Market environments are competitively evolving, with precise market research becoming inescapable for all organizations. Modern-day buyers are more inclined into research to get their hands on the best products/services at the best price. Their purchasing decisions are largely research-based with the advent of online shopping/digital platforms.
So organizations must deploy highly competent and capable market research support for their business venture. It enables in-depth insights that are highly accurate for forecasting the performance of their offerings and in understanding modern customers.
It’s more like generating a whole blueprint about them like purchase behavior, preferences, new trends, competitor preference, influences, and many more. It enables organizations to catch up to their existing, new, or potential customers, with great market adaptability.
The reliance on social media platforms, smart devices, search engines, etc. are the best way to harvest data on consumers of varying demographics. So, organizations either carry out market surveys on their own or seek the assistance from proficient offshore market research providers, or a market research agency for the excellent cost-benefits, data accuracy, and quality, within quick TATs.
Check out this guide that will enable you to conduct superior and thorough research on your chosen demographics that ultimately gives you a leading competitive edge.
The Buyer Persona
These personas are quite handy when conducting market research as it will accurately help you understand your target audience or ideal customers. Age, gender, location, job designation, number of family members, income, and other factors are called buyer personas. It will help you identify or visualize your audience, with streamlined communication channels, to devise the right strategy, which can also be industry-specific. By doing so you can organize or segment them, from the gathered specific data for various purposes or optimized market planning and campaigns.
Sample Engagement of Personas
The next step is to choose the specific or prominent persona with a sample engagement among the audience to understand their features, problems, etc. Concentrating on customers who have purchased recently, the ones who had backed out from the purchase, or recently interacted ones are ideal. The most effective way would be to issue online market surveys in this digital era, through focused community/groups, mailing campaigns, targeted telephonic interviews, etc. You will get the right participants for the research through the deployment of a chosen persona or multiple ones (requires individual samples), or by choosing a mixed blend of the target audience. The mixed blend may have purchased your product, your competitor’s product, and the ones that have backed out from not purchasing anything at all. This is one of the easiest methods to source information that provides you with a balanced perspective on the audience.
Recruiting Ideal Participants
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Customers who have made recent purchases in the past six months or a year (depending on sales cycles or niche markets) with the specific characteristics that you need.
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A mixed blend of people not making any purchase, or bought from the competitor doing active, and ones refusing to buy again. Choose these people if they are highly active in their research.
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People who follow your social media business account but do not make purchases. Chances are that these people might hold essential reviews or feedback as to why they didn’t make any purchase.
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Spread the word about your research by connecting with all your networks – coworkers (current/former), LinkedIn, friends, family, any mutual contacts, etc.
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Reward participants who committedly spend 30-45 minutes on your surveys with exclusive access to content. If you have budget constraints, a simple handwritten ‘thank you’ note would suffice.
Prepping Research Questions
Always hold deep-rooted discussions during prep sessions that will help you come up with wise and solid questions to get the most out of your research/survey. It can also be out-of-the-box, for probing into specific or suitable areas.
Your survey or research should have a proper outline with sections having assigned completion times. It’s always best to shoot open-ended questions to your audience rather than the simple YES/NO ones. A general or effective sectional outline with time-allotment would be as follows:
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Knowledge gained on buyer background (age, location, etc.) – 5 minutes
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Their initial experience of problems with services/products that med them consider other alternatives in the market- 5 minutes
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Gathering specifics on buyer’s research such as potential solutions, sources visited, search terms used in search engines, the effectiveness of the solution, who provided the most favorable solution, and sales experience – 10 minutes
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Comparisons done between services/products, the shortlisted service providers, their pros and cons, influences from other people, and how the influence led to making a purchase decision – 10 Minutes
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The closing section wraps up the survey. In it, there should be means to identify or understand the better alternatives for the buyer, the ideal buying process that they prefer, or further questions that can be asked by them, and finally thanking them for their time, participation, and contribution, with a confirmation on their address
The Competitors and the Competition
It’s not just limited to your competitors (as a whole), it can also mean that a specific wing of your competitor company is contesting with your main product.
Even on content levels, you can experience direct or indirect competition though there is no actual connection or overlapping with your products.
It’s important to identify your potential industry competitors by determining how your products/services overlap with companies in your industry. You can identify this by effectively analyzing information from peer-to-peer review sites, market forecast data/reports, or even the powerful alternative of social media.
You can identify the content side competition by relying on search engines using the right keywords. The top search engine results have to be considered thoughtfully such as websites, online publications, articles, blogs, etc. Also, do a comparison of these results with your chosen buyer personas to determine the favorability of web traffic towards that content. It can be your potential competitors.
Combine all Analysis into One
When all the above is done correctly and successfully, you can combine them all perfectly to make it into one whole presentation or report, like an accurate summary. The essentials it should comprise:
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Research goals and reasons
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All participants grouped according to personas
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The learning curve and its strategic implementation plans
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The common triggers that engage people to do an evaluation
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The connecting points and source details used by buyers for an evaluation
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The entire process of making a purchase decision by people
- The strategic action plan based on your analysis for running effective campaigns
The above step-by-step guidance will help you conduct in-depth and effective market research, with accurate analysis and in uncovering new channels and communication mediums with your prospects. Also, if you consider the assistance of highly capable offshore market research firms or a market research agency, you can get the best market research support in your market surveys.
