ReportWire

Tag: Customer Research

  • 5 Questions to Ask Customers When Conducting Market Research | Entrepreneur

    5 Questions to Ask Customers When Conducting Market Research | Entrepreneur

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    How many offers have you launched that didn’t get a single buyer? I’d wager that this scenario has played out in most (if not all) businesses. While there are many reasons this can happen, the most common reason I see as a launch strategist and copywriter is a lack of research.

    The thing is, you can’t afford to skip market research. Research is crucial to understand your audience (and create marketing that attracts them), validate your ideas and create other offers.

    Nicola Moors

    Source link

  • The Power of Qualitative Research in Today’s Digital Landscape | Entrepreneur

    The Power of Qualitative Research in Today’s Digital Landscape | Entrepreneur

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    2020 was a turbulent year for most industries, including the qualitative research industry. Many brands and agencies that had previously relied on in-person focus groups and interviews for qualitative research moved their work online, accelerating industry innovation.

    Areas like participant recruitment, insight communities, emotional intelligence (AI and ML), UX testing and more are undergoing tremendous innovation. The rise of digital technologies has opened up new possibilities, an explosion of techniques and opportunities that help us better understand the human experience.

    Besides gathering deeper human insights, technology has paved the way for increased speed and efficiency in data collection and analysis. Today, it’s safe to assume that digital technologies have become crucial for markets and society, making digital transformation a vital area of business innovation.

    Despite the bounty it presents, digital transformation is complex, and organizations will struggle to adequately grasp and capitalize on its opportunities unless they fully understand its impact on qualitative research. Let’s navigate significant changes in the qualitative research landscape while discussing how brands (yes, that’s you) can benefit from the digital transformation of qualitative research.

    Related: The Impact of Technology on Market Research

    Gather better quality insights: Reducing the say/do gap

    Seeking answers to questions has always been complex art. Respondents might forget something, feel obliged to respond appropriately or be hesitant or unwilling to open up.

    There’s usually a gap between what respondents say and what they do. Winning in the qualitative research game today requires narrowing the say/do gap and capturing natural behavior.

    Has expanding online qualitative research methods improved the ability to understand natural behaviors? Yes — with the inclusion of emotional intelligence.

    It isn’t enough to get feedback; the key is to pair it with behavioral insights. Emotional intelligence includes AI technologies like voice analysis, eye tracking and facial coding to help you get a window into your customers’ minds.

    Did your customers say they’re happy with the product? You can confirm that information by analyzing their voices or facial expressions. Want to test the consumer journey on your webpage? Utilize eye tracking to understand how your customers navigate your website.

    You can use behavioral techniques for ad testing, concept testing, content testing, prototype testing and more to churn out accurate, proof-based insights to make actionable changes. Another cutting-edge technology is Natural Language Processing (NLP), which provides the tools to enhance and analyze linguistic and statistical data.

    Get the best of both worlds: Conducting mixed methods research

    Mixed methods research includes using multiple data collection methods (i.e., combining quantitative and qualitative research) to obtain a unified viewpoint. It is essential to the understanding you hope to gain — the What (quantitative insights) and the Why (qualitative insights) — and can help you deliver actual results.

    For example, suppose a company wishes to identify issues with its new prototype. In that case, it can conduct a quantitative study followed by a qualitative study to validate the quantitative results, gaining a more comprehensive understanding of respondent opinions and feedback. Or if the company wants to understand the purchase patterns of both in-house vs. online shoppers, they can conduct a quantitative study for online shoppers and a qualitative one for in-house shoppers.

    Brands can gain from both the specific, measurable insights of qualitative data and the nuanced, unique insights of quantitative data by combining both forms of research.

    Related: Why Both Quantitative and Qualitative Data Are Vital for Results-Driven Businesses

    Logistically simplify qualitative research: Embracing in-house, DIY research

    Digital technologies have made research accessible to all by lowering barriers to entry. This means more research and insight teams are conducting in-house studies, including people in other roles — like marketers, designers, product managers, and UX teams — who carry out DIY research when needed.

    An ESOMAR study (that surveyed 802 users and buyers of insights and research from 61 countries) suggests that almost 50% of research is being handled internally with DIY tools. DIY research platforms allow brands to define the project’s scope, find the right respondents, build surveys and conduct interviews faster, easier and cost-effectively.

    While pure DIY platforms are available in the market today, depending on the research objectives, brands can choose a hybrid model as well (for instance, a vendor offering assistance in data reporting and analysis).

    Stand out in a competitive market: Introducing research agility

    Digital technologies today make it easier than ever to make research processes agile. Studies that used to last months are now completed in days. Moreover, using market research tools can help brands conduct research at a much lower cost without compromising the quality of insights (in fact, they help gather higher-quality insights than traditional qualitative data collection methods).

    Even a leading brand like Cisco switched their Subscription Billing Method (SBP), based on the Waterfall method, to the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), reducing their defects by 40% and improving their defect removal efficiency by 14%. Agile research is the name of the game for brands to build foresight, respond rapidly to changes in the market and beat competitors.

    While digital transformation is not a substitute for human intelligence, it paves the way for more intelligent, more effective research. The qualitative research industry has seen and will continue to witness game-changing innovations, enabling brands to capture superior customer insights seamlessly. Leveraging market research technology to understand your customers better and make practical innovations is crucial, especially in an uncertain economic environment.

    Related: 7 Digital-Transformation Trends to Watch

    Sriya Srinivasan

    Source link

  • How Tech-Based Market Research Helps Businesses Stay Ahead | Entrepreneur

    How Tech-Based Market Research Helps Businesses Stay Ahead | Entrepreneur

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Consumer priorities are quickly changing with the possibility of a recession. Businesses will find it difficult to get away with sub-optimal segmentation, placement, pricing or branding as people become more frugal with their money.

    With rising uncertainty in both the business and consumer markets, market research is critical for brands to stay on top of shifting consumer preferences. However, marketers are expected to trim their research budgets while under increased pressure to obtain high-quality data and insights.

    But here’s the good news — companies can speed up their market research at a notably lower cost with the help of technology-driven market research.

    Tech-driven market research leverages technologies like AI, ML and Big Data to assist you in overcoming the significant limitations of traditional market research, like the reliance on self-reported data, lack of optimization recommendations and long turnaround times.

    Let’s look at how market research techniques can be particularly useful during these uncertain times.

    Related: The Impact of Technology on Market Research

    Identify market trends

    Spotting changes in customer preferences, shopping habits and spending patterns is essential for businesses to adapt and survive.

    For instance, the fast fashion giant H&M realized the trend of sustainable clothing early on. Incentivizing customers with vouchers for recycling clothes, H&M collected nearly 19,000 tons of unwanted clothes and textiles in 2020 through their Garment Collecting program, garnering much love from their customers.

    Like H&M, businesses can adjust their marketing strategies, develop new products and tailor their offerings to meet the evolving needs of their customers by keeping up with current trends. This is where tech-driven market research gives you an edge, effectively identifying changing consumer sentiments by capturing not just stated responses but also subconscious feelings that consumers have not explicitly conveyed.

    Conduct competitive analysis

    Competitive market research is especially critical during a recession, with many businesses struggling to survive and beat the fierce competition. By analyzing the competition, businesses can identify areas where they can improve, such as pricing, product features or customer service. They can also identify areas where they have an advantage and leverage it to gain market share.

    Market research technology can help you delve deeper into understanding, for instance, why you might be losing customers to competitors. Even if you’ve lost the deal, following up with open-ended questions like what services attracted the customer to the competitor, did they have any issues with the pricing and such will help you find out why they made the switch.

    Advanced research technologies help you quantify the emotions hidden in voice tonalities and facial expressions, enabling you to capture more profound insights. They can also help you accurately test the UX of your application and the competitors’ with features like eye tracking.

    You can also test your media (adverts) against the competitors; robust market research tech stacks can generate heatmaps and benchmarking scores, so you know how your marketing strategies fare against the industry standard.

    Related: 4 Key Questions to Ask When Analyzing Competition

    Test new products and services

    While businesses need to be more cautious with their investments during an economic downturn, keeping branding, products and services relevant to the current dynamics can be worthwhile.

    For instance, Procter & Gamble utilized market research to successfully introduce the Swiffer WetJet in 2001 [during the recession], creating a new product that made it easier to mop floors, weaning customers away from less expensive alternatives.

    This is where the right market research technology can enable you to flawlessly conduct innovation testing, product concept testing and more before investing in a product or service development and launch. Businesses can avoid costly mistakes and make informed choices by gathering feedback from prospective customers ahead of time to evaluate the viability of their new offering.

    Currently, Coca-Cola is riding the sustainability trend and is testing paper bottles for all its products. An important aspect of this testing is how it will impact customer experience. The company is focusing on consumer research to understand how customers will react to the paper bottle and to find sustainable packaging solutions that people can enjoy.

    Such intensive research activities become easy to conduct with the help of market research platforms where surveys and focus group discussions can be conducted entirely online. Moreover, research tools also come equipped with massive online panels, enabling you to practically reach any corner of the world for your research activities.

    Related: How Businesses Can Utilize Market Research to Create Reactive, Recession-proof Strategies for Survival

    Optimize marketing spend

    Market research technology can help businesses optimize their marketing efforts by identifying the most effective channels and messages. By analyzing customer data, businesses can determine which marketing campaigns deliver the best return on investment (ROI) and adjust their strategies accordingly.

    Fortunately, there are several tech-driven market research tools available in the market today. An integrated research platform allows you to gather both quantitative and qualitative data in one platform, giving you a single view of all data. Since data visualization is easy, these tools enable quick decision-making as well.

    Today, companies can move forward during a recession rather than being bogged down; implementing the right market research platform can be a game-changer in helping companies innovate and thrive even during uncertain times.

    According to HBR, only 9% of companies flourished during the Great Recession. This small group of companies was research-oriented and had concerted plans for handling a recession and where they would invest. The result? They outperformed competitors by more than 10% in sales growth.

    These companies understood the consumer sentiment that people didn’t necessarily stop spending but were willing to spend elsewhere. However, it’s impossible to come to this understanding without investing in research.

    Without effective market research, you can only speculate about what your consumers want and, as a result, what might benefit your company in difficult times.

    Sriya Srinivasan

    Source link

  • 7 Expert-Backed Rules to Follow to Understand Customer Needs

    7 Expert-Backed Rules to Follow to Understand Customer Needs

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    User research is an essential foundation for understanding customers’ needs. Its insights should inform every decision made about the product and the business, as well as fuel new business ideas. Research can be conducted at any stage of product development, from early concept to post-launch.

    However, research is a complex process where it’s easy to get lost, go over budget and not achieve expected outcomes. This is especially true for startups that operate in a rapid growth environment. To set up user research for success, entrepreneurs can follow these seven practical rules.

    Lisa Dziuba

    Source link