain a competitive advantage.

Application areas of Market Research

Digitization has revolutionized market research in recent years. The use of digital tools and technologies has spawned a variety of new application areas that companies and organizations can benefit from today. Market researchers can collect and use data from a variety of sources, such as online surveys, social media and mobile apps, to gain an in-depth understanding of target markets. Using these methods allows companies to get faster results with greater accuracy. Using online surveys, a company can quickly collect and analyze a large data set. The analysis of existing customer data is also simplified by digitization, as tools are available to evaluate customer data more quickly. This approach saves time and costs when conducting market research studies. Another benefit of digitizing market research is the ability to measure customer satisfaction directly after purchase or after receiving a product or service. Using social media analytics tools, companies can easily collect and process feedback from customers to further develop their products or services. The use of digital market research also makes it possible to support better decision-making processes.

What qualitative methods are available?

Qualitative market research is a particularly effective method for better understanding people's opinions about a particular topic or product. This can help create better products and services and meet the needs of customers. There are several qualitative methods that can be used in market research. Some of the more commonly used methods are

Focus Groups : These are group discussions with a group of people discussing the same product or topic. Focus groups can be used to gain deep insights into the thought processes of the target group.
Individual Interviews : This method involves interviews with one person. It is also possible to interview more than one person at a time. With individual interviews, more detailed information can be obtained than with a group of people in focus group discussions.
Observational Studies : Observational studies involve observing consumer behaviors in various situations. These studies help to gain important insights into the way people use certain products.
Online Surveys : Online surveys can be used to reach many people and gather feedback. It is an efficient way to get many responses in a relatively short time and thus gain insights about your target group.

By using these qualitative methods, companies can make informed decisions and improve their customer experience through better products or service, based on the results of market research. Qualitative data collection method offers companies the opportunity to gain deep insights into the customer experience and thus gain a competitive advantage.

What is Market Research?

Market research is an important discipline for entrepreneurs, providing them with the critical information they need to be successful. Market research helps businesses better market their product or services and increase customer satisfaction. Good market research provides useful data that helps the business get on the right track. Data collection is one of the most important aspects of market research. There are many methods of data collection, ranging from qualitative research methods to quantitative research methods. Research from primary and secondary sources can help provide deep insights into customer behavior. These insights can be helpful in developing marketing strategies and decision-making. In addition, market research can help in understanding consumer behavior. By using consumer surveys and other methods, one can find out more about consumer behavior and thus find better ways to make decisions. Therefore, it is important for entrepreneurs to use qualitative and quantitative methods to find out more about their target audience before launching a marketing campaign or developing new products or service. Another advantage of market research is that it enables the company to compare similar products or service in competition with other suppliers and thus gain a competitive advantage. With the information from the market research process, entrepreneurs can optimize their offer and plan effective strategies. Thus, the process of market research can be considered as an investment, as it will ultimately improve the company's position in the market. All in all, it is important for any company to regularly conduct market research in order to gather relevant information about customer demand or competitive situation. With the right tools and techniques, any company can achieve its goals - whether it's targeting new customer segments or introducing new products - to ultimately succeed in the marketplace.

What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative?

Market research is an important part of a company's success. There are two methods that companies can use to achieve their goals: qualitative and quantitative. Both research methods have their own specific characteristics and uses. Qualitative market research involves the use of technical tools such as interviews, surveys and group discussions to obtain information about the thoughts, opinions and attitudes of the target audience. This type of research allows the company to delve deeper into the thinking of the people who consume its products or services. Qualitative methods can be used to gather detailed information about customer attitudes in order to create better decision-making bases for business strategies. Quantitative market research uses mathematical models and statistical methods to obtain numbers as results. Data collection is based on surveys, tests and other measurement methods. This method is helpful in evaluating trends on a large scale, as well as comparing characteristics between different grouping configurations with predefined scalability. Quantitative research is also helpful for measuring the success of specific marketing campaigns in terms of sales and market share. It is important to note that qualitative and quantitative research complement each other and do not replace each other. Both methodologies have their place in market research; therefore, it is advisable to use a combination of both approaches to achieve the best result for the company. In addition, companies should compare the results of qualitative and quantitative research, as well as carefully consider all options before they have spent their budget on a particular method. In this way, companies can ensure that they get the best possible solution to their problem while minimizing their risk.

What are the tasks of Market Research?

Market research is an indispensable part of companies' strategy. It enables them to gather relevant information about potential and existing customers, which must be taken into account when developing products and services. In addition, it can also help create competitive advantages in the market. But what are the tasks of market research? One of the main tasks of market research is to identify new markets and customer segments. This includes collecting data on demographic characteristics, preferences and buying habits, as well as analyzing trends in different industries and regions. It is equally important to understand the behavior of the competition. Market research can help to gain a deep understanding of both the market and the competition, improving the company's ability to differentiate itself from other suppliers. In addition, market research can also help drive product innovation. By collecting and analyzing relevant data about their customer segments, companies can gain insights to develop new product ideas or adapt and develop existing products. In this way, companies can ensure that their products meet the needs of their target group and thus create new sales opportunities. Another important element of market research is measuring the success of a product or brand. This includes surveying potential and existing customers about their buying experience, as well as collecting data about the company's sales and other key figures such as cost-saving potential, etc.. In this way, companies are able to understand their overall business and better understand success measurement dynamics, as well as better estimate the extent to which certain measures will have a positive impact on overall sales. Overall, then, the role of market research extends far beyond the collection of basic data to encompass multiple aspects of business operations - from identifying new markets to measuring the success of a product or brand. It thus represents an indispensable component of any corporate strategy - especially with regard to innovation and competitive advantages on the market.

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Marketing Research and Market Analysis: Definition, Goal and Objectives

What is marketing research? How is it different from market analysis? This article describes marketing research, its goals and objectives, the kind of data gathered, and how those data are analyzed.

As my students in research come from various disciplines, I need to balance the topics and generalize as much as possible on research principles. However, I strive to give customized examples relevant to my student’s backgrounds. This approach will help them appreciate better the role of research in their respective fields.

Some of my students are business graduates, and many of them cannot imagine how research works in their field. The truth is, research is very much relevant in business, particularly the marketing research aspects.

Thus, I need to define marketing research, state its goals and objectives, identify data to gather, and analyze sample data. I provide a detailed and practical example to showcase how market research works. That’s where market analysis comes in.

Definition of Marketing Research

Zikmund (1999) defines marketing research as a systematic and objective process of generating information to aid marketing decisions. This process includes specifying what information is required, designing the method for collecting data, managing and implementing data, analyzing the results, and communicating the findings and their implications.

Marketing research is a systematic and objective process of generating information to aid in marketing decisions.

Simply put, market research is the process of using research to increase sales or income within the shortest time possible to gain the maximum profit.

The most crucial thing in this definition is that marketing research helps business owners or marketing managers make decisions as in any research venture. Marketing research sheds light on customers’ preferences, the long-range profitability of business operations, and other product-oriented concerns.

Successful companies like Google, Microsoft, and IBM must be employing excellent marketing research activities to keep their edge in the competitive world of business. Data support decisions related to their products and services. Managers decide with calculated risks.

Marketing research requires conceptualization, data planning, data gathering, and the application of appropriate statistical tests. Data analysis will show correlations, differences, or trends useful in decision making.

Goal and Objectives of Marketing Research

The main goal of any business is to achieve more sales, greater productivity, greater or faster return on investment (ROI). Marketing research could provide the information required to realize this goal.

The objectives of marketing research most commonly revolve around the following interests:

find out which products are preferred by consumers,
determine which group of people buy which type of product,
where the buying customers live,
what age group search for and buy which product,
how long people stick with the product they purchase,
at what time or periods do people buy which product,
what do people like and dislike,
how much are people willing to pay for a good or service, and
a lot more purposes that business management requires.

Simplifying matters, marketing research essentially wants to find out the characteristics of consumers and see how they should design products, improve services, develop strategies or techniques to capture these customers. A business thrives if it answers the needs and wants of its customers and makes them competitive.

If a company does not understand its customers, then most likely it will suffer a great loss in sales thus reduced income, spend more than they earn, and ultimately get bankrupt. Their services or products become irrelevant to the customers’ needs and wants.

Why produce a product that does not sell anyway? Why offer a service that is not in demand? And why keep on operating if the business is losing?

How the Results of Marketing Research are Analyzed

The data gathered about customers is useless unless analyzed using advanced statistical applications. Various statistical approaches analyze data obtained from marketing research. Usually, multivariate statistics such as multiple regression , factor analysis, canonical correlation, and multiple discriminant analysis are applied.

What is multivariate statistics and why multivariate?

Multivariate statistics refers to analysis using not just a few variables; not two, or three but several or many variables simultaneously. Aside from saving time, the results of such analysis can pinpoint customer characteristics that matter when it comes to product purchases or sales.

To further clarify this idea, a market researcher might ask: “Which of the following customer characteristics: age, gender, occupation, income, residence, or nationality click more often the ads on an electronic product?”

The answer to this question may be obtained from data gathered when someone signs up for a service such as an email or a social networking site. When you sign up for whatever free services are available on the internet, bear this in mind. There is no such thing as free lunch. In the business world, you cannot afford to be a free rider . You need to pay for a good or service that you enjoy.

Those who click on the ads on electronics are potential customers, and knowing their characteristics will help sellers focus their marketing strategies. A multiple regression analysis will show this information. But of course, marketing researchers would have to find out if there is a correlation between clicks and sales. A simple correlation analysis will enable them to answer this question.

If the data analysis reveals that gender has something to do with interest in an electronic product, then the product sellers should design marketing strategies that consider gender roles in product selection. What products do men and women want? On the other hand, age may also be a factor. So, the researcher must consider this, too.

A model can then be constructed to estimate demand for the product using a combination of factors that predict its sales. The following section presents such a model to show how different variables define the consumption of a particular product.

Example Conceptual Framework on Marketing Research

One of the readers of my article on developing a conceptual framework asked if I could provide an example conceptual framework on marketing research. Hence, I include this concern in this section to illustrate how having a conceptual framework before undertaking marketing research will guide the study.

One of the popular marketing research activities focuses on product quality and services. I illustrate product and service research with a personal experience below.

Customer Feedback on Products and Services

A few years back, I answered a simple questionnaire soliciting my feedback on a pizza shop’s products and services. The questionnaire sought my rating of pizza taste, service speed, and the courtesy of the server.

As part of their franchise, I would presume that the pizza business owner or manager solicits feedback from the customers. They do this to see how customers perceive the consumed product and the service associated with it. The main variables in this study, based on the questionnaire, are pizza taste, service speed, and waiter service quality to the customers.

We can plot the paradigm of the study as follows:

Figure 1 above shows the conceptual framework of the study. It is an abstract representation of what the pizza manager or consultant has in mind. It shows the variables, namely pizza taste, service speed, and waiter courtesy.

Perhaps, the researchers had conducted a literature review and discovered that the predictor variables consist of these three characteristics. These variables are the crucial factors to consider as correlates of customer satisfaction.

Why were the three independent variables, namely pizza taste, service speed, and waiter courtesy selected?

A literature review on customer satisfaction may have revealed that these variables are determinants of customer satisfaction. But in the particular location where the pizza restaurant operates, any of these variables may be more important than the other.

Customer Preferences Vary Geographically

Mittal et al. (2004) found out that customer preferences vary geographically. This finding implies that clients in one place may prioritize courtesy over taste. In one location, customers may put a premium on service speed. In another spot, customers may not mind much either the speed or courtesy but the taste.

So how will the marketing manager use the findings of the study in the given example? If, for example, customers in the location I’m in prioritize service speed, then the appropriate action should be to improve pizza delivery speed without compromising taste and courtesy.

This example illustrates the importance of marketing research in making decisions that can help businesses grow. Research findings guide marketing managers on what steps to take to improve their business operations.

How to Do Market Research

In the age of information, it pays to be creative and resourceful. The Internet provides a tremendous amount of information to help you carry out marketing research without leaving your home.

There are just so many ways you can do today using available tools like Google Analytics and government websites. You don’t even have to go out of your home to do market research. What is essential is for you to ask the right questions that research can answer.

Listen to the following video on how you can do market research for free.

To sum it all up, marketing research is a tool that managers and business owners can use to understand their customers better and deliver their goods or services just the way their customers would love it. Informed decisions are better than just a hit-and-miss approach that does not guarantee the desired results.

It’s simply asking the customers what they want, and you provide it if you intend to grow your business and increase profits.

After defining marketing research and giving an example conceptual framework for a pizza study, I present the details of market analysis using a standard multivariate statistical analysis tool.

Before everything else, the concept “market analysis” should be defined first. What is market analysis, and how is it used?

Market Analysis Defined

Marketing strategies work best when founded on a systematic evaluation of consumer preferences. What do consumers want? How do they respond to a product or service? Marketing research provides answers to these questions.

Hence, market analysis can be defined as the process of evaluating consumer preferences using a systematic approach such as marketing research, among others. Market analysis is a detailed examination of the elements or structure of the market.

Why is a market analysis done? An analysis is done to draw out important findings for interpretation, discussion, and finally, a decision on what steps to make.

Marketing Research Example: The Pizza Study

In this example, I will use the conceptual framework given in the pizza study in the preceding section. The variables in this example include pizza taste, service speed, and waiter courtesy as determinants of customer satisfaction.

To find out what customers want, let us have sample feedback data from 200 pizza shop customers.

Coding the Variables for Market Analysis

Data analysis requires the conversion of subjective customer feedback into numbers. We need to code the data so that statistical software applications can analyze them.

Here’s how to code the variables used in this study namely, pizza taste, service speed, and waiter courtesy:

Pizza Taste

1 – Very bad

3 – Moderate

5 – Very good

Service Speed

1 – Satisfied

0 – Not satisfied

Waiter Courtesy

1 – Courteous

0 – Not courteous

Level of Satisfaction

Let us assume that the following Likert scale applies to the customer’s level of satisfaction:

1- Not at all satisfied

2 – Slightly satisfied

3 – Moderately satisfied

4 – Very satisfied

5 – Extremely satisfied

If for example, the customer is satisfied with pizza taste, service speed, and waiter courtesy; he rates everything “5.” If he is not satisfied with courtesy, then he might rate it a “0.”

Analyzing Data Using Multiple Regression Analysis

After collecting data from 200 pizza customers as input to the multiple regression analysis, the following is the result of data analysis.

Result of the Regression Analysis

The following sample table presents the results of the multiple regression analysis using a simple spreadsheet software application with regression capability. It consists of two parts:

general relationship between the dependent and independent variables, and
details on the relationship between satisfaction score and pizza taste, service speed, and server courtesy.

Notice that the overall relationship has R values. Among these R values, the most important for interpretation is the Adjusted R 2 value. This value represents the relationship between variables of the study. The value obtained here is 0.43. This value means that 43% of the variation in satisfaction score is accounted for by the three variables.

Closer scrutiny of the details in Part 2 reveals that service speed significantly relates to satisfaction score. The red font indicates this significant relationship (for better understanding, please read the post on how to determine the significance of statistical relationships ).

Interpretation of the Results

We can say with confidence that among the variables studied, service speed relates significantly to customer satisfaction. If you look closely at the entries in the data set, for every 5 or 4 satisfaction score, a 1 corresponds to efficient service speed, i.e., the customer is satisfied with service speed. Take note, however, that this interpretation holds only to the particular location where the study transpired.

Given this result, the marketing manager, therefore, should focus on the improvement of service speed to satisfy customers. This simple information can help the pizza business grow and gain a competitive edge. Market analysis guides decision-making and avoids incurring the unnecessary cost associated with the hit-and-miss approach.

Well, this is just an introduction to market research with a simplified example. The point is that market research is a crucial component of business strategy especially among large businesses. A little change in the practices of a large company or even a small business can mean a lot in sales. The information provided by market research is an important part of business decision making .

Hillman, C. H., Erickson, K. I., & Kramer, A. F. (2008). Be smart, exercise your heart: exercise effects on brain and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(1), 58-65.

Mittal, V., Kamakura, W. A., & Govind, R. (2004). Geographic patterns in customer service and satisfaction: An empirical investigation. Journal of Marketing, 68(3), 48-62.

Zikmund, W. (1999). Essentials of marketing research. Dryden Press. 422 pp.

How to Write a Scientific Paper: 8 Elements

How to start a review of literature, qualitative interview designs, about the author, patrick regoniel.

Dr. Regoniel, a faculty member of the graduate school, served as consultant to various environmental research and development projects covering issues and concerns on climate change, coral reef resources and management, economic valuation of environmental and natural resources, mining, and waste management and pollution. He has extensive experience on applied statistics, systems modelling and analysis, an avid practitioner of LaTeX, and a multidisciplinary web developer. He leverages pioneering AI-powered content creation tools to produce unique and comprehensive articles in this website.

Very helpful

Thanks it has been enlightening information

How to Write a Marketing Research Objective

We all know the old adage: is marketing is an art or a science?

At Seer, we think it’s both. But not necessarily both at the same time. We believe the better question is: which comes first in marketing, art or science?

And if you ask us that question, we’d tell you it’s a science first.

"The science of marketing is all about using data and insights to drive your strategy. The art of marketing is how you express that strategy."

Now that we know we are starting with science, what does that mean exactly?

Well, remember when you were in school and you had to come up with your own science research experiment? Remember what came first? The objective. Why? Because without an objective, you don’t have a testable proposition. And without a testable proposition, you don’t have direction. And we all know that when research doesn’t have a direction, it typically doesn’t garner any groundbreaking takeaways.

So, what does your high school science experiment have to do with marketing research?

Similar to the traditional objective, a great marketing research plan starts with a strong objective. One that is focused, measurable, and effective. Without a clear objective, your marketing research will not be as successful.

What is a Marketing Research Objective?

[TIP] By definition, a "Research Objective" is a statement of purpose that outlines a specific result to achieve within a dedicated time frame and available resources.

Applying this logic to marketing, a marketing research objective is a statement that outlines what you want to know about your customer. Clearly defining your objective at the beginning stages will help you avoid conflicting expectations or wasted collecting irrelevant data.

How Do You Create a Marketing Research Objective?

Start at the end. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but if you start with the desired outcome, you will be able to create a more focused objective. What’s the one thing you want to be able to take away from this research? What do you plan to do with the information? What does success look like? Use this objective as your compass while you navigate your research and analysis.

Typically, it’s easiest to do this in the form of a question. Here are a few examples.

Example 1: Which features in Product X are most important to our Enterprise customers?

This question will give you a list of features, in order of importance, for your Enterprise customer.

Example 2: What are the different search triggers amongst our four customer segments?

This question will result in a list of common factors that result in users searching for Service Y.

When you start seeing all the data points, behaviors, and survey responses - curiosity can set in.

An abundance of data can pull you in multiple directions because each finding is interesting in its own right. That’s when your objective comes in. Know the end result you are working toward and stay on that path.

Creating a Research Objective

Once you’ve got your desired outcome, you’ll want to create your objective. A few things to consider as you create your statement:

Where does this fit into your marketing strategy? Where does this objective fit into your larger marketing strategy? Not only is this helpful when dispersing information internally or getting buy-in, it keeps the research team focused on the higher business objectives attached to this research. Is this part of your company’s focus on brand awareness? A new product launch? An analysis of competitors? These are all very different things.
Include your target audience. Typically, it’s difficult to understand everything with every user segment so pick which segment you plan to analyze. Is it your Enterprise customers? Customers living in a specific region? A certain demographic segment? Including this in your objective will be a helpful gut check when choosing participants.
What will you measure? You don’t need to list out all of the data points you plan to measure, but there should be some measurable element in your objective. Is it sentiment? Are you looking for frequencies? What about behavioral trends? Including this in your objective will ensure you pick the most appropriate research methodology to acquire that measurable element.
A behavior. What is the behavior or action that we are going to be researching? Is navigating your website? Is it purchasing a product? Is it clicking on an ad?

Let’s look at some examples:

Common Marketing Research Objective Pitfalls

While creating an objective may seem relatively straightforward, it can be easy to get wrong. Let’s go over some of the common pitfalls.

Objective is Too Broad

Now, if you follow the outline above, this shouldn’t be an issue because it forces you to get granular with your objective.

Specific: As part of our rebranding, we are conducting a sentiment analysis with our recurring customers
Broad: As part of our rebranding, we will ask customers how they feel about it

We want to avoid broad objectives because they can allow curiosity to get the best of us and a once seemingly clear research project can get muddied.

More Than One Objective

Every research project should have one objective and one objective only. Again, while this may seem easy enough to manage, you’d be surprised just how easy it is to sneak those secondary and tertiary objectives into your statement.

One objective: We aim to understand what questions our customers have when considering purchasing a car
Two objectives: We aim to understand what questions our customers have when searching for and considering a car

You see, the questions customers may have when searching for a car could be completely different than the questions they have when considering purchasing a car.

Making Assumptions

Avoid making your objective into a hypothesis with absolute statements and assumptions. Your objective should be more of a question than a prediction. That comes later.

Objective: Uncover the purchase journey of our target demographic
Assumption: Uncover what part search plays in the purchase journey of our target demographic

This looks unsuspecting, but in reality, we're already assuming that search plays a role in our audience's journey. That could sway the focus of the research.

Once you’ve created your objective, let it (and only it) drive the beginning stages of your marketing research.

Write it on a post-it and stick it on your desk, write it on the whiteboard at every meeting you have, keep it top of mind as you continue your research. It will serve as a compass and help you avoid being led astray by interesting data, curious colleagues, and conflicting agendas.

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Research Objectives | Definition & Examples

Research Objectives | Definition & Examples

Published on July 12, 2022 by Eoghan Ryan . Revised on November 20, 2023.

Research objectives describe what your research is trying to achieve and explain why you are pursuing it. They summarize the approach and purpose of your project and help to focus your research.

Your objectives should appear in the introduction of your research paper , at the end of your problem statement . They should:

Establish the scope and depth of your project
Contribute to your research design
Indicate how your project will contribute to existing knowledge

What is a research objective, why are research objectives important, how to write research aims and objectives, smart research objectives, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research objectives.

Research objectives describe what your research project intends to accomplish. They should guide every step of the research process , including how you collect data , build your argument , and develop your conclusions .

Your research objectives may evolve slightly as your research progresses, but they should always line up with the research carried out and the actual content of your paper.

Research aims

A distinction is often made between research objectives and research aims.

A research aim typically refers to a broad statement indicating the general purpose of your research project. It should appear at the end of your problem statement, before your research objectives.

Your research objectives are more specific than your research aim and indicate the particular focus and approach of your project. Though you will only have one research aim, you will likely have several research objectives.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Research objectives are important because they:

Establish the scope and depth of your project: This helps you avoid unnecessary research. It also means that your research methods and conclusions can easily be evaluated .
Contribute to your research design: When you know what your objectives are, you have a clearer idea of what methods are most appropriate for your research.
Indicate how your project will contribute to extant research: They allow you to display your knowledge of up-to-date research, employ or build on current research methods, and attempt to contribute to recent debates.

Once you’ve established a research problem you want to address, you need to decide how you will address it. This is where your research aim and objectives come in.

Step 1: Decide on a general aim

Your research aim should reflect your research problem and should be relatively broad.

Step 2: Decide on specific objectives

Break down your aim into a limited number of steps that will help you resolve your research problem. What specific aspects of the problem do you want to examine or understand?

Step 3: Formulate your aims and objectives

Once you’ve established your research aim and objectives, you need to explain them clearly and concisely to the reader.

You’ll lay out your aims and objectives at the end of your problem statement, which appears in your introduction. Frame them as clear declarative statements, and use appropriate verbs to accurately characterize the work that you will carry out.

The acronym “SMART” is commonly used in relation to research objectives. It states that your objectives should be:

Specific: Make sure your objectives aren’t overly vague. Your research needs to be clearly defined in order to get useful results.
Measurable: Know how you’ll measure whether your objectives have been achieved.
Achievable: Your objectives may be challenging, but they should be feasible. Make sure that relevant groundwork has been done on your topic or that relevant primary or secondary sources exist. Also ensure that you have access to relevant research facilities (labs, library resources , research databases , etc.).
Relevant: Make sure that they directly address the research problem you want to work on and that they contribute to the current state of research in your field.
Time-based: Set clear deadlines for objectives to ensure that the project stays on track.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

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Research objectives describe what you intend your research project to accomplish.

They summarize the approach and purpose of the project and help to focus your research.

Your objectives should appear in the introduction of your research paper , at the end of your problem statement .

Your research objectives indicate how you’ll try to address your research problem and should be specific:

Once you’ve decided on your research objectives , you need to explain them in your paper, at the end of your problem statement .

Keep your research objectives clear and concise, and use appropriate verbs to accurately convey the work that you will carry out for each one.

I will compare …

A research aim is a broad statement indicating the general purpose of your research project. It should appear in your introduction at the end of your problem statement , before your research objectives.

Research objectives are more specific than your research aim. They indicate the specific ways you’ll address the overarching aim.

Scope of research is determined at the beginning of your research process , prior to the data collection stage. Sometimes called “scope of study,” your scope delineates what will and will not be covered in your project. It helps you focus your work and your time, ensuring that you’ll be able to achieve your goals and outcomes.

Defining a scope can be very useful in any research project, from a research proposal to a thesis or dissertation . A scope is needed for all types of research: quantitative , qualitative , and mixed methods .

To define your scope of research, consider the following:

Budget constraints or any specifics of grant funding
Your proposed timeline and duration
Specifics about your population of study, your proposed sample size , and the research methodology you’ll pursue
Any inclusion and exclusion criteria
Any anticipated control , extraneous , or confounding variables that could bias your research if not accounted for properly.

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FAC Number: 2024-03 Effective Date: 02/23/2024

Part 10 - Market Research

10.000 scope of part., 10.001 policy., 10.002 procedures., 10.003 contract clause..

This part prescribes policies and procedures for conducting market research to arrive at the most suitable approach to acquiring, distributing, and supporting supplies and services. This part implements the requirements of 41 U.S.C. 3306(a)(1) , 41 U.S. C. 3307 , 10 U.S.C. 3453 , and 6 U. S.C. 796 .

(a) Agencies shall —

(1) Ensure that legitimate needs are identified and trade-offs evaluated to acquire items that meet those needs;

(2) Conduct market research appropriate to the circumstances–

(i) Before developing new requirements documents for an acquisition by that agency;

(ii) Before soliciting offers for acquisitions with an estimated value in excess of the simplified acquisition threshold ;

(iii) Before soliciting offers for acquisitions with an estimated value less than the simplified acquisition threshold when adequate information is not available and the circumstances justify its cost;

(iv) Before soliciting offers for acquisitions that could lead to consolidation or bundling ( 15 U.S.C.644(e)(2)(A) ) and 15 U.S.C. 657q );

(v) Before awarding a task or delivery order under an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract ( e.g. , GWACs, MACs) for other than a commercial product or commercial service in excess of the simplified acquisition threshold ( 10 U.S.C. 3453(c) ); and

(vi) On an ongoing basis, take advantage (to the maximum extent practicable) of commercially available market research methods in order to effectively identify the capabilities of small businesses and new entrants into Federal contracting that are available in the marketplace for meeting the requirements of the agency in furtherance of-

(A) A contingency operation or defense against or recovery from cyber, nuclear, biological, chemical, or radiological attack; and

(B) Disaster relief to include debris removal, distribution of supplies , reconstruction, and other disaster or emergency relief activities (See 26.205 ); and

(3) Use the results of market research to–

(i) Determine if sources capable of satisfying the agency’s requirements exist;

(ii) Determine if commercial products or commercial services , or, to the extent commercial products suitable to meet the agency’s needs are not available, nondevelopmental items are available that-

(A) Meet the agency’s requirements;

(B) Could be modified to meet the agency’s requirements; or

(iii) Determine the extent to which commercial products , or nondevelopmental items could be incorporated at the component level;

(iv) Determine the practices of firms engaged in producing, distributing, and supporting commercial products or commercial services , such as type of contract, terms for warranties , buyer financing, maintenance and packaging, and marking;

(v) Ensure maximum practicable use of recovered materials (see subpart 23.4 ) and promote energy conservation and efficiency;

(vi) Determine whether consolidation is necessary and justified (see 7.107-2 ) ( 15 U.S.C. 657q );

(vii) Determine whether bundling is necessary and justified (see 7.107-3 ) ( 15 U.S.C.644(e)(2)(A) );

(viii) Determine whether the acquisition should utilize any of the small business programs in accordance with part 19 ; and

(ix) Assess the availability of supplies or services that meet all or part of the applicable information and communication technology accessibility standards at 36 CFR 1194.1 (see subpart 39.2 ).

(b) When conducting market research , agencies should not request potential sources to submit more than the minimum information necessary.

(1) When performing market research , should consult with the agency small business specialist and the local Small Business Administration procurement center representative (PCR). If a PCR is not assigned, see 19.402 (a); and

(2) Shall notify any affected incumbent small business concerns of the Government's intention to bundle the requirement and how small business concerns may contact the appropriate Small Business Administration procurement center representative (see 7.107-5 (a)).

(d) See 10.003 for the requirement for a prime contractor to perform market research in contracts in excess of $6 million, other than contracts for the acquisition of commercial products or commercial services (section 826 of Pub. L. 110-181).

(a) Acquisitions begin with a description of the Government’s needs stated in terms sufficient to allow conduct of market research .

(b) Market research is then conducted to determine if commercial products , commercial services , or nondevelopmental items are available to meet the Government’s needs or could be modified to meet the Government’s needs.

(1) The extent of market research will vary, depending on such factors as urgency, estimated dollar value, complexity, and past experience. The contracting officer may use market research conducted within 18 months before the award of any task or delivery order if the information is still current, accurate, and relevant. Market research involves obtaining information specific to the product or service being acquired and should include-

(i) Whether the Government’s needs can be met by-

(A) Products or services of a type customarily available in the commercial marketplace;

(B) Products or services of a type customarily available in the commercial marketplace with modifications; or

(ii) Customary practices regarding customizing, modifying or tailoring of products or services to meet customer needs and associated costs;

(iii) Customary practices, including warranty , buyer financing, discounts, contract type considering the nature and risk associated with the requirement, etc., under which commercial sales of the products or services are made;

(iv) The requirements of any laws and regulations unique to the item being acquired;

(v) The availability of items that contain recovered materials and items that are energy efficient;

(vi) The distribution and support capabilities of potential suppliers, including alternative arrangements and cost estimates; and

(vii) Whether the Government's needs can be met by small business concerns that will likely submit a competitive offer at fair market prices (see part 19 ).

(2) Techniques for conducting market research may include any or all of the following:

(i) Contacting knowledgeable individuals in Government and industry regarding market capabilities to meet requirements.

(ii) Reviewing the results of recent market research undertaken to meet similar or identical requirements.

(iii) Publishing formal requests for information in appropriate technical or scientific journals or business publications.

(iv) Querying the Governmentwide database of contracts and other procurement instruments intended for use by multiple agencies available at https://www.contractdirectory.gov/contractdirectory/ and other Government and commercial databases that provide information relevant to agency acquisitions .

(v) Participating in interactive, on-line communication among industry, acquisition personnel, and customers.

(vi) Obtaining source lists of similar items from other contracting activities or agencies, trade associations or other sources.

(vii) Reviewing catalogs and other generally available product literature published by manufacturers, distributors, and dealers or available on-line.

(viii) Conducting interchange meetings or holding presolicitation conferences to involve potential offerors early in the acquisition process.

(ix) Reviewing systems such as the System for Award Management , the Federal Procurement Data System, and the Small Business Administration's Dynamic Small Business Search.

(c) If market research indicates commercial products , commercial services , or nondevelopmental items might not be available to satisfy agency needs, agencies shall reevaluate the need in accordance with 10.001 (a)(3)(ii) and determine whether the need can be restated to permit commercial products , commercial services , or nondevelopmental items to satisfy the agency’s needs.

(1) If market research establishes that the Government’s need may be met by a type of product or service customarily available in the commercial marketplace that would meet the definition of a commercial product or commercial service at subpart 2.1 , the contracting officer shall solicit and award any resultant contract using the policies and procedures in part 12 .

(2) If market research establishes that the Government’s need cannot be met by a type of item or service customarily available in the marketplace, part 12 shall not be used. When publication of the notice at 5.201 is required, the contracting officer shall include a notice to prospective offerors that the Government does not intend to use part 12 for the acquisition .

(e) The head of the agency shall document the results of market research in a manner appropriate to the size and complexity of the acquisition .

The contracting officer shall insert the clause at 52.210-1 , Market Research , in solicitations and contracts over $6 million, other than solicitations and contracts for the acquisition of commercial products or commercial services .

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IMAGES

Goals Definition: Defining a Market Strategy in your business
How to do Market Research: Align Your Business with Current Market
Market Research
Common Types of Market Research
What is Market Research? [PDF Inside] Definition, Objectives, Types
Writing SMART Goals for Marketing, Business, and Personal

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What is Market Research
What is Market Research? The Five Types, and a Basic How to
Market research: How to do market research for a new business?
What is Market Research? What is Marketing Research?
Market Research EXPLAINED!
What is market research?

COMMENTS

A Basic Guide to Defining Your Market Research Goals
1. Define the problem or opportunity and state your objectives. When creating a new goal, it is important to recognize any current problems in a company. You should also work to see whether a problem can be molded into an opportunity. Basic marketing research courses explain that a management problem is any type of issue that needs managerial ...
What is Market Research? Definition, Types, Process ...
Market research is defined as the systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of data about a specific market, industry, or consumer segment. It involves studying customers, competitors, and market dynamics to identify opportunities, mitigate risks, and make informed business decisions. Market research provides valuable insights into ...
The Complete Guide to Market Research: What It Is, Why You ...
Market research is the organized process of gathering information about your target customers and market. Market research can help you better understand customer behavior and competitor strengths and weaknesses, as well as provide insight for the best strategies in launching new businesses and products. There are different ways to approach ...
How to Do Market Research: The Complete Guide
Monitor and adapt. Now that you have gained insights into the various market research methods at your disposal, let's delve into the practical aspects of how to conduct market research effectively. Here's a quick step-by-step overview, from defining objectives to monitoring market shifts. 1. Set clear objectives.
How to Do Market Research, Types, and Example
Market research is the process of assessing the viability of a new good or service through research conducted directly with the consumer which allows a company to ...
What is Market Research Analysis? Definition, Steps, Benefits, and Best
Market Research Analysis Steps. Market research analysis involves a series of systematic steps to gather, process, and interpret data to gain insights into a specific market or industry. These steps are crucial for making informed business decisions and developing effective strategies. Here are the key steps in the market research analysis process:
Market Research: What It Is and How to Do It
Market research is a process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information about a given market. It takes into account geographic, demographic, and psychographic data about past, current, and potential customers, as well as competitive analysis to evaluate the viability of a product offer. In other words, it's the process of ...
Market Research Definition, Types, Tools and Benefits
Market research is the process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information about a market, about the product or service to be offered for sale in that market. It is also about the previous, current, and potential customers for the product or service. Data collection, analysis, and interpretation are the three main steps in any ...
A Plain-English Guide to Market Research
Market Research Definition. Market research is the process of examining an industry's buyers, the product these buyers want, and where they're currently getting it. By engaging the right people and data, a business can use this research to position itself in the market and predict where the market will go in the future. Market research can ...
Market Research Guide: Definition, Examples & Methods
Market research is the process of gathering information about consumers or markets. This information can be used to help businesses discover more about their customers, determine what products or services to offer, and gauge customer interest in new products or services. There are different ways to do market research.
What Is Market Research & Why Is It Important?
Market research definition: Market research means to systematically collect and analyze data about a target market or defined segment. It's a multivariate process that uncovers key facts and insights to inform decisions. ... If your goal is to evaluate and optimize, collect competitors' data, and compare it to yours. See what works for them ...
Market Research: The Definitive Guide (2023 Update)
Now that you understand the market research definition, let's look at the common market research methods and what questions they are trying to answer. Common types of market research methods. Most companies will perform 13 types of market research: ... As you begin to get a handle on your goals and the questions you need to answer, it's ...
How To Do Market Research: Definition, Types, Methods
Step 2: Select your market research methods. Choose one or more of the market research methods (interviews, surveys, focus groups, observations, and/or AI-driven tools) to fuel your research strategy. Certain methods might work better than others for specific goals.
What Is Market Research?
Summary: Market research is a structured process to identify, gather, and analyze information to support business decisions. Market research can provide insights into the customer journey and guide decisions related to product development, marketing strategy, pricing strategy, and points of sales (online and offline) to create a customer ...
What Is Market Research? How To Do It Right Every Time
Market research is a systematic process to collect, analyze, and interpret qualitative and quantitative data about potential customers, existing users, competitors, and the target market. Businesses use market research results to create products, experiences, and messages to attract and maintain a solid customer base.
How to Do Market Research [4-Step Framework]
How to conduct lean market research in 4 steps. The following four steps and practical examples will give you a solid market research plan for understanding who your users are and what they want from a company like yours. 1. Create simple user personas. A user persona is a semi-fictional character based on psychographic and demographic data ...
Market Research
Market research is mandated for every acquisition, as governed by FAR Part 10, and is intended to help: Discover prevailing industry practices. Identify the availability (if any) of commercially available solutions. Identify customary industry terms, conditions, and warranties. Understand distribution and logistics capabilities.
Market Research
Market Research Definition Market research is a method that helps companies understand what their target audience wants and needs. It often involves surveying customers or potential buyers to get their opinions about products and services. ... One of the main goals of market research is to identify existing customers in order to provide them ...
Marketing Research and Market Analysis: Definition, Goal & Objectives
Marketing research is a systematic and objective process of generating information to aid in marketing decisions. Simply put, market research is the process of using research to increase sales or income within the shortest time possible to gain the maximum profit. The most crucial thing in this definition is that marketing research helps ...
How to Write a Marketing Research Objective
Avoid making your objective into a hypothesis with absolute statements and assumptions. Your objective should be more of a question than a prediction. That comes later. Objective: Uncover the purchase journey of our target demographic. Assumption: Uncover what part search plays in the purchase journey of our target demographic.
Research Objectives
Research objectives describe what your research project intends to accomplish. They should guide every step of the research process, including how you collect data, build your argument, and develop your conclusions. Your research objectives may evolve slightly as your research progresses, but they should always line up with the research carried ...
Part 10
10.001 Policy. (a) Agencies shall —. (1) Ensure that legitimate needs are identified and trade-offs evaluated to acquire items that meet those needs; (2) Conduct market research appropriate to the circumstances-. (i) Before developing new requirements documents for an acquisition by that agency; (ii) Before soliciting offers for ...
What Is a Market Research Analyst? (With Duties and Skills)
A market research analyst uses a variety of marketing and statistical software to assess trends, develop charts and graphs and complete basic tasks. Having advanced computer skills can help you use complex software programs for data collection and analysis while working in the role more easily. Read more: Computer Skills: Definitions and Examples.

A Basic Guide to Defining Your Market Research Goals

1. Define the problem or opportunity and state your objectives

2. Develop the research design to meet your objectives

3. Collect information relevant to your objectives

4. Create a final report

5. Follow up

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What Is Market Research?

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Types of market research

1. Qualitative research

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3. Exploratory research

4. Descriptive research

5. Causal research

6. Cross-sectional research

7. Longitudinal research

Primary vs. secondary market research

Primary market research

Secondary market research

Market research methods

1. Surveys and questionnaires

2. Interviews

3. Focus groups

4. Observational research

5. Online research tools

6. Experiments

7. Content analysis

8. Ethnographic research

How to do market research

1. Set clear objectives

2. Identify your target audience

3. Choose your research methods

4. Use the right market research tools

5. Collect data

6. Analyze data

7. Interpret your findings

8. Identify opportunities and challenges

9. Make informed business decisions

10. Monitor and adapt

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Market research examples

Example 1: Apple’s iPhone launch

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