This is because the Internet has made everything easier for its consumers. Whether its shopping, doing an important online research or just surfing the net for your favorite things. For researchers, collecting and analyzing information is easier than before because everything Internet users do online leaves a data trail.
Nowadays, consumers check out everything online, do research on companies and their products, compare prices and services, share likes and dislikes, share information with friends and families at the click of a button.
With all these done by customers, it's becoming harder for brands to keep up with what their target audience wants, trends, popular opinions and competitors and still maintaining the top spot in the market which is important for success.
So the question becomes: how can brands keep up with all these and still stay at the top of their game?
All they need to do is conduct a market research. This is when brands do in reverse what customers do that is; studying who their customers are, their interests, their sentiments towards your brand, the best times and places to have a customer-brand interaction.
Market research is a very important tool when making business informed decisions. It entails gathering, recording and analyzing data about your market, your customers and competitors, then turning it into insights that would drive marketing campaign and strategies.
Technology plays an important role in connecting with research participants and gathering of data. It makes the whole process of collecting and analyzing faster and easier to manage than using traditional offline research methods.
Market research whether traditional or online have the same goals and principles, but online has an edge due to the application of digital technology. According to Quirk, here are some benefits of online market research using digital technology.
- There's access to a large number of participants for research at just the click of a button.
- Online market research is much more cost effective and easier to setup than research techniques.
- Data is readily available at any time of the day due to availability of the Internet.
- People constantly share their own research methods and insights online. This opens a flood of resources to conduct your own research.
- Most of the processes for finding, gathering and storing data can be automated ex. Google alerts to track down your brand name.
- Larger parts of information you'll use are already being collected automatically. All that is left is for you to access it.
Here are some important reasons brands, companies and businesses should constantly conduct market research:
If you do market research, you'll be able to understand who your target customers are and make your marketing tactics more effective to them, their needs are met better and your brand gets positive reviews from your customers. A happy customer means greater revenue for your brand. Other reasons include:
- To discover new market trends you can capitalize on.
- To find potential customers and engage them in a consumer-brand interaction.
- To give customers power to move your business towards the right direction (reviews, word of mouth)
- To gain more clarity on who your customers are: their likes and dislikes about your brand, why customers aren't returning for more purchases, what customers need and want from your brand, why potential customers will your brand over another one, why customers buy your products and service instead of the competitors'.
- Understanding changes in your industry and business
- Search for potential sales avenues, customers, products and more.
Our clients at RDM do not have to worry about losing their top spot in their respective markets due because our accurate market research methods aid them in making good business decisions.
Article written by Ogechukwu Okonkwo
This is a feature by RDM