Market Research: Types and How to Conduct it.

You can choose to conduct a market research in-house, by the company itself, or by a third-party company that specializes in it.

Moreover, you can conduct it through surveys, product testing, and focus groups.

Test subjects are often compensated with product samples or paid a small stipend for their time.

It is important to note that market research is a critical component in the research and development and R&D of a new product or service.

Market Research

Market research is the process where you gather information about your target market and customers.

This helps to verify the success of a new product, helps your team iterate on an existing product, or understands brand perception to make sure your team is effectively communicating the value of your company effectively.

With the help of market research, you can answer a number of questions about the state of an industry.

However, it is hardly a crystal ball that markets can rely on for insights into their customers.

Moreover, market researchers tend to investigate a number of areas of the market, and it can take weeks or even months to get an accurate picture of the business landscape.

Certainly, you can make sound judgments on your experience in the industry and your existing customers.

But keep in mind that market research tends to offer benefits beyond those strategies.

There are two things you will need to consider:

1# Your competitors also have experienced individuals in the industry and a customer base

It is also possible that your immediate resources are equal to those of your competition’s immediate resources, in a lot of ways.

Thus finding a larger sample size for answers can provide you a better edge.

2# Your customers do not represent the attitudes of an entire market

They, however, represent the attitudes of the part of the market that is already drawn to your brand.

The market research services market is growing rapidly, which shows a strong interest in market research as of 2022.

Moreover, it is expected to grow from roughly $75 billion in 2021 to $90.79 billion in 2025 at a compound annual growth rate of 5%.

Why should you do Market Research?

Market research will allow you to meet your buyers where they are.

As the world, both digital and analog is becoming louder and demands more and more of your attention, this provides invaluable.

By understanding the problems of your buyer, pain points, and desired solutions, you can craft your product or service to naturally appeal to them.

Moreover, it provides insight into a wide variety of things that will affect your bottom line.

These include:

• where your target audience and current customers conduct their product or service research
• which of your competitors does your audience tend to look for information, options, or purchases
• what is trending in your industry and in the eyes of your buyer
• who tends to make up your market and what their challenges are
• what tends to affect purchases and conversions among your target audience
• consumer attitudes about a certain topic, pain, product, or brand
• whether there is demand for the business initiatives you are investing it
• unaddressed or underserved customer needs that can flip into a selling opportunity
• attitudes about pricing for a certain product or service

Finally, market research will allow you to get information from a larger sample size of your target audience, eliminating bias, and assumptions so that you can get to the heat of consumer attitudes.

As a result, you will be able to make better business decisions by knowing the bigger picture.

Under these two umbrellas tends to sit a number of different types of market research.

Defining which of the two umbrellas your market research fits beneath is not necessarily important, though some marketers tend to prefer the distinction.

So, in case, you encounter a marketer who wants to define your types of market research as primary or secondary, or if you are one of them, let us understand the definitions of the two categories nest.

Primary vs. Secondary Research

To understand how extensive market research can get, consider that it can either be qualitative or quantitive in nature.

It depends on the studies you conduct and what you are trying to learn about your industry.

Qualitative research is about public opinion and tends to explore how the market feels about the products currently available in that market.

On the other hand, quantitative research is about data and looking for relevant trends in the information that you gather from public records.

There are two main types of market research that your business can conduct to collect information on your products.

This includes primary and secondary research.

Let’s dive into them.

Primary Research

Primary research is first-hand information about your market and customers within your market.

It is useful when you are segmenting your market and establishing your buyer personas.

Moreover, this research tends to fall into one of two buckets: exploratory and specific research.

Exploratory Primary Research This kind of primary research is less concerned about measurable customer trends and more about potential problems that are worth tackling as a team.

It often takes place as a first step, before any specific research is performed and can involve open-ended interviews or surveys with small numbers of people.

Specific Primary Research This often follows exploratory research.

You can use it to dive into issues or opportunities your business has already identified.

In this research, your business can take a smaller or more precise segment of the audience and ask questions aimed at solving a suspected problem.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is about data and public records you have at your disposal to draw conclusions from trend reports, market statistics, industry content, and sales data you already have on your business.

Moreover, secondary research is particularly useful for analyzing your competitors.

The main buckets this research falls into include:

Public Sources These sources are your first and most accessible layer of material when conducting this type of research.

These are often free to find and review.

Government statistics are one of the most common types of public resources according to Entrepreneur.

For instance, two U.S. examples of public market data are the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor & Statistics.

Both of these offer helpful information on the state of different industries nationwide.

Commercial Sources These often come in the form of market reports, that consist of industry insight compiled by a research agency like Pew, Gartner, or Forrester.

As this info is so portable and distributable, it often costs money to download and obtain.

Internal Sources This one deserves more credit for supporting market research that they often get.

Why? This is the market data your organization will already have.

The average revenue per sale, customer retention rate, and other historical data on the health of old and new accounts can help you to draw conclusions on what your buyers may want right now.

Types of Market Research

There are different types of market research. These include:

• interviews
• focus groups
• product/service use research
• observation-based research
• buyer persona research
• market segmentation research
• pricing research
• competitive analysis research
• customer satisfaction and loyalty research
• brand awareness research
• campaign research

Let’s learn more about them in detail:

Interview

Interviews allow for face-to-face, either in-person or virtual interviews.