Market research helps you, as an entrepreneur, to understand your target group so that you can improve your decision-making and then result in improved sales. By researching the market, businesses can collect data that is valuable for their particular industry and target group. They can find out how consumers think and how you can meet their needs. This, in turn, can make it easier to target marketing to get better results and increase customer satisfaction, eventually increasing sales.
Companies from different industries have recognized the benefits of market research, and on average, businesses spend around 2–3% of their revenue on research and development. Market research is always carried out so that companies can make customized, efficient, and profitable decisions for marketing and improved sales.
In the past, collecting market data was an expensive and cumbersome process, but today anyone can use a variety of market research methods and get valuable insight. In the article below, you can read more about how to conduct powerful market research, solidify your reputation as a customer-first, top-quality business, and boost your sales.
Use All Available Resources
When conducting market research, you should always take advantage of different tools to help you find and engage with potential customers in your target market. For instance, if you’re using LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator to gain insights into your target market, then consider investing in a Sales Navigator automation tool to streamline your efforts. A tool of this kind offers advanced search filters that allow you to target your ideal customer profile with precision.
By using filters like job title, industry, company size, and more, users can create a highly targeted list of potential leads. One special feature of using LinkedIn is its account mapping, which allows you to identify all the key decision-makers within a target organization. By using this feature, you can identify potential leads within the company, better understand their role and responsibilities, and develop a customized outreach plan. By investing in third-party automation tools, you can speed up the process and solve business problems faster.
Focus Groups
One effective market research technique used by companies today is focus groups. Focus groups are an organized form of data collection where you invite a group of people and ask them different questions or let them test products. The method can also include interactive discussions between the participants.
The selection of participants for the focus group is based on certain criteria, such as age, gender, demographics, interests, or profession, and a moderator or group leader leads the discussion. This is a proven and popular method that can provide important insights about a product, service, need, or opinion. It is also good for tailoring questions and/or test methods.
The discussion often flows naturally, giving researchers detailed and in-depth answers. It also gives the moderator the chance to ask questions that weren’t planned from the beginning to gain an even better understanding.
Surveys
Surveys are a common and simple way of gathering information from a large number of people.
The survey can be designed in many different ways and give excellent results. It can, for example, be carried out by phone, through an online form on a website, or via email. Even the questions in the survey can be adapted to consist of open and closed questions or a mixture of both.
Surveys are an affordable and relatively simple method of conducting market research. However, it is important to be careful about which questions to include in the survey and how to ask them. Survey participants only answer the questions you ask, so the goal of your market research must be clear. Namely, there is no room to discuss possible side tracks or go deeper into a topic, as there is, for example, in a face-to-face interview.
Individual Interviews
Individual interviews are a qualitative way of conducting research in which the researcher holds meetings with a representative sample of the client's profile. They ask scripted questions to find out more about the customer's personal and professional life, their consumer habits, and how they interact with the product. The host can then ask unscripted follow-up questions to the customer based on the answers they gave. They can also take notes and record the interview for future reference.
This method of research combines the best features of focus groups and surveys. It has the structured questioning form of focus groups and the freedom of communication and personal contact of interviews.
These individual interviews allow the researcher to establish an empathic connection with the respondent, better understand how they feel, and also identify the emotions behind the customer’s answers and actions.
Final Thoughts
Market research gives companies the power to explore customers, competitors, new audiences and industries, and all types of adjacent data that can enhance their sales strategy and result in improved sales.
Each type of market research offers a unique perspective on your target market. By choosing the market research that is most appropriate for your goals, you can make more informed decisions about your business, reduce the risk of failure, and get improved sales.
Whether you are a new entrepreneur or an experienced business owner, these helpful ways mentioned above can smooth the course of your market research and improve the rates at which your business sells products and generates profit.
