There are various forms of market research and while they all differ from one another, the one thing they have in common is their ability to help marketers and businesses understand and fix problems. When businesses attempt to find out more about their target customers and come up with attempts to do so such as focus groups and surveys, they are engaging in market research. Although market research isn’t absolutely necessary, it is very helpful and can help businesses lower business risks, create relevant promotional material, outsell their competitors, set stronger goals, and make better decisions. Two forms of research that hold a lot of value and can be beneficial to businesses are marketing research surveys and marketing experiments.
Market research surveys are useful in providing insights into consumer views and can help a business become even more competitive by providing enough information to better organize marketing strategies. By partaking in market research studies, businesses can find the information they need to understand from a consumer’s point of view, what makes a product or service desirable, why they would want to use the product or service, how effective the marketing campaign is, and whether the product or service meets all of the consumer’s needs. The information accessed with these surveys gives businesses an idea of what they should improve to successfully market to consumers. Surveys can provide the data and information needed to craft marketing strategies. A marketing research survey should include a set of questions for a target audience to answer which includes information on their demographics, preferences, and so much more. The surveys can be either administered in person or sent via email through survey platforms like SurveyMonkey.
Marketing experiments, on the other hand, are typically put into effect to test the waters and determine how a company can best maximize revenues by getting more customers to purchase a product or service. Marketing experiments involve research methods that test markets to discover where there is room for new sales and marketing opportunities. In other words, marketing experiments involve experimenting with a new product or concept and observing the effects. This practice may include creating two separate home pages with different photos and testing which homepage attracts more traffic to understand what the more favorable photo is. Another example might include a company creating two different packaging versions of a product for a limited time in limited stores and seeing which packaging results in more sales of a product. Marketing experiments are always quantitative and should be utilized to find the most effective way to bring in new customers and revenue. It is used as a way to predict how a product will fare once it is on the market.
Regardless of the type of research a company decides to use, both can be useful. It is important for a company to identify what they need to adjust so that they can launch themselves into the correct type of research so that their business can excel.