What Is Market Research And How To Apply It In 7 Steps?

Market research is an essential marketing tool since it allows us to understand better the public we are targeting and succeed with our campaigns. We are launching a new product or brand, identifying problems with our strategy, and getting ideas to improve our service. Market research has a lot of practical applications, so let’s see what it is and how to use it with our brand.

What Is Market Research

We can define market research as the process through which companies systematically collect data on consumers to better understand the public they are targeting and thus make better decisions. In this way, it is possible to manage its time and resources better.

How To Do Market Research In 7 Steps

1) Define Your Goals

Before taking any action in marketing, we have to stop to think about what we want to achieve with it. Being clear about your research objectives will help you better focus on the next steps and achieve satisfactory results. Market research is a very versatile tool, and as such, it can help us achieve very diverse goals: testing an idea for a new product, analyzing the success of an advertising campaign, improving an existing service, and much more.

2) Identify Your Target Audience

Market research is based on studying your target audience, so it must be well defined to achieve good results. If you haven’t done it before, it’s time to sit down and determine your buyer persona, representing the ideal customer for your products or services. This buyer persona should not be limited to demographic data but should include in-depth information about their habits, needs, and challenges.

3) Choose The Sample And The Method

In the previous section, we saw some quantitative and qualitative methods examples. Choosing one or the other will depend on our resources and the objectives we have set for market research. It is also essential to select a  representative sample of our target audience, either through random (random) or non-probabilistic sampling (choosing different types of profiles to represent the total population).

4) Collect The Data

To collect data on our target audience, we have to design the instrument, for example, the structure and characteristics of the focus group or the survey questions. Next, we will apply this instrument to our sample until we get the data we are looking for. Depending on the technique used, this process will vary, from a few days to several months.

5) Study Your Competition

In addition to collecting data from our target audience, it is also convenient to complement our market research with information about the competition.

Luckily, many online tools can help us with this task, such as:

• Google Keyword Planner:  To see the search volume of your competition’s keywords and analyze the terms that bring them the most traffic.
• SimilarTech: To find out the technologies used in the competition’s websites.
• SimilarWeb: To obtain information about the traffic and audience of competitor websites.
• Buzzsumo: To analyze the performance of the campaigns and publications of the competition in social networks.

6) Complement The Information With Other Sources

To obtain a complete vision, in addition to studying the target audience and the competition, I recommend that you compliment your market research with some data about the market in general. To do this, you can rely on sources such as the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) or Think With Google’s studies and analyzes on digital markets.

7) Analyze The Data

Last but not least, you will have to analyze all the information you have collected in your market research. For the final report of your study to be helpful, remember to put the data in context, summarize the most critical information through graphs that are easy to understand at a glance and, above all, include a series of practical recommendations to apply everything you have learned.

Also Read: Tools To Collect Information In Market Research