market research definition with examples

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What Is Market Research?

• How It Works
• Primary vs. Secondary
• How to Conduct Research

The Bottom Line

• Marketing Essentials

How to Do Market Research, Types, and Example

Joules Garcia / Investopedia

Market research examines consumer behavior and trends in the economy to help a business develop and fine-tune its business idea and strategy. It helps a business understand its target market by gathering and analyzing data.

Market research is the process of evaluating the viability of a new service or product through research conducted directly with potential customers. It allows a company to define its target market and get opinions and other feedback from consumers about their interest in a product or service.

Research may be conducted in-house or by a third party that specializes in market research. It can be done through surveys and focus groups, among other ways. Test subjects are usually compensated with product samples or a small stipend for their time.

Key Takeaways

• Companies conduct market research before introducing new products to determine their appeal to potential customers.
• Tools include focus groups, telephone interviews, and questionnaires.
• The results of market research inform the final design of the product and determine how it will be positioned in the marketplace.
• Market research usually combines primary information, gathered directly from consumers, and secondary information, which is data available from external sources.

Market Research

How market research works.

Market research is used to determine the viability of a new product or service. The results may be used to revise the product design and fine-tune the strategy for introducing it to the public. This can include information gathered for the purpose of determining market segmentation . It also informs product differentiation , which is used to tailor advertising.

A business engages in various tasks to complete the market research process. It gathers information based on the market sector being targeted by the product. This information is then analyzed and relevant data points are interpreted to draw conclusions about how the product may be optimally designed and marketed to the market segment for which it is intended.

It is a critical component in the research and development (R&D) phase of a new product or service introduction. Market research can be conducted in many different ways, including surveys, product testing, interviews, and focus groups.

Market research is a critical tool that companies use to understand what consumers want, develop products that those consumers will use, and maintain a competitive advantage over other companies in their industry.

Primary Market Research vs. Secondary Market Research

Market research usually consists of a combination of:

• Primary research, gathered by the company or by an outside company that it hires
• Secondary research, which draws on external sources of data

Primary Market Research

Primary research generally falls into two categories: exploratory and specific research.

• Exploratory research is less structured and functions via open-ended questions. The questions may be posed in a focus group setting, telephone interviews, or questionnaires. It results in questions or issues that the company needs to address about a product that it has under development.
• Specific research delves more deeply into the problems or issues identified in exploratory research.

Secondary Market Research

All market research is informed by the findings of other researchers about the needs and wants of consumers. Today, much of this research can be found online.

Secondary research can include population information from government census data , trade association research reports , polling results, and research from other businesses operating in the same market sector.

History of Market Research

Formal market research began in Germany during the 1920s. In the United States, it soon took off with the advent of the Golden Age of Radio.

Companies that created advertisements for this new entertainment medium began to look at the demographics of the audiences who listened to each of the radio plays, music programs, and comedy skits that were presented.

They had once tried to reach the widest possible audience by placing their messages on billboards or in the most popular magazines. With radio programming, they had the chance to target rural or urban consumers, teenagers or families, and judge the results by the sales numbers that followed.

Types of Market Research

Face-to-face interviews.

From their earliest days, market research companies would interview people on the street about the newspapers and magazines that they read regularly and ask whether they recalled any of the ads or brands that were published in them. Data collected from these interviews were compared to the circulation of the publication to determine the effectiveness of those ads.

Market research and surveys were adapted from these early techniques.

To get a strong understanding of your market, it’s essential to understand demand, market size, economic indicators, location, market saturation, and pricing.

Focus Groups

A focus group is a small number of representative consumers chosen to try a product or watch an advertisement.

Afterward, the group is asked for feedback on their perceptions of the product, the company’s brand, or competing products. The company then takes that information and makes decisions about what to do with the product or service, whether that's releasing it, making changes, or abandoning it altogether.

Phone Research

The man-on-the-street interview technique soon gave way to the telephone interview. A telephone interviewer could collect information in a more efficient and cost-effective fashion.

Telephone research was a preferred tactic of market researchers for many years. It has become much more difficult in recent years as landline phone service dwindles and is replaced by less accessible mobile phones.

Survey Research

As an alternative to focus groups, surveys represent a cost-effective way to determine consumer attitudes without having to interview anyone in person. Consumers are sent surveys in the mail, usually with a coupon or voucher to incentivize participation. These surveys help determine how consumers feel about the product, brand, and price point.

Online Market Research

With people spending more time online, market research activities have shifted online as well. Data collection still uses a survey-style form. But instead of companies actively seeking participants by finding them on the street or cold calling them on the phone, people can choose to sign up, take surveys, and offer opinions when they have time.

This makes the process far less intrusive and less rushed, since people can participate on their own time and of their own volition.

How to Conduct Market Research

The first step to effective market research is to determine the goals of the study. Each study should seek to answer a clear, well-defined problem. For example, a company might seek to identify consumer preferences, brand recognition, or the comparative effectiveness of different types of ad campaigns.

After that, the next step is to determine who will be included in the research. Market research is an expensive process, and a company cannot waste resources collecting unnecessary data. The firm should decide in advance which types of consumers will be included in the research, and how the data will be collected. They should also account for the probability of statistical errors or sampling bias .

The next step is to collect the data and analyze the results. If the two previous steps have been completed accurately, this should be straightforward. The researchers will collect the results of their study, keeping track of the ages, gender, and other relevant data of each respondent. This is then analyzed in a marketing report that explains the results of their research.

The last step is for company executives to use their market research to make business decisions. Depending on the results of their research, they may choose to target a different group of consumers, or they may change their price point or some product features.

The results of these changes may eventually be measured in further market research, and the process will begin all over again.

Benefits of Market Research

Market research is essential for developing brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. Since it is unlikely for a product to appeal equally to every consumer, a strong market research program can help identify the key demographics and market segments that are most likely to use a given product.

Market research is also important for developing a company’s advertising efforts. For example, if a company’s market research determines that its consumers are more likely to use Facebook than X (formerly Twitter), it can then target its advertisements to one platform instead of another. Or, if they determine that their target market is value-sensitive rather than price-sensitive, they can work on improving the product rather than reducing their prices.

Market research only works when subjects are honest and open to participating.

Example of Market Research

Many companies use market research to test new products or get information from consumers about what kinds of products or services they need and don’t currently have.

For example, a company that’s considering starting a business might conduct market research to test the viability of its product or service. If the market research confirms consumer interest, the business can proceed confidently with its business plan . If not, the company can use the results of the market research to make adjustments to the product to bring it in line with customer desires.

What Are the Main Types of Market Research?

The main types of market research are primary research and secondary research. Primary research includes focus groups, polls, and surveys. Secondary research includes academic articles, infographics, and white papers.

Qualitative research gives insights into how customers feel and think. Quantitative research uses data and statistics such as website views, social media engagement, and subscriber numbers.

What Is Online Market Research?

Online market research uses the same strategies and techniques as traditional primary and secondary market research, but it is conducted on the Internet. Potential customers may be asked to participate in a survey or give feedback on a product. The responses may help the researchers create a profile of the likely customer for a new product.

What Are Paid Market Research Surveys?

Paid market research involves rewarding individuals who agree to participate in a study. They may be offered a small payment for their time or a discount coupon in return for filling out a questionnaire or participating in a focus group.

What Is a Market Study?

A market study is an analysis of consumer demand for a product or service. It looks at all of the factors that influence demand for a product or service. These include the product’s price, location, competition, and substitutes as well as general economic factors that could influence the new product’s adoption, for better or worse.

Market research is a key component of a company’s research and development (R&D) stage. It helps companies understand in advance the viability of a new product that they have in development and to see how it might perform in the real world.

Britannica Money. “ Market Research .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Market Research and Competitive Analysis .”

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Home Market Research

Market Research: What it Is, Methods, Types & Examples

Would you like to know why, how, and when to apply market research? Do you want to discover why your consumers are not buying your products? Are you interested in launching a new product, service, or even a new marketing campaign, but you’re not sure what your consumers want?

LEARN ABOUT: Market research vs marketing research

To answer the questions above, you’ll need help from your consumers. But how will you collect that data? In this case and in many other situations in your business, market research is the way to get all the answers you need.

In this ultimate guide about market research, you’ll find the definition, advantages, types of market research, and some examples that will help you understand this type of research. Don’t forget to download the free ebook available at the end of this guide!

LEARN ABOUT: Perceived Value

Content Index

Three key objectives of market research

Why is market research important.

• Types of Market Research: Methods and Examples

Steps for conducting Market Research

Benefits of an efficient market research, 5 market research tips for businesses, why does every business need market research, free market research ebook, what is market research.

Market research is a technique that is used to collect data on any aspect that you want to know to be later able to interpret it and, in the end, make use of it for correct decision-making.

Another more specific definition could be the following:

Market research is the process by which companies seek to collect data systematically to make better decisions. Still, its true value lies in the way in which all the data obtained is used to achieve a better knowledge of the market consumer.

The process of market research can be done through deploying surveys , interacting with a group of people, also known as a sample , conducting interviews, and other similar processes.  

The primary purpose of conducting market research is to understand or examine the market associated with a particular product or service to decide how the audience will react to a product or service. The information obtained from conducting market research can be used to tailor marketing/ advertising activities or determine consumers’ feature priorities/service requirement (if any).

LEARN ABOUT: Consumer Surveys

Conducting research is one of the best ways of achieving customer satisfaction , reducing customer churn and elevating business. Here are the reasons why market research is important and should be considered in any business:

• Valuable information: It provides information and opportunities about the value of existing and new products, thus, helping businesses plan and strategize accordingly.
• Customer-centric: It helps to determine what the customers need and want. Marketing is customer-centric and understanding the customers and their needs will help businesses design products or services that best suit them. Remember that tracing your customer journey is a great way to gain valuable insights into your customers’ sentiments toward your brand.
• Forecasts: By understanding the needs of customers, businesses can also forecast their production and sales. Market research also helps in determining optimum inventory stock.
• Competitive advantage: To stay ahead of competitors market research is a vital tool to carry out comparative studies. Businesses can devise business strategies that can help them stay ahead of their competitors.

LEARN ABOUT: Data Analytics Projects

Types of Market Research: Market Research Methods and Examples

Whether an organization or business wishes to know the purchase behavior of consumers or the likelihood of consumers paying a certain cost for a product segmentation , market research helps in drawing meaningful conclusions.

LEARN ABOUT: Behavioral Targeting

Depending on the methods and tools required, the following are the types:

1. Primary Market Research (A combination of both Qualitative and Quantitative Research):

Primary market research is a process where organizations or businesses get in touch with the end consumers or employ a third party to carry out relevant studies to collect data. The data collected can be qualitative data (non-numerical data) or quantitative data (numerical or statistical data).

While conducting primary market research, one can gather two types of information: Exploratory and Specific. Exploratory research is open-ended, where a problem is explored by asking open ended questions in a detailed interview format usually with a small group of people, also known as a sample. Here the sample size is restricted to 6-10 members. Specific research, on the other hand, is more pinpointed and is used to solve the problems that are identified by exploratory research.

LEARN ABOUT: Marketing Insight

As mentioned earlier, primary market research is a combination of qualitative market research and quantitative market research. Qualitative market research study involves semi-structured or unstructured data collected through some of the commonly used qualitative research methods like:

Focus groups :

Focus group is one of the commonly used qualitative research methods. Focus group is a small group of people (6-10) who typically respond to online surveys sent to them. The best part about a focus group is the information can be collected remotely, can be done without personally interacting with the group members. However, this is a more expensive method as it is used to collect complex information.

One-to-one interview:

As the name suggests, this method involves personal interaction in the form of an interview, where the researcher asks a series of questions to collect information or data from the respondents. The questions are mostly open-ended questions and are asked to facilitate responses. This method heavily depends on the interviewer’s ability and experience to ask questions that evoke responses.

Ethnographic research :

This type of in-depth research is conducted in the natural settings of the respondents. This method requires the interviewer to adapt himself/herself to the natural environment of the respondents which could be a city or a remote village. Geographical constraints can be a hindering market research factor in conducting this kind of research. Ethnographic research can last from a few days to a few years.

Organizations use qualitative research methods to conduct structured market research by using online surveys , questionnaires , and polls to gain statistical insights to make informed decisions.

LEARN ABOUT: Qualitative Interview

This method was once conducted using pen and paper. This has now evolved to sending structured online surveys to the respondents to gain actionable insights. Researchers use modern and technology-oriented survey platforms to structure and design their survey to evoke maximum responses from respondents.

Through a well-structured mechanism, data is easily collected and reported, and necessary action can be taken with all the information made available firsthand.

Learn more: How to conduct quantitative research

2. Secondary Market Research:

Secondary research uses information that is organized by outside sources like government agencies, media, chambers of commerce etc. This information is published in newspapers, magazines, books, company websites, free government and nongovernment agencies and so on. The secondary source makes use of the following:

• Public sources: Public sources like library are an awesome way of gathering free information. Government libraries usually offer services free of cost and a researcher can document available information.
• Commercial sources: Commercial source although reliable are expensive. Local newspapers, magazines, journal, television media are great commercial sources to collect information.
• Educational Institutions: Although not a very popular source of collecting information, most universities and educational institutions are a rich source of information as many research projects are carried out there than any business sector.

Learn more: Market Research Example with Types and Methods

A market research project may usually have 3 different types of objectives.

• Administrative : Help a company or business development, through proper planning, organization, and both human and material resources control, and thus satisfy all specific needs within the market, at the right time.
• Social : Satisfy customers’ specific needs through a required product or service. The product or service should comply with a customer’s requirements and preferences when consumed.
• Economical : Determine the economical degree of success or failure a company can have while being new to the market, or otherwise introducing new products or services, thus providing certainty to all actions to be implemented.

LEARN ABOUT:  Test Market Demand

Knowing what to do in various situations that arise during the investigation will save the researcher time and reduce research problems . Today’s successful enterprises use powerful market research survey software that helps them conduct comprehensive research under a unified platform, providing actionable insights much faster with fewer problems.

LEARN ABOUT:  Market research industry

Following are the steps to conduct effective market research.

Step #1: Define the Problem

Having a well-defined subject of research will help researchers when they ask questions. These questions should be directed to solve problems and must be adapted to the project. Make sure the questions are written clearly and that the respondents understand them. Researchers can conduct a marketing test with a small group to know if the questions are going to know whether the asked questions are understandable and if they will be enough to gain insightful results.

Research objectives should be written in a precise way and should include a brief description of the information that is needed and the way in which it will obtain it. They should have an answer to this question “why are we doing the research?”

Learn more: Interview Questions

Step #2: Define the Sample

To carry out market research, researchers need a representative sample that can be collected using one of the many sampling techniques . A representative sample is a small number of people that reflect, as accurately as possible, a larger group.

• An organization cannot waste their resources in collecting information from the wrong population. It is important that the population represents characteristics that matter to the researchers and that they need to investigate, are in the chosen sample.
• Take into account that marketers will always be prone to fall into a bias in the sample because there will always be people who do not answer the survey because they are busy, or answer it incompletely, so researchers may not obtain the required data.
• Regarding the size of the sample, the larger it is, the more likely it is to be representative of the population. A larger representative sample gives the researcher greater certainty that the people included are the ones they need, and they can possibly reduce bias. Therefore, if they want to avoid inaccuracy in our surveys, they should have representative and balanced samples.
• Practically all the surveys that are considered in a serious way, are based on a scientific sampling, based on statistical and probability theories.

There are two ways to obtain a representative sample:

• Probability sampling : In probability sampling , the choice of the sample will be made at random, which guarantees that each member of the population will have the same probability of selection bias and inclusion in the sample group. Researchers should ensure that they have updated information on the population from which they will draw the sample and survey the majority to establish representativeness.
• Non-probability sampling : In a non-probability sampling , different types of people are seeking to obtain a more balanced representative sample. Knowing the demographic characteristics of our group will undoubtedly help to limit the profile of the desired sample and define the variables that interest the researchers, such as gender, age, place of residence, etc. By knowing these criteria, before obtaining the information, researchers can have the control to create a representative sample that is efficient for us.

When a sample is not representative, there can be a margin of error . If researchers want to have a representative sample of 100 employees, they should choose a similar number of men and women.

The sample size is very important, but it does not guarantee accuracy. More than size, representativeness is related to the sampling frame , that is, to the list from which people are selected, for example, part of a survey.

LEARN ABOUT: Behavioral Research If researchers want to continue expanding their knowledge on how to determine the size of the sample consult our guide on sampling here.

Step #3: Carry out data collection

First, a data collection instrument should be developed. The fact that they do not answer a survey, or answer it incompletely will cause errors in research. The correct collection of data will prevent this.

Step #4: Analyze the results

Each of the points of the market research process is linked to one another. If all the above is executed well, but there is no accurate analysis of the results, then the decisions made consequently will not be appropriate. In-depth analysis conducted without leaving loose ends will be effective in gaining solutions. Data analysis will be captured in a report, which should also be written clearly so that effective decisions can be made on that basis.

Analyzing and interpreting the results is to look for a wider meaning to the obtained data. All the previous phases have been developed to arrive at this moment. How can researchers measure the obtained results? The only quantitative data that will be obtained is age, sex, profession, and number of interviewees because the rest are emotions and experiences that have been transmitted to us by the interlocutors. For this, there is a tool called empathy map that forces us to put ourselves in the place of our clientele with the aim of being able to identify, really, the characteristics that will allow us to make a better adjustment between our products or services and their needs or interests. When the research has been carefully planned, the hypotheses have been adequately defined and the indicated collection method has been used, the interpretation is usually carried out easily and successfully. What follows after conducting market research?

Learn more: Types of Interviews

Step #5: Make the Research Report

When presenting the results, researchers should focus on: what do they want to achieve using this research report and while answering this question they should not assume that the structure of the survey is the best way to do the analysis. One of the big mistakes that many researchers make is that they present the reports in the same order of their questions and do not see the potential of storytelling.

To make good reports, the best analysts give the following advice: follow the inverted pyramid style to present the results, answering at the beginning the essential questions of the business that caused the investigation. Start with the conclusions and give them fundamentals, instead of accumulating evidence. After this researchers can provide details to the readers who have the time and interest.

Step #6: Make Decisions

An organization or a researcher should never ask “why do market research”, they should just do it! Market research helps researchers to know a wide range of information, for example,  consumer purchase intentions, or gives feedback about the growth of the target market. They can also discover valuable information that will help in estimating the prices of their product or service and find a point of balance that will benefit them and the consumers.

Take decisions! Act and implement.

Learn more: Quantitative Research

• Make well-informed decisions: The growth of an organization is dependent on the way decisions are made by the management. Using market research techniques, the management can make business decisions based on obtained results that back their knowledge and experience. Market research helps to know market trends, hence to carry it out frequently to get to know the customers thoroughly.

LEARN ABOUT: Research Process Steps

• Gain accurate information: Market research provides real and accurate information that will prepare the organization for any mishaps that may happen in the future. By properly investigating the market, a business will undoubtedly be taking a step forward, and therefore it will be taking advantage of its existing competitors.
• Determine the market size: A researcher can evaluate the size of the market that must be covered in case of selling a product or service in order to make profits.
• Choose an appropriate sales system: Select a precise sales system according to what the market is asking for, and according to this, the product/service can be positioned in the market.
• Learn about customer preferences: It helps to know how the preferences (and tastes) of the clients change so that the company can satisfy preferences, purchasing habits, and income levels. Researchers can determine the type of product that must be manufactured or sold based on the specific needs of consumers.
• Gather details about customer perception of the brand: In addition to generating information, market research helps a researcher in understanding how the customers perceive the organization or brand.
• Analyze customer communication methods: Market research serves as a guide for communication with current and potential clients.
• Productive business investment: It is a great investment for any business because thanks to it they get invaluable information, it shows researchers the way to follow to take the right path and achieve the sales that are required.

LEARN ABOUT: Total Quality Management

The following tips will help businesses with creating a better market research strategy.

Tip #1: Define the objective of your research.

Before starting your research quest, think about what you’re trying to achieve next with your business. Are you looking to increase traffic to your location? Or increase sales? Or convert customers from one-time purchasers to regulars? Figuring out your objective will help you tailor the rest of your research and your future marketing materials. Having an objective for your research will flesh out what kind of data you need to collect.

Tip #2: Learn About Your Target Customers.

The most important thing to remember is that your business serves a specific kind of customer. Defining your specific customer has many advantages like allowing you to understand what kind of language to use when crafting your marketing materials, and how to approach building relationships with your customer. When you take time to define your target customer you can also find the best products and services to sell to them.

You want to know as much as you can about your target customer. You can gather this information through observation and by researching the kind of customers who frequent your type of business. For starters, helpful things to know are their age and income. What do they do for a living? What’s their marital status and education level?

Learn more: Customer Satisfaction

Tip #3: Recognize that knowing who you serve helps you define who you do not.

Let’s take a classic example from copywriting genius Dan Kennedy. He says that if you’re opening up a fine dining steakhouse focused on decadent food, you know right off the bat that you’re not looking to attract vegetarians or dieters. Armed with this information, you can create better marketing messages that speak to your target customers.

It’s okay to decide who is not a part of your target customer base. In fact, for small businesses knowing who you don’t cater to can be essential in helping you grow. Why? Simple, if you’re small your advantage is that you can connect deeply with a specific segment of the market. You want to focus your efforts on the right customer who already is compelled to spend money on your offer.

If you’re spreading yourself thin by trying to be all things to everyone, you will only dilute your core message. Instead, keep your focus on your target customer. Define them, go deep, and you’ll be able to figure out how you can best serve them with your products and services.

Tip #4: Learn from your competition.

This works for brick-and-mortar businesses as well as internet businesses because it allows you to step into the shoes of your customer and open up to a new perspective of your business. Take a look around the internet and around your town. If you can, visit your competitor’s shops. For example, if you own a restaurant specializing in Italian cuisine, dine at the other Italian place in your neighborhood or in the next township.

As you experience the business from the customer’s perspective, look for what’s being done right and wrong.

Can you see areas that need attention or improvement? How are you running things in comparison? What’s the quality of their product and customer service ? Are the customers here pleased? Also, take a close look at their market segment. Who else is patronizing their business? Are they the same kinds of people who spend money with you? By asking these questions and doing in-person research, you can dig up a lot of information to help you define your unique selling position and create even better offers for your customers.

Tip #5: Get your target customers to open up and tell you everything.

A good customer survey is one of the most valuable market research tools because it gives you the opportunity to get inside your customer’s head. However, remember that some feedback may be harsh, so take criticism as a learning tool to point you in the right direction.

Creating a survey is simple. Ask questions about what your customer thinks you’re doing right and what can be improved. You can also prompt them to tell you what kinds of products and services they’d like to see you add, giving you fantastic insight into how to monetize your business more. Many customers will be delighted to offer feedback. You can even give customers who fill out surveys a gift like a special coupon for their next purchase.

Bonus Tip: Use an insight & research repository

An insight & research repository is a consolidated research management platform to derive insights about past and ongoing market research. With the use of such a tool, you can leverage past research to get to insights faster, build on previously done market research and draw trendlines, utilize research techniques that have worked in the past, and more.

Market research is one of the most effective ways to gain insight into your customer base , competitors , and the overall market. The goal of conducting market research is to equip your company with the information you need to make informed decisions.

It is especially important when small businesses are trying to determine whether a new business idea is viable, looking to move into a new market, or are launching a new product or service.  Read below for a more in-depth look at how market research can help small businesses.

• COMPETITION According to a study conducted by Business Insider, 72% of small businesses focus on increasing revenue. Conducting research helps businesses gain insight into competitor behavior. By learning about your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses, you can learn how to position your product or offering. In order to be successful, small businesses need to have an understanding of what products and services competitors are offering, and their price point.

Learn more: Trend Analysis

• CUSTOMERS Many small businesses feel they need to understand their customers, only to conduct market research and learn they had the wrong assumptions. By researching, you can create a profile of your average customer and gain insight into their buying habits, how much they’re willing to spend, and which features resonate with them. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, you can learn what will make someone use your product or service over a competitor.

Learn more: Customer Satisfaction Survey

• OPPORTUNITIES Potential opportunities, whether they are products or services, can be identified by conducting market research. By learning more about your customers, you can gather insights into complementary products and services. Consumer needs change over time, influenced by new technology and different conditions, and you may find new needs that are not being met, which can create new opportunities for your business.

Learn more: SWOT Analysis 

• FORECAST A small business is affected by the performance of the local and national economy, as are its’ customers. If consumers are worried, then they will be more restrained when spending money, which affects the business. By conducting research with consumers, businesses can get an idea of whether they are optimistic or apprehensive about the direction of the economy, and make adjustments as necessary. For example, a small business owner may decide to postpone a new product launch if it appears the economic environment is turning negative.

Learn more: 300+ Market Research Survey Questionnaires

Market research and market intelligence may be as complex as the needs that each business or project has. The steps are usually the same. We hope this ultimate guide helps you have a better understanding of how to make your own market research project to gather insightful data and make better decisions.

LEARN ABOUT: Projective Techniques

We appreciate you taking the time to read this ultimate guide. We hope it was helpful! 

You can now download our free ebook that will guide you through a market research project, from the planning stage to the presentation of the outcomes and their analysis.

Sign up now, and download our free ebook: The Hacker’s Guide to Advanced Research Methodologies 

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What is Market Research? (Explained With Examples)

Oct 11, 2023

Market research is an essential component of any business strategy. It helps companies understand their target market, identify consumer preferences, and make informed decisions about product development, marketing campaigns, and overall business growth. In this article, we will explore the concept of market research in detail, providing clear definitions, discussing advantages and disadvantages, and providing real-world examples to illustrate its importance

1°) What is Market Research?

Market research is the process of gathering and analyzing relevant data about a target market to gain insights into consumer behavior, preferences, and needs. It involves collecting both qualitative and quantitative data to understand market trends, competitor analysis, and customer satisfaction levels.

Market research plays a crucial role in helping businesses make informed decisions and develop effective strategies. By understanding the market dynamics and customer demands, companies can tailor their offerings to meet the specific needs of their target audience. This not only enhances customer satisfaction but also increases the chances of business success.

1.1 - Definition of Market Research

Market research can be defined as the systematic gathering, interpretation, and analysis of data about a specific target market, industry, or product/service. It helps businesses understand market dynamics, customer demands, and competitor strategies, ultimately enabling them to make informed decisions.

Market research involves various methods and techniques to collect data, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observation. These methods help researchers gather both qualitative and quantitative data, providing a comprehensive understanding of the target market.

1.2 - Advantages of Market Research

There are several advantages of conducting market research:

Market Insights: Market research provides valuable insights into customer preferences, behaviors, and pain points, allowing businesses to tailor their offerings to meet customer needs effectively. By understanding what drives consumer decision-making, companies can develop marketing strategies that resonate with their target audience.

Competitor Analysis: By conducting market research, companies can gain a comprehensive understanding of their competitors, their strengths, weaknesses, and unique selling propositions. This knowledge helps businesses refine their own strategies and stand out in the market. It enables companies to identify opportunities for differentiation and develop competitive advantages.

Product Development: Market research helps businesses identify potential gaps in the market, enabling them to develop innovative products that satisfy unmet consumer needs. By understanding customer preferences and pain points, companies can create products that address specific challenges or provide unique solutions.

Evidence-Based Decision Making: By collecting and analyzing data, market research eliminates guesswork and supports data-driven decision making, reducing the risk of making costly mistakes. It provides businesses with the necessary information to evaluate market opportunities, assess risks, and make informed choices.

1.3 - Disadvantages of Market Research

While market research offers numerous benefits, it also has certain limitations:

Time-consuming: Conducting comprehensive market research can be a time-consuming process, requiring careful planning, data collection, and analysis. It involves identifying research objectives, designing research methodologies, collecting data, and analyzing the findings. This process can take weeks or even months, depending on the scope of the research.

Costly: Market research can be expensive, especially when involving large sample sizes or advanced research techniques. The costs include expenses related to data collection, analysis, and hiring research professionals. Small businesses with limited budgets may find it challenging to invest in extensive market research.

Accuracy Limitations: Despite efforts to ensure reliability, market research results are still subject to bias, sample error, and respondent inaccuracies. Researchers must carefully design their studies to minimize these limitations, but it is impossible to completely eliminate them. The accuracy of market research findings depends on the quality of data collection, sample representativeness, and the honesty of respondents.

2°) Examples of Market Research

Real-world examples can help illustrate the practical application of market research:

2.1 - Example in a Startup Context

Imagine a startup aiming to disrupt the meal delivery industry. Before launching their service, they conduct market research to identify the preferences and demands of their target audience. Through surveys, focus groups, and data analysis, they uncover that convenience, healthy options, and affordability are essential factors for their target market. Armed with this information, they develop a meal delivery service that meets these needs and differentiates themselves from established competitors.

For instance, during their market research, the startup discovers that their target audience values convenience above all else. They find that busy professionals and families are looking for a meal delivery service that can provide them with quick and easy options for their busy lifestyles. Armed with this insight, the startup decides to focus on developing a user-friendly mobile app that allows customers to easily order meals with just a few taps on their smartphones. This innovative approach to convenience sets them apart from their competitors and attracts a loyal customer base.

In addition to convenience, the startup also uncovers a strong demand for healthy meal options. They find that their target audience is health-conscious and actively seeks out nutritious meals that align with their dietary preferences. To cater to this demand, the startup partners with local farms and suppliers to source fresh and organic ingredients for their meals. They also collaborate with nutritionists and chefs to create a menu that offers a variety of healthy and delicious options. This commitment to providing healthy meals not only meets the needs of their target audience but also positions the startup as a trusted and reliable choice in the market.

Lastly, the startup identifies affordability as a key factor for their target market. They discover that price sensitivity is high among their audience, and they are looking for cost-effective meal delivery options that don't compromise on quality. To address this, the startup adopts a pricing strategy that offers competitive prices while still maintaining the quality and value of their meals. They also introduce subscription plans and loyalty programs to incentivize repeat customers and provide additional savings. This focus on affordability allows the startup to attract price-conscious customers and gain a competitive edge in the market.

2.2 - Example in a Consulting Context

A consulting firm specializing in marketing strategy decides to expand its service offerings. To ensure they align with market demand, they conduct market research to identify the most sought-after services and emerging industry trends. By analyzing market data, interviewing industry experts, and conducting competitor analysis, they identify a gap in the market for data-driven digital marketing strategies. This research helps the consulting firm refine their service offerings and attract new clients.

During their market research, the consulting firm uncovers a growing demand for data-driven digital marketing strategies. They find that businesses are increasingly looking for ways to leverage data and analytics to optimize their marketing efforts and drive better results. Armed with this insight, the consulting firm decides to develop a specialized service that focuses on helping businesses harness the power of data in their marketing strategies.

To deliver this service, the consulting firm invests in hiring data analysts and marketing experts with a strong background in data-driven marketing. They also develop proprietary tools and software that can collect, analyze, and interpret marketing data to provide actionable insights and recommendations to their clients. By offering this specialized service, the consulting firm is able to position themselves as industry leaders in data-driven marketing and attract clients who are seeking innovative and effective marketing solutions.

In addition to data-driven marketing, the consulting firm also identifies an emerging trend in influencer marketing. They find that businesses are increasingly turning to influencers and social media platforms to reach their target audience and build brand awareness. Recognizing the potential of this trend, the consulting firm expands their service offerings to include influencer marketing strategies. They develop partnerships with popular influencers in various industries and create comprehensive influencer marketing campaigns for their clients. This expansion allows the consulting firm to tap into a growing market and provide their clients with a holistic approach to digital marketing.

2.3 - Example in a Digital Marketing Agency Context

A digital marketing agency wants to optimize its client's pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns. They conduct market research to understand consumer behavior and identify effective strategies. By analyzing search data, conducting A/B testing, and reviewing industry case studies, they discover that creating personalized ad copy and optimizing landing pages increases click-through rates and conversions. Armed with this knowledge, the agency produces better results for their clients and improves their overall reputation.

During their market research, the digital marketing agency delves into consumer behavior to gain insights into what motivates users to click on PPC ads and convert into customers. They find that personalization is a key factor in capturing the attention of users and driving conversions. Armed with this insight, the agency develops a strategy that focuses on creating personalized ad copy that resonates with the target audience. They conduct extensive research on the target audience's demographics, interests, and preferences to craft ad copy that speaks directly to their needs and desires. This personalized approach increases the relevance and effectiveness of the PPC ads, resulting in higher click-through rates and conversions for their clients.

In addition to personalized ad copy, the digital marketing agency also discovers the importance of optimizing landing pages in maximizing the success of PPC campaigns. They find that a well-designed and user-friendly landing page can significantly impact the conversion rate of PPC ads. Armed with this insight, the agency conducts A/B testing to identify the most effective landing page design and layout. They analyze user behavior, conduct heat map analysis, and gather feedback from users to refine and optimize the landing pages. This meticulous approach to landing page optimization leads to improved conversion rates and a higher return on investment for their clients' PPC campaigns.

2.4 - Example with Analogies

Imagine a chef who wants to create a new dessert recipe. Before experimenting with ingredients, they conduct market research to gather inspiration and understand current dessert trends. By analyzing popular recipes, studying customer reviews, and experimenting with flavors, the chef can develop a unique and delicious dessert that resonates with their target audience.

During their market research, the chef explores various dessert trends and flavors that are currently popular among consumers. They analyze social media platforms, food blogs, and culinary magazines to identify the latest dessert trends and gather inspiration for their own creation. Armed with this knowledge, the chef experiments with different flavor combinations, textures, and presentation styles to develop a dessert that not only satisfies the taste buds but also captures the attention of their target audience.

The chef also pays close attention to customer reviews and feedback on existing dessert recipes. They analyze the strengths and weaknesses of popular recipes and use this information to refine their own creation. By incorporating customer preferences and addressing common complaints or suggestions, the chef ensures that their dessert stands out from the competition and meets the expectations of their target audience.

Market research plays a pivotal role in understanding consumer needs, identifying market opportunities, and driving business success. Whether you are a startup, consulting firm, or digital marketing agency, conducting market research can provide valuable insights, inform decision-making, and improve overall business performance.

About the author

Arnaud Belinga

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How to Do Market Research: The Complete Guide

Learn how to do market research with this step-by-step guide, complete with templates, tools and real-world examples.

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What are your customers’ needs? How does your product compare to the competition? What are the emerging trends and opportunities in your industry? If these questions keep you up at night, it’s time to conduct market research.

Market research plays a pivotal role in your ability to stay competitive and relevant, helping you anticipate shifts in consumer behavior and industry dynamics. It involves gathering these insights using a wide range of techniques, from surveys and interviews to data analysis and observational studies.

In this guide, we’ll explore why market research is crucial, the various types of market research, the methods used in data collection, and how to effectively conduct market research to drive informed decision-making and success.

What is market research?

Market research is the systematic process of gathering, analyzing and interpreting information about a specific market or industry. The purpose of market research is to offer valuable insight into the preferences and behaviors of your target audience, and anticipate shifts in market trends and the competitive landscape. This information helps you make data-driven decisions, develop effective strategies for your business, and maximize your chances of long-term growth.

Why is market research important? 

By understanding the significance of market research, you can make sure you’re asking the right questions and using the process to your advantage. Some of the benefits of market research include:

• Informed decision-making: Market research provides you with the data and insights you need to make smart decisions for your business. It helps you identify opportunities, assess risks and tailor your strategies to meet the demands of the market. Without market research, decisions are often based on assumptions or guesswork, leading to costly mistakes.
• Customer-centric approach: A cornerstone of market research involves developing a deep understanding of customer needs and preferences. This gives you valuable insights into your target audience, helping you develop products, services and marketing campaigns that resonate with your customers.
• Competitive advantage: By conducting market research, you’ll gain a competitive edge. You’ll be able to identify gaps in the market, analyze competitor strengths and weaknesses, and position your business strategically. This enables you to create unique value propositions, differentiate yourself from competitors, and seize opportunities that others may overlook.
• Risk mitigation: Market research helps you anticipate market shifts and potential challenges. By identifying threats early, you can proactively adjust their strategies to mitigate risks and respond effectively to changing circumstances. This proactive approach is particularly valuable in volatile industries.
• Resource optimization: Conducting market research allows organizations to allocate their time, money and resources more efficiently. It ensures that investments are made in areas with the highest potential return on investment, reducing wasted resources and improving overall business performance.
• Adaptation to market trends: Markets evolve rapidly, driven by technological advancements, cultural shifts and changing consumer attitudes. Market research ensures that you stay ahead of these trends and adapt your offerings accordingly so you can avoid becoming obsolete. 

As you can see, market research empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions, cater to customer needs, outperform competitors, mitigate risks, optimize resources and stay agile in a dynamic marketplace. These benefits make it a huge industry; the global market research services market is expected to grow from $76.37 billion in 2021 to $108.57 billion in 2026 . Now, let’s dig into the different types of market research that can help you achieve these benefits.

Types of market research 

• Qualitative research
• Quantitative research
• Exploratory research
• Descriptive research
• Causal research
• Cross-sectional research
• Longitudinal research

Despite its advantages, 23% of organizations don’t have a clear market research strategy. Part of developing a strategy involves choosing the right type of market research for your business goals. The most commonly used approaches include:

1. Qualitative research

Qualitative research focuses on understanding the underlying motivations, attitudes and perceptions of individuals or groups. It is typically conducted through techniques like in-depth interviews, focus groups and content analysis — methods we’ll discuss further in the sections below. Qualitative research provides rich, nuanced insights that can inform product development, marketing strategies and brand positioning.

2. Quantitative research

Quantitative research, in contrast to qualitative research, involves the collection and analysis of numerical data, often through surveys, experiments and structured questionnaires. This approach allows for statistical analysis and the measurement of trends, making it suitable for large-scale market studies and hypothesis testing. While it’s worthwhile using a mix of qualitative and quantitative research, most businesses prioritize the latter because it is scientific, measurable and easily replicated across different experiments.

3. Exploratory research

Whether you’re conducting qualitative or quantitative research or a mix of both, exploratory research is often the first step. Its primary goal is to help you understand a market or problem so you can gain insights and identify potential issues or opportunities. This type of market research is less structured and is typically conducted through open-ended interviews, focus groups or secondary data analysis. Exploratory research is valuable when entering new markets or exploring new product ideas.

4. Descriptive research

As its name implies, descriptive research seeks to describe a market, population or phenomenon in detail. It involves collecting and summarizing data to answer questions about audience demographics and behaviors, market size, and current trends. Surveys, observational studies and content analysis are common methods used in descriptive research. 

5. Causal research

Causal research aims to establish cause-and-effect relationships between variables. It investigates whether changes in one variable result in changes in another. Experimental designs, A/B testing and regression analysis are common causal research methods. This sheds light on how specific marketing strategies or product changes impact consumer behavior.

6. Cross-sectional research

Cross-sectional market research involves collecting data from a sample of the population at a single point in time. It is used to analyze differences, relationships or trends among various groups within a population. Cross-sectional studies are helpful for market segmentation, identifying target audiences and assessing market trends at a specific moment.

7. Longitudinal research

Longitudinal research, in contrast to cross-sectional research, collects data from the same subjects over an extended period. This allows for the analysis of trends, changes and developments over time. Longitudinal studies are useful for tracking long-term developments in consumer preferences, brand loyalty and market dynamics.

Each type of market research has its strengths and weaknesses, and the method you choose depends on your specific research goals and the depth of understanding you’re aiming to achieve. In the following sections, we’ll delve into primary and secondary research approaches and specific research methods.

Primary vs. secondary market research

Market research of all types can be broadly categorized into two main approaches: primary research and secondary research. By understanding the differences between these approaches, you can better determine the most appropriate research method for your specific goals.

Primary market research 

Primary research involves the collection of original data straight from the source. Typically, this involves communicating directly with your target audience — through surveys, interviews, focus groups and more — to gather information. Here are some key attributes of primary market research:

• Customized data: Primary research provides data that is tailored to your research needs. You design a custom research study and gather information specific to your goals.
• Up-to-date insights: Because primary research involves communicating with customers, the data you collect reflects the most current market conditions and consumer behaviors.
• Time-consuming and resource-intensive: Despite its advantages, primary research can be labor-intensive and costly, especially when dealing with large sample sizes or complex study designs. Whether you hire a market research consultant, agency or use an in-house team, primary research studies consume a large amount of resources and time.

Secondary market research 

Secondary research, on the other hand, involves analyzing data that has already been compiled by third-party sources, such as online research tools, databases, news sites, industry reports and academic studies.

Here are the main characteristics of secondary market research:

• Cost-effective: Secondary research is generally more cost-effective than primary research since it doesn’t require building a research plan from scratch. You and your team can look at databases, websites and publications on an ongoing basis, without needing to design a custom experiment or hire a consultant. 
• Leverages multiple sources: Data tools and software extract data from multiple places across the web, and then consolidate that information within a single platform. This means you’ll get a greater amount of data and a wider scope from secondary research.
• Quick to access: You can access a wide range of information rapidly — often in seconds — if you’re using online research tools and databases. Because of this, you can act on insights sooner, rather than taking the time to develop an experiment. 

So, when should you use primary vs. secondary research? In practice, many market research projects incorporate both primary and secondary research to take advantage of the strengths of each approach.

One rule of thumb is to focus on secondary research to obtain background information, market trends or industry benchmarks. It is especially valuable for conducting preliminary research, competitor analysis, or when time and budget constraints are tight. Then, if you still have knowledge gaps or need to answer specific questions unique to your business model, use primary research to create a custom experiment. 

Market research methods

• Surveys and questionnaires
• Focus groups
• Observational research
• Online research tools
• Experiments
• Content analysis
• Ethnographic research

How do primary and secondary research approaches translate into specific research methods? Let’s take a look at the different ways you can gather data: 

1. Surveys and questionnaires

Surveys and questionnaires are popular methods for collecting structured data from a large number of respondents. They involve a set of predetermined questions that participants answer. Surveys can be conducted through various channels, including online tools, telephone interviews and in-person or online questionnaires. They are useful for gathering quantitative data and assessing customer demographics, opinions, preferences and needs. On average, customer surveys have a 33% response rate , so keep that in mind as you consider your sample size.

2. Interviews

Interviews are in-depth conversations with individuals or groups to gather qualitative insights. They can be structured (with predefined questions) or unstructured (with open-ended discussions). Interviews are valuable for exploring complex topics, uncovering motivations and obtaining detailed feedback. 

3. Focus groups

The most common primary research methods are in-depth webcam interviews and focus groups. Focus groups are a small gathering of participants who discuss a specific topic or product under the guidance of a moderator. These discussions are valuable for primary market research because they reveal insights into consumer attitudes, perceptions and emotions. Focus groups are especially useful for idea generation, concept testing and understanding group dynamics within your target audience.

4. Observational research

Observational research involves observing and recording participant behavior in a natural setting. This method is particularly valuable when studying consumer behavior in physical spaces, such as retail stores or public places. In some types of observational research, participants are aware you’re watching them; in other cases, you discreetly watch consumers without their knowledge, as they use your product. Either way, observational research provides firsthand insights into how people interact with products or environments.

5. Online research tools

You and your team can do your own secondary market research using online tools. These tools include data prospecting platforms and databases, as well as online surveys, social media listening, web analytics and sentiment analysis platforms. They help you gather data from online sources, monitor industry trends, track competitors, understand consumer preferences and keep tabs on online behavior. We’ll talk more about choosing the right market research tools in the sections that follow.

6. Experiments

Market research experiments are controlled tests of variables to determine causal relationships. While experiments are often associated with scientific research, they are also used in market research to assess the impact of specific marketing strategies, product features, or pricing and packaging changes.

7. Content analysis

Content analysis involves the systematic examination of textual, visual or audio content to identify patterns, themes and trends. It’s commonly applied to customer reviews, social media posts and other forms of online content to analyze consumer opinions and sentiments.

8. Ethnographic research

Ethnographic research immerses researchers into the daily lives of consumers to understand their behavior and culture. This method is particularly valuable when studying niche markets or exploring the cultural context of consumer choices.

How to do market research

• Set clear objectives
• Identify your target audience
• Choose your research methods
• Use the right market research tools
• Collect data
• Analyze data 
• Interpret your findings
• Identify opportunities and challenges
• Make informed business decisions
• Monitor and adapt

Now that you have gained insights into the various market research methods at your disposal, let’s delve into the practical aspects of how to conduct market research effectively. Here’s a quick step-by-step overview, from defining objectives to monitoring market shifts.

1. Set clear objectives

When you set clear and specific goals, you’re essentially creating a compass to guide your research questions and methodology. Start by precisely defining what you want to achieve. Are you launching a new product and want to understand its viability in the market? Are you evaluating customer satisfaction with a product redesign? 

Start by creating SMART goals — objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Not only will this clarify your research focus from the outset, but it will also help you track progress and benchmark your success throughout the process. 

You should also consult with key stakeholders and team members to ensure alignment on your research objectives before diving into data collecting. This will help you gain diverse perspectives and insights that will shape your research approach.

2. Identify your target audience

Next, you’ll need to pinpoint your target audience to determine who should be included in your research. Begin by creating detailed buyer personas or stakeholder profiles. Consider demographic factors like age, gender, income and location, but also delve into psychographics, such as interests, values and pain points.

The more specific your target audience, the more accurate and actionable your research will be. Additionally, segment your audience if your research objectives involve studying different groups, such as current customers and potential leads.

If you already have existing customers, you can also hold conversations with them to better understand your target market. From there, you can refine your buyer personas and tailor your research methods accordingly.

3. Choose your research methods

Selecting the right research methods is crucial for gathering high-quality data. Start by considering the nature of your research objectives. If you’re exploring consumer preferences, surveys and interviews can provide valuable insights. For in-depth understanding, focus groups or observational research might be suitable. Consider using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to gain a well-rounded perspective. 

You’ll also need to consider your budget. Think about what you can realistically achieve using the time and resources available to you. If you have a fairly generous budget, you may want to try a mix of primary and secondary research approaches. If you’re doing market research for a startup , on the other hand, chances are your budget is somewhat limited. If that’s the case, try addressing your goals with secondary research tools before investing time and effort in a primary research study. 

4. Use the right market research tools

Whether you’re conducting primary or secondary research, you’ll need to choose the right tools. These can help you do anything from sending surveys to customers to monitoring trends and analyzing data. Here are some examples of popular market research tools:

• Market research software: Crunchbase is a platform that provides best-in-class company data, making it valuable for market research on growing companies and industries. You can use Crunchbase to access trusted, first-party funding data, revenue data, news and firmographics, enabling you to monitor industry trends and understand customer needs.

• Survey and questionnaire tools: SurveyMonkey is a widely used online survey platform that allows you to create, distribute and analyze surveys. Google Forms is a free tool that lets you create surveys and collect responses through Google Drive.
• Data analysis software: Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets are useful for conducting statistical analyses. SPSS is a powerful statistical analysis software used for data processing, analysis and reporting.
• Social listening tools: Brandwatch is a social listening and analytics platform that helps you monitor social media conversations, track sentiment and analyze trends. Mention is a media monitoring tool that allows you to track mentions of your brand, competitors and keywords across various online sources.
• Data visualization platforms: Tableau is a data visualization tool that helps you create interactive and shareable dashboards and reports. Power BI by Microsoft is a business analytics tool for creating interactive visualizations and reports.

5. Collect data

There’s an infinite amount of data you could be collecting using these tools, so you’ll need to be intentional about going after the data that aligns with your research goals. Implement your chosen research methods, whether it’s distributing surveys, conducting interviews or pulling from secondary research platforms. Pay close attention to data quality and accuracy, and stick to a standardized process to streamline data capture and reduce errors. 

6. Analyze data

Once data is collected, you’ll need to analyze it systematically. Use statistical software or analysis tools to identify patterns, trends and correlations. For qualitative data, employ thematic analysis to extract common themes and insights. Visualize your findings with charts, graphs and tables to make complex data more understandable.

If you’re not proficient in data analysis, consider outsourcing or collaborating with a data analyst who can assist in processing and interpreting your data accurately.

7. Interpret your findings

Interpreting your market research findings involves understanding what the data means in the context of your objectives. Are there significant trends that uncover the answers to your initial research questions? Consider the implications of your findings on your business strategy. It’s essential to move beyond raw data and extract actionable insights that inform decision-making.

Hold a cross-functional meeting or workshop with relevant team members to collectively interpret the findings. Different perspectives can lead to more comprehensive insights and innovative solutions.

8. Identify opportunities and challenges

Use your research findings to identify potential growth opportunities and challenges within your market. What segments of your audience are underserved or overlooked? Are there emerging trends you can capitalize on? Conversely, what obstacles or competitors could hinder your progress?

Lay out this information in a clear and organized way by conducting a SWOT analysis, which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Jot down notes for each of these areas to provide a structured overview of gaps and hurdles in the market.

9. Make informed business decisions

Market research is only valuable if it leads to informed decisions for your company. Based on your insights, devise actionable strategies and initiatives that align with your research objectives. Whether it’s refining your product, targeting new customer segments or adjusting pricing, ensure your decisions are rooted in the data.

At this point, it’s also crucial to keep your team aligned and accountable. Create an action plan that outlines specific steps, responsibilities and timelines for implementing the recommendations derived from your research. 

10. Monitor and adapt

Market research isn’t a one-time activity; it’s an ongoing process. Continuously monitor market conditions, customer behaviors and industry trends. Set up mechanisms to collect real-time data and feedback. As you gather new information, be prepared to adapt your strategies and tactics accordingly. Regularly revisiting your research ensures your business remains agile and reflects changing market dynamics and consumer preferences.

Online market research sources

As you go through the steps above, you’ll want to turn to trusted, reputable sources to gather your data. Here’s a list to get you started:

• Crunchbase: As mentioned above, Crunchbase is an online platform with an extensive dataset, allowing you to access in-depth insights on market trends, consumer behavior and competitive analysis. You can also customize your search options to tailor your research to specific industries, geographic regions or customer personas.

• Academic databases: Academic databases, such as ProQuest and JSTOR , are treasure troves of scholarly research papers, studies and academic journals. They offer in-depth analyses of various subjects, including market trends, consumer preferences and industry-specific insights. Researchers can access a wealth of peer-reviewed publications to gain a deeper understanding of their research topics.
• Government and NGO databases: Government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and other institutions frequently maintain databases containing valuable economic, demographic and industry-related data. These sources offer credible statistics and reports on a wide range of topics, making them essential for market researchers. Examples include the U.S. Census Bureau , the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Pew Research Center .
• Industry reports: Industry reports and market studies are comprehensive documents prepared by research firms, industry associations and consulting companies. They provide in-depth insights into specific markets, including market size, trends, competitive analysis and consumer behavior. You can find this information by looking at relevant industry association databases; examples include the American Marketing Association and the National Retail Federation .
• Social media and online communities: Social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter (X) , forums such as Reddit and Quora , and review platforms such as G2 can provide real-time insights into consumer sentiment, opinions and trends. 

Market research examples

At this point, you have market research tools and data sources — but how do you act on the data you gather? Let’s go over some real-world examples that illustrate the practical application of market research across various industries. These examples showcase how market research can lead to smart decision-making and successful business decisions.

Example 1: Apple’s iPhone launch

Apple ’s iconic iPhone launch in 2007 serves as a prime example of market research driving product innovation in tech. Before the iPhone’s release, Apple conducted extensive market research to understand consumer preferences, pain points and unmet needs in the mobile phone industry. This research led to the development of a touchscreen smartphone with a user-friendly interface, addressing consumer demands for a more intuitive and versatile device. The result was a revolutionary product that disrupted the market and redefined the smartphone industry.

Example 2: McDonald’s global expansion

McDonald’s successful global expansion strategy demonstrates the importance of market research when expanding into new territories. Before entering a new market, McDonald’s conducts thorough research to understand local tastes, preferences and cultural nuances. This research informs menu customization, marketing strategies and store design. For instance, in India, McDonald’s offers a menu tailored to local preferences, including vegetarian options. This market-specific approach has enabled McDonald’s to adapt and thrive in diverse global markets.

Example 3: Organic and sustainable farming

The shift toward organic and sustainable farming practices in the food industry is driven by market research that indicates increased consumer demand for healthier and environmentally friendly food options. As a result, food producers and retailers invest in sustainable sourcing and organic product lines — such as with these sustainable seafood startups — to align with this shift in consumer values. 

The bottom line? Market research has multiple use cases and is a critical practice for any industry. Whether it’s launching groundbreaking products, entering new markets or responding to changing consumer preferences, you can use market research to shape successful strategies and outcomes.

Market research templates

You finally have a strong understanding of how to do market research and apply it in the real world. Before we wrap up, here are some market research templates that you can use as a starting point for your projects:

• Smartsheet competitive analysis templates : These spreadsheets can serve as a framework for gathering information about the competitive landscape and obtaining valuable lessons to apply to your business strategy.
• SurveyMonkey product survey template : Customize the questions on this survey based on what you want to learn from your target customers.
• HubSpot templates : HubSpot offers a wide range of free templates you can use for market research, business planning and more.
• SCORE templates : SCORE is a nonprofit organization that provides templates for business plans, market analysis and financial projections.
• SBA.gov : The U.S. Small Business Administration offers templates for every aspect of your business, including market research, and is particularly valuable for new startups. 

Strengthen your business with market research

When conducted effectively, market research is like a guiding star. Equipped with the right tools and techniques, you can uncover valuable insights, stay competitive, foster innovation and navigate the complexities of your industry.

Throughout this guide, we’ve discussed the definition of market research, different research methods, and how to conduct it effectively. We’ve also explored various types of market research and shared practical insights and templates for getting started. 

Now, it’s time to start the research process. Trust in data, listen to the market and make informed decisions that guide your company toward lasting success.

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The 8 types of market research: definitions, uses and examples.

13 min read What are the different types of market research that can help you stay ahead of the curve with your marketing strategy? Understand how to use each type, and what the advantages and disadvantages are.

Market research  (also called marketing research) is the action or activity of gathering information about market needs and preferences. This helps companies understand their target market — how the audience feels and behaves. There are 8 variations of market research in our lineup that we’ll explore in more detail.

Download our free eBook: How to rethink and reinvent market research

A number of the tools for carrying out market research can be classed under two main categories: primary and secondary market research. Let’s start our list by exploring these two types first.

1. Primary research

Primary research is research that you collect yourself but going directly to the target market through a range of methods. Because it is data you create, you own the data set.

Two types of results — exploratory information (determines the nature of a problem that hasn’t yet been clearly defined) and conclusive information (carried out to solve a problem that exploratory research identified) — from participants are collected as raw data and then analysed to gather insights from trends and comparisons.

This method is good for getting the views of a lot of people at one time, especially when time is short, but it comes with its own management issues. The interviewer must prepare a way to gather answers and record these, while engaging in conversation with many people.

Participants may be affected by the group setting, either from acquiescence bias (the desire to say yes to please the interviewer), dominance bias (stronger participants can alter the results from less dominant participants) or researcher bias (where the research leads or impacts the participant responses indirectly).

This provides a structured setting where the interviewer can listen to what’s being said and investigate further into an answer. The interviewer can also pick up on non-verbal cues from body language can help the interview understand where to deep-dive and broaden their understanding.

However, some of the same biases (acquiescence and researcher) still exit in this format. The method is time consuming to do the interviews and collect the data afterwards.

A survey is an excellent method for carrying out primary research as participants do need to be physically present with the interviewer to carry it out. The survey can be completed anywhere there is an internet connection, meaning there is flexibility for the participants to use different devices and for interviewers to contact participants in different geographical time-zones.Preparation is key, however, as the researchers must segment the market and create a list of participants to send the survey to. Hiring a panel or using existing marketing lists can help with this.

2. Secondary research

Secondary research is the use of data that has previously been collected, analysed and published (and therefore you do not own this data). An example of this for market research is:

Most information is freely available, so there are less costs associated with this kind of secondary research over primary research methods.

Secondary research can often be the preparation for primary research activities, providing a knowledge base. The information gathered may not provide the specific information to explain the results, which is where primary market research would be used to enhance understanding.

There is also a logistics planning need for a recording solution that can handle large datasets, since manual management of the volumes of information can be tricky.

Both primary and secondary research have its advantages and disadvantages, as we’ve seen, but they are best used when paired together. Combined, the data can give you the confidence to act knowing that any hypothesis you have is backed up.

Learn more about primary and secondary research methods

The next market research types can be defined as qualitative and quantitative research types:

3. Qualitative research

Qualitative market research is the collection of primary or secondary data that is non-numerical in nature, and therefore hard to measure.

Researchers collect this market research type because it can add more depth to the data.

This kind of market research is used to summarise and infer, rather than pin-points an exact truth held by a target market. For example, qualitative market research can be done to find out a new target market’s reaction to a new product to translate the reaction into a clear explanation for the company.

4. Quantitative research

Quantitative research is the collection of primary or secondary data that is numerical in nature, and so can be collected more easily.

Researchers collect this market research type because it can provide historical benchmarking, based on facts and figures evidence.

There are a number of ways to collect this data — polls, surveys, desk research, web statistics, financial records — which can be exploratory in nature without a lot of depth at this stage.

Quantitative market research can create the foundation of knowledge needed by researchers to investigate hypotheses further through qualitative market research.

Learn more about qualitative and quantitative research

The next four variations of market research are specific to topics areas, that bring about specific information.:

5. Branding research

Branding  market research assists a company to create, manage and maintain the company brand. This can relate to the tone, branding, images, values or identity of the company.

Research can be carried out through interviews, focus groups or surveys. For example, brand awareness surveys will ask your participants whether the brand is known to them and whether it is something they would be interested in buying.

Additional areas for brand research is also around brand loyalty,  brand perception ,  brand positioning ,  brand value  and brand identity .

The aim of research will be to understand how to know if:

• Your brand is performing in relation to other competitors
• There are areas to improve your brand activities
• There are positives to showcase to enhance your brand’s image

6. Customer research

Customer market research looks at the key influences on your target customers and how your company can make changes to encourage sales.

The aim of this research is to know your customer inside out, and continuously learn about how they interact with the company. Some themes covered by this include:

• Customer satisfaction  – Exploring what keeps customers happy, as higher customer satisfaction is more likely to lead to increased customer retention.
• Customer loyalty  – This looks at what experiences have happened to lead to greater customer loyalty across the customer lifecycle.
• Customer segmentation research  – Discovering who the customers are, what their behaviour and preferences are and their shared characteristics.

Relevant desk research may look at historical purchase records,  customer journey mapping , customer segmentation, demographics and persona templates.

Primary research, such as  NPS  and  customer satisfaction surveys , or customer satisfaction interviews at the end of customer support calls, can also give more details.

7. Competitor research

Competitor market research is about knowing who your competition is and understanding their strengths and weaknesses, in comparison to your organisation. It can also be about your competitive offering in the market, or how to approach a new market.

The aim of this research is to find ways to make your organisation stand out and future planning through horizon scanning and listening to customer preferences.

For example, for competitive analysis, researchers would create a SWOT for your business and your competitors, to see how your business compares.

Primary research could interview customers about their buying preferences, while secondary sources would look at competitor’s market dominance, sales, structure and so on. With this thorough analysis, you can understand where you can change to be more competitive, and look for ideas that make you stand out.

8. Product research

Product market research is a key way to make sure your products and services are fit for launching in the market, and are performing as well as they can.

The aim of this research is to see how your product is perceived by customers, if they are providing value and working correctly. Ideas can also be formed about upgrades and future product development.

There are a number of avenues within product research:

• Product branding  – Does the product brand and design attract customers in the intended way?
• Product feature testing  – this can happen at various stages of development with target markets (in early development, between versions, before product launch, etc.) to check if there are positive reaction to new or improved features
• Product design  thinking  – what solutions would solve your customers’ current or future problems?
• Product marketing  – Do the marketing messages help your product’s memorability and saleability, or can they be improved?

Primary research methods have a clear advantage in this kind of market research: Surveys can ask for rankings on the popularity or usefulness of features or conduct conjoint analysis, while in-person observation interviews (where the participant can handle a product) can be particularly useful in seeing what customers do with the product in real time.

How to use market research types in your company

In a good marketing strategy, it’s preferable to have a mixture of data across:

• Qualitative and quantitative research
• Primary and secondary research
• Your specific topic area or area of focus

With these three components, you can make sure your market strategy gives you a complete picture of your market’s  operational data and experience data , —  what  your market does and  why .

Economical experience data (O data)

This type of experience data is quantitative in nature (including operations, featuring sales data, finance data and  HR data ). As it can be quantified into numerical values, it can be measured over and over, providing datasets.

There is the opportunity to use a data-driven approach to understanding the results and making predictions based on historical trends.

This sort of data can be measured more easily than emotions and feelings. But it can only tell you about past activities and what happened. It can’t tell you what will happen in the future and why things will happen — this is where X data comes in.

Emotional experience data (X data)

This type of experience data seeks to find reasons to explain emotional decisions and how brands ‘sit’ in people’s minds. In this way, this data is qualitative in nature.

Companies that have X data have a ‘mental advantage’ over other companies,  as they are able to understand the perceptions of the customer, their needs and values.

When you have tangible insights on the audience’s needs, you can then take steps to meet those needs and solve problems. This mitigates the risk of an experience gap – which is what your audience expects you deliver versus what you actually deliver.

eBook: How to rethink and reinvent market research

Related resources

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Market research is a cornerstone of all successful, strategic businesses. It can also be daunting for entrepreneurs looking to launch a startup or start a side hustle . What is market research, anyway? And how do you…do it?

We’ll walk you through absolutely everything you need to know about the market research process so that by the end of this guide, you’ll be an expert in market research too. And what’s more important: you’ll have actionable steps you can take to start collecting your own market research.

What Is Market Research?

Market research is the organized process of gathering information about your target customers and market. Market research can help you better understand customer behavior and competitor strengths and weaknesses, as well as provide insight for the best strategies in launching new businesses and products. There are different ways to approach market research, including primary and secondary research and qualitative and quantitative research. The strongest approaches will include a combination of all four.

“Virtually every business can benefit from conducting some market research,” says Niles Koenigsberg of Real FiG Advertising + Marketing . “Market research can help you piece together your [business’s] strengths and weaknesses, along with your prospective opportunities, so that you can understand where your unique differentiators may lie.” Well-honed market research will help your brand stand out from the competition and help you see what you need to do to lead the market. It can also do so much more.

The Purposes of Market Research

Why do market research? It can help you…

• Pinpoint your target market, create buyer personas, and develop a more holistic understanding of your customer base and market.
• Understand current market conditions to evaluate risks and anticipate how your product or service will perform.
• Validate a concept prior to launch.
• Identify gaps in the market that your competitors have created or overlooked.
• Solve problems that have been left unresolved by the existing product/brand offerings.
• Identify opportunities and solutions for new products or services.
• Develop killer marketing strategies .

What Are the Benefits of Market Research?

Strong market research can help your business in many ways. It can…

• Strengthen your market position.
• Help you identify your strengths and weaknesses.
• Help you identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Minimize risk.
• Center your customers’ experience from the get-go.
• Help you create a dynamic strategy based on market conditions and customer needs/demands.

What Are the Basic Methods of Market Research?

The basic methods of market research include surveys, personal interviews, customer observation, and the review of secondary research. In addition to these basic methods, a forward-thinking market research approach incorporates data from the digital landscape like social media analysis, SEO research, gathering feedback via forums, and more. Throughout this guide, we will cover each of the methods commonly used in market research to give you a comprehensive overview.

Primary vs. Secondary Market Research

Primary and secondary are the two main types of market research you can do. The latter relies on research conducted by others. Primary research, on the other hand, refers to the fact-finding efforts you conduct on your own.

This approach is limited, however. It’s likely that the research objectives of these secondary data points differ from your own, and it can be difficult to confirm the veracity of their findings.

Primary Market Research

Primary research is more labor intensive, but it generally yields data that is exponentially more actionable. It can be conducted through interviews, surveys, online research, and your own data collection. Every new business should engage in primary market research prior to launch. It will help you validate that your idea has traction, and it will give you the information you need to help minimize financial risk.

You can hire an agency to conduct this research on your behalf. This brings the benefit of expertise, as you’ll likely work with a market research analyst. The downside is that hiring an agency can be expensive—too expensive for many burgeoning entrepreneurs. That brings us to the second approach. You can also do the market research yourself, which substantially reduces the financial burden of starting a new business .

Secondary Market Research

Secondary research includes resources like government databases and industry-specific data and publications. It can be beneficial to start your market research with secondary sources because it’s widely available and often free-to-access. This information will help you gain a broad overview of the market conditions for your new business.

Identify Your Goals and Your Audience

Before you begin conducting interviews or sending out surveys, you need to set your market research goals. At the end of your market research process, you want to have a clear idea of who your target market is—including demographic information like age, gender, and where they live—but you also want to start with a rough idea of who your audience might be and what you’re trying to achieve with market research.

You can pinpoint your objectives by asking yourself a series of guiding questions:

• What are you hoping to discover through your research?
• Who are you hoping to serve better because of your findings?
• What do you think your market is?
• Who are your competitors?
• Are you testing the reception of a new product category or do you want to see if your product or service solves the problem left by a current gap in the market?
• Are you just…testing the waters to get a sense of how people would react to a new brand?

Once you’ve narrowed down the “what” of your market research goals, you’re ready to move onto how you can best achieve them. Think of it like algebra. Many math problems start with “solve for x.” Once you know what you’re looking for, you can get to work trying to find it. It’s a heck of a lot easier to solve a problem when you know you’re looking for “x” than if you were to say “I’m gonna throw some numbers out there and see if I find a variable.”

How to Do Market Research

This guide outlines every component of a comprehensive market research effort. Take into consideration the goals you have established for your market research, as they will influence which of these elements you’ll want to include in your market research strategy.

Secondary Data

Secondary data allows you to utilize pre-existing data to garner a sense of market conditions and opportunities. You can rely on published market studies, white papers, and public competitive information to start your market research journey.

Secondary data, while useful, is limited and cannot substitute your own primary data. It’s best used for quantitative data that can provide background to your more specific inquiries.

Find Your Customers Online

Once you’ve identified your target market, you can use online gathering spaces and forums to gain insights and give yourself a competitive advantage. Rebecca McCusker of The Creative Content Shop recommends internet recon as a vital tool for gaining a sense of customer needs and sentiment. “Read their posts and comments on forums, YouTube video comments, Facebook group [comments], and even Amazon/Goodreads book comments to get in their heads and see what people are saying.”

If you’re interested in engaging with your target demographic online, there are some general rules you should follow. First, secure the consent of any group moderators to ensure that you are acting within the group guidelines. Failure to do so could result in your eviction from the group.

Not all comments have the same research value. “Focus on the comments and posts with the most comments and highest engagement,” says McCusker. These high-engagement posts can give you a sense of what is already connecting and gaining traction within the group.

Social media can also be a great avenue for finding interview subjects. “LinkedIn is very useful if your [target customer] has a very specific job or works in a very specific industry or sector. It’s amazing the amount of people that will be willing to help,” explains Miguel González, a marketing executive at Dealers League . “My advice here is BE BRAVE, go to LinkedIn, or even to people you know and ask them, do quick interviews and ask real people that belong to that market and segment and get your buyer persona information first hand.”

Market research interviews can provide direct feedback on your brand, product, or service and give you a better understanding of consumer pain points and interests.

When organizing your market research interviews, you want to pay special attention to the sample group you’re selecting, as it will directly impact the information you receive. According to Tanya Zhang, the co-founder of Nimble Made , you want to first determine whether you want to choose a representative sample—for example, interviewing people who match each of the buyer persona/customer profiles you’ve developed—or a random sample.

“A sampling of your usual persona styles, for example, can validate details that you’ve already established about your product, while a random sampling may [help you] discover a new way people may use your product,” Zhang says.

Market Surveys

Market surveys solicit customer inclinations regarding your potential product or service through a series of open-ended questions. This direct outreach to your target audience can provide information on your customers’ preferences, attitudes, buying potential, and more.

Every expert we asked voiced unanimous support for market surveys as a powerful tool for market research. With the advent of various survey tools with accessible pricing—or free use—it’s never been easier to assemble, disseminate, and gather market surveys. While it should also be noted that surveys shouldn’t replace customer interviews , they can be used to supplement customer interviews to give you feedback from a broader audience.

Who to Include in Market Surveys

• Current customers
• Past customers
• Your existing audience (such as social media/newsletter audiences)

Example Questions to Include in Market Surveys

While the exact questions will vary for each business, here are some common, helpful questions that you may want to consider for your market survey. Demographic Questions: the questions that help you understand, demographically, who your target customers are:

• “What is your age?”
• “Where do you live?”
• “What is your gender identity?”
• “What is your household income?”
• “What is your household size?”
• “What do you do for a living?”
• “What is your highest level of education?”

Product-Based Questions: Whether you’re seeking feedback for an existing brand or an entirely new one, these questions will help you get a sense of how people feel about your business, product, or service:

• “How well does/would our product/service meet your needs?”
• “How does our product/service compare to similar products/services that you use?”
• “How long have you been a customer?” or “What is the likelihood that you would be a customer of our brand?

Personal/Informative Questions: the deeper questions that help you understand how your audience thinks and what they care about.

• “What are your biggest challenges?”
• “What’s most important to you?”
• “What do you do for fun (hobbies, interests, activities)?”
• “Where do you seek new information when researching a new product?”
• “How do you like to make purchases?”
• “What is your preferred method for interacting with a brand?”

Survey Tools

Online survey tools make it easy to distribute surveys and collect responses. The best part is that there are many free tools available. If you’re making your own online survey, you may want to consider SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Google Forms, or Zoho Survey.

Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis is a breakdown of how your business stacks up against the competition. There are many different ways to conduct this analysis. One of the most popular methods is a SWOT analysis, which stands for “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.” This type of analysis is helpful because it gives you a more robust understanding of why a customer might choose a competitor over your business. Seeing how you stack up against the competition can give you the direction you need to carve out your place as a market leader.

Social Media Analysis

Social media has fundamentally changed the market research landscape, making it easier than ever to engage with a wide swath of consumers. Follow your current or potential competitors on social media to see what they’re posting and how their audience is engaging with it. Social media can also give you a lower cost opportunity for testing different messaging and brand positioning.

SEO Analysis and Opportunities

SEO analysis can help you identify the digital competition for getting the word out about your brand, product, or service. You won’t want to overlook this valuable information. Search listening tools offer a novel approach to understanding the market and generating the content strategy that will drive business. Tools like Google Trends and Awario can streamline this process.

Ready to Kick Your Business Into High Gear?

Now that you’ve completed the guide to market research you know you’re ready to put on your researcher hat to give your business the best start. Still not sure how actually… launch the thing? Our free mini-course can run you through the essentials for starting your side hustle .

About Mary Kate Miller

Mary Kate Miller writes about small business, real estate, and finance. In addition to writing for Foundr, her work has been published by The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Bustle, and more. She lives in Chicago.

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Understanding Market Research: Everything You Need to Know

Appinio Research · 13.12.2022 · 19min read

Conducting market research is the best way to ensure the success of your business idea, but it can seem daunting at times. Appinio got your back and came up with your ultimate guide for all the things market research, from the most common market research methodologies to how to identify the right method for your business case, everything you need to know is down below, keep reading.

What is market research?

Market research is the process of gathering information about consumers or markets. This information can be used to help businesses discover  more about their customers, determine what products or services to offer, and gauge customer interest in new products or services. There are different ways to do market research. Some common types of market research include primary research , secondary market research , market intelligence, market segmentation, market sizing or  market forecasting.Regardless of the method you use, market research helps you develop your products or services, and ensures that you are meeting the needs of your customers. 

If you are looking to conduct market research on your own, there are a variety of tools and resources available to help you get started. For example, online market research platforms can make it easy to gather information from large groups of people, while market data and analysis tools can help you to understand trends, market size, and competitor activity. Whether you choose to do market research on your own or work with a market research firm, the key to success is understanding the needs of your customers and adapting your products or services accordingly. With the right market research, tools and strategies, you can gain  valuable insights into your market and customers, helping you to achieve success with your business ideas. 

How is market research used?

Market research is used by businesses of all sizes to gain actionable insights into their target markets and customers. This information can be used to inform product development, help to identify new market opportunities, understand customer needs and preferences, and track competitor activity. Usually companies use market research to make well informed decisions, improve their products and services, uncover trends and opportunities, and understand consumer behavior.

Who can benefit from market research?

Any business can benefit from market research, whether they are a small startup or a large multinational corporation. Market research helps businesses to better understand their target customers, identify interesting opportunities, and gain insights into consumer behavior.Any company would benefit from knowing what their customers want, how they rank against their competitors or validate their business decisions.

How can companies profit from market research?

Conducting market research process means helping businesses to better understand their customers and trends, identifying new product or service ideas, determining the demand for existing products or services, optimizing marketing campaigns and messaging, understanding consumer behavior and preferences, tracking competitor activity and market share, and ultimately improving sales, customers’ loyalty and brand image overall.

How to conduct market research

So how does the market research process work? There are a variety of tools and techniques that you can leverage, including customer surveys, focus groups , market analysis, and online platforms. Whatever approach you choose, it is important to stay organized and ensure that your data is accurate and reliable. With the right market research strategy in place, you can gain actionable insights into your market and customers, helping to ensure that your business or business idea is positioned for success. Here are our tips for conducting your own market research project successfully including setting clear goals and objectives, choosing the right methodologies based on your market and budget constraints, leveraging online market research tools to gather information from large numbers of people quickly and easily, and analyzing and interpreting your market data to make well informed decisions for your business. With the right market research strategy and tools, you can gain valuable insights into your market and customers, helping you to build a strong foundation for your business decisions and future growth. 

Step one: define your research objectives

The first step in the market research process is to clearly define your goals and objectives. What do you want to know? Are you planning to launch a new product on the market or are you planning to launch your hero product in new unexplored markets? Depending on what you want to uncover you would need to include identifying market trends, market size, customer demographics and psychographics, competitor activity, and more.

Step two: choose the market research methods 

Once you define your research objectives, you need to pick the tools that are best suited to your needs. Are you testing a new logo or a new name? Then you may need quite a few people and the best way to reach them could be a survey. Do you want to know consumers attitudes around your existing products? Then face-to-face interviews could be the way to go.

Step three: collect and analyze 

Finally, you need to organize all the precious data into digestible data to provide actionable insights into your market and customers, usually in the form of a report and then you and your team will be able to use this information to make informed decisions, improve your business strategy and ultimately grow.

Looking forward to starting your first market research project already? Sign up for Appinio today!

Types of market research

There are quite a few types of market research but the first differentiation to make is between primary and secondary market research. Primary research is when a company collects information directly from its customers or market, while the latter involves gathering data that has already been collected by other companies or organizations. 

Primary research

Primary market research can include surveys, focus groups, market analysis tools such as SWOT or PESTLE analysis, and online platforms like Google Trends. The advantages of primary research can include a more direct understanding of customer needs and preferences, gaining market insights that are not available through secondary market research, and being able to collect specific data about the market that is most relevant to your business. The disadvantages entail time and resources spent on this type of research. Depending on the research method you may need quite some time to complete all data collection and it could also turn out to be quite costly in terms of money, as you need to invest in recruiting the people that will reply to your questions.

Secondary research

Secondary research methods, such as analyzing industry data that has already been collected by other companies or organizations, can be an efficient way to gain a broad overview of the market and identify trends, gaps in knowledge, and more. This is often easier and less expensive to conduct than primary market research. It also allows businesses to access a wealth of market data that has already been collected by other organizations and companies, which can be useful for benchmarking, identifying trends, and gaining key insights into market conditions and customer needs. However, since this information may not be relevant to your specific business needs, it is important to always triangulate your data by combining results from multiple sources.

Qualitative market research

Another important distinction is between qualitative and quantitative market research.Qualitative research is a qualitative approach to quantitatively analyzing your market and customers. It can give you great insights into customer needs and preferences, helping you to craft better products and services that meet the needs of your market. One of the main advantages of qualitative research is understanding deeply how consumers think and even being able to understand how they talk about your service and product on an everyday basis, being able to connect with your consumers on a deeper level by , quite literally, “speaking their language”.Examples of qualitative market research tools include interviews and focus groups, which can help you understand your customers' behaviors, preferences, and needs. Ethnographic studies, in-depth interviews and in general, explorative research can also be a useful tool for gaining a deeper understanding of your market and customers. 

Quantitative market research

Quantitative research is a systematic empirical investigation of quantifiable phenomena through the use of statistical, mathematical or computational techniques. In other words, quantitative research uses numbers and mathematical formulas to analyze data collected in order to understand a given problem or question. It is often used in the social sciences, business, and marketing research. This type of research has several advantages over other types of market research, including its ability to provide statistically significant results. This approach can involve gathering quantifiable data through techniques such as surveys, tracking customer activity with analytics tools, analyzing sales numbers and revenue trends, or testing new product ideas with pilot programs. Quantitative data can be used to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. One very common example of quantitative research in marketing is the use of surveys to measure customer satisfaction. Surveys can be used to ask customers about a variety of topics, such as how satisfied they are with a product or service, how likely they are to recommend it to others, and what changes they would like to see. Quantitative market research can be an effective way to gain valuable insights into your market, customers, and competitive landscape.No matter what type of market research you choose to conduct, it is important to always stay focused on your goals and business strategies. By understanding the current state of your market, you can make well informed decisions about how to grow and expand your business in the future.It is important to keep in mind that market research is a tool, not an endpoint. Always be sure to review your market research findings carefully and critically, and use them as a guide rather than as a definitive answer to your business questions. With the right approach, market research can be an incredibly powerful tool for success providing a competitive advantage in today's marketplace.

What different methodologies can be used? 

There are many different market research methodologies that can be used, depending on the specific business needs and goals. As we mentioned above, some of the most common market research techniques include surveys, focus groups, interviews, questionnaires, field experiments, ethnographic research, explorative research, market testing, market intelligence reports, and industry analysis. Each of these methods has its own advantages and benefits, so the market research approach that is most appropriate for your business will depend on a variety of factors, including the type of market you are targeting, your budget and timeline, and the specific information you hope to glean from market research. Ultimately, choosing the most effective market research methodology is an important decision that should be made carefully and strategically, in order to get the most value from your market research investment.

Most common market research methodologies

The field of market research is wide and the methodologies vary depending on your research objectives. Once you define what you want to find out, how you'll find it out is the next step, here is a rundown of the most common market research methods. 

Market research surveys

Surveys are a popular market research method, and can be used to gather information from both consumers' attitudes and businesses. Surveys typically involve sending out questionnaires or online surveys to large groups of people, often through email or social media platforms. They are an effective way to quickly gather large amounts of data in a relatively low-cost way. Market research surveys are a common way to gather information from customers. A survey can be administered in person, over the phone, or online. It typically includes a series of questions about the customer's needs, preferences, and buying habits.Surveys can be effective for understanding customer needs and preferences, determining market size and segmentation, and gauging customer interest in new products or services.

However, care should be taken to ensure that the questions are relevant and interesting to respondents, or they may not complete the survey. 

Interviews are a one-on-one meeting with potential customers or market segments. The interviewer asks questions about the customer's needs and preferences, as well as their purchasing habits and intentions. Interviews can be conducted in person, online or over the phone, and they offer a more personal interaction with customers than other market research methods as the interviewer (a.k.a.market researcher) and the interviewee can naturally discuss the topic of interest. You can choose to go for structured, semi-structured or unstructured interviews depending on the research objective, but the main advantage of interviews is the serendipity factor, even in the most structured of interviews, the interaction between interviewer and interviewee can take unexpected turns (in a good and a bad way!).Interviews can provide actionable insights into why customers make certain purchasing decisions, their needs and wants, what might persuade them to buy a particular product or service and uncover the unexpected. However, interviews are also more expensive and time consuming than other methods and they cannot provide statistically significant results.

Focus groups

A focus group involves a small group of people (typically 8-10) who are brought together to discuss a product or service. The focus group is usually moderated by market researchers, who ask questions and encourage discussion among the participants. The aim is to get feedback on what people like and don't like about the product or service, as well as their suggestions for improvement.A focus group can provide insights into how people feel about a product or service, what features they like and don't like, and what potential improvements they would like to see. However, it is important to note that focus groups cannot provide statistically significant results, so they should be used in conjunction with other market research methods. Other common market research practices include intercept interviews, mystery shopping, market scans, social listening, and online panels.

Most common use cases in market research

Segmentation, target group analysis.

One of the most common uses of market research is to segment customers or identify a specific market segment.

Market segmentation allows you to understand your target audience more deeply and identify specific groups who may be interested in your product or service. Examples of target group analysis might include identifying geographic, demographic, or psychographic profiles for different market segments.

Utility analysis / Feature Prioritization

Another common use of market research is utility analysis or feature prioritization. This method can be used to understand which features are most important to potential customers, and how different products or services stack up against each other in terms of their functionality and usability.

MaxDiff analysis

A popular method to identify features or services to prioritize is the MaxDiff analysis (Maximum Difference Scaling, also known as "Best Worst Scaling), which involves asking participants to rate different features or options, from which they are to select the best and worst alternative for them.

Based on the results, you can identify concrete preference or importance rankings. This information can then be used to inform product development decisions and prioritize features for your customer base.

TURF Analysis

The abbreviation TURF stands for Total Unduplicated Reach & Frequency. To be precise, the TURF method is not a survey method per se, but can be applied to a variety of different question types — even after the survey is already done. The aim of the method is to determine which product portfolio, marketing mix or even product variants appeal to the highest number of customers and hence, expand the potential target group.

Conjoint Analysis 

Conjoint analysis is used to understand consumer preferences and purchasing behavior.

By quantifying the relative importance of different product features, the conjoint analysis provides insights into which features are most important to potential customers and how they compare different options against each other.

This information can then be used to inform product development and marketing decisions, as well as understand customer needs and preferences in more detail.One common approach to conducting a conjoint analysis is to create multiple "choice tasks" or versions of the product, each with different features and attributes. Participants are then asked to rate each version based on their preferences, which can be quantified using statistical techniques such as regression analysis. 

Kano analysis 

The Kano analysis helps businesses understand the factors that drive customer satisfaction. By quantifying different product features and their impact on your customers, the Kano analysis will help you identify which aspects of your product or service are most important to them, as well as features that consumers see as irrelevant, or unexpected sources of value that can help set you apart from your competitors. 

Driver Analysis

A driver analysis is a market research method that helps businesses identify the key factors driving customer behavior and purchasing decisions. By quantifying different product features and their impact on customers, the driver analysis can help businesses better understand which aspects of their products or services are most important to consumers, as well as any "drivers" or key variables that drive demand for their products.

Price analysis 

Price analysis is a market research tool that helps businesses understand customer preferences and purchasing behavior around different price points. By quantifying the relative importance of different price levels, price analysis can help businesses identify the optimal pricing strategy for their products or services, as well as better understand customer demand at different price tiers.Some of the benefits of conducting price analysis include better understanding of customer preferences, more effective pricing strategies, and enhanced market insights.There are a variety of approaches to conducting price analysis.

Gabor-Granger Price Analysis

The Gabor-Granger price analysis is a market research method that uses statistical data & techniques to understand how customers respond to different pricing strategies. By quantifying the impact of different price points on customer demand. The Gabor-Granger price analysis can help businesses better understand consumer preferences and optimize their pricing strategy for maximum profitability.Some of the key advantages of Gabor-Granger price analysis include enhanced market insights, improved pricing accuracy, and more effective marketing campaigns. By understanding how customers respond to different price points, businesses can develop more targeted marketing strategies that appeal to their specific needs and preferences. Additionally, the Gabor-Granger price analysis can help businesses better understand areas where they may be missing opportunities or overcharging customers, allowing them to make more informed pricing decisions that maximize profitability. 

Van Westendorp Pricing Analysis

The Van Westendorp pricing analysis is another market research methodology that helps companies and brands understand customer preferences around different price points. By quantifying the relative importance of different price levels, Van Westendorp pricing analysis can help businesses identify the optimal pricing strategy for their products or services and gain insights into customer behavior and purchasing decisions. 

Perception and Evaluation

Implicit testing.

Implicit testing is another method for quantifying customer preferences and association. This technique involves asking participants to rate a set of products or services on various dimensions, such as quality, value, and desirability. The responses from these evaluations can then be quantified using statistical methods such as conjoint analysis and utility theory.

Best Online tools to conduct your market research project

Some of the best online tools to conduct your market research project and collect quantitative data include platforms like SurveyMonkey, Google Analytics, Qualtrics and Appinio. These tools make it easy to create an online survey, analyze data, and generate reports that can help you gain insights into your market segments.Disadvantages of market research online platforms include the potential for data bias and lower response rates from survey participants, which can impact the accuracy and reliability of your research results. Additionally, many market research platforms are subscription-based, so you will likely need to invest in a paid plan in order to take full advantage of their features and functionality. However, despite these disadvantages, online platforms offer a number of advantages that can make them a valuable tool for your market research project. First, they are often more affordable than traditional market research methods, such as focus groups and surveys. Additionally, they are quick and easy to use, and can help you generate results quickly. Finally, online platforms provide a wealth of data that you can use to analyze your target market and understand their needs and preferences.

Interested in how Appinio can help your business idea? Talk to us.

Recruitment panel partners

To conduct effective market research, you may need to work with a recruitment panel partner. Recruitment panels are groups of qualified individuals who have been selected based on specific criteria and can provide actionable insights into your target. Some of the key benefits of working with a recruitment panel partner include better understanding of your target market, more effective data collection strategies, and increased accuracy in quantifying customer preferences and behaviors as usually these partners have access to very big pools of consumers, and can often reach even very niche targets.Of course, there are also disadvantages when working with recruitment panels. One is the cost of contracting these partners, another is the potential sampling bias and other limitations that may impact the quality and reliability of your market research data, as you’re basically using a middle man to select your desired consumers.

Appinio, the all in one survey tool

If you're looking for a market research tool that can help you quickly and easily create online surveys, analyze and gather data, and generate reports, then Appinio is the perfect solution for you.Appinio is an all-in-one survey tool that makes it easy to collect data and generate beautiful charts and graphs. With Appinio, you can create surveys in minutes, and quickly analyze the results to get insights into your target market. Appinio also offers a number of handy features such as drag-and-drop question creation, automatic result analysis, and interactive graphs and charts.  One of the advantages of Appinio is that it has a large proprietary panel in more than 90 countries. This means that you can reach a large number of survey participants quickly and easily. Additionally, Appinio's panel is carefully recruited and includes only qualified individuals who can provide valuable insights into your specific market. Despite being an all-in-one platform that you can use on your own, Appinio also offers consulting services. Appinio research consultants will help you design your research, selecting the best method for your specific research needs and will guide you through the entire process.Whether you are looking to gain a better understanding of your customers' purchasing behaviors or need market sizing estimates for product positioning, Appinio has the tools and functionality you need to succeed.

So if you're ready to take your market research efforts to the next level, sign up for Appinio today!

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Wait, there's more

15.04.2024 | 32min read

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09.04.2024 | 29min read

What is a Confidence Interval and How to Calculate It?

A Plain-English Guide to Market Research

Published: January 21, 2021

In some circles, market research is a catch-all term for asking the industry what it wants. "Do we know what the demand is for this product? Who's even looking for our services? Let me do some market research to find out," someone might say.

But what does that actually mean?

Here's a simple definition of market research that encompasses all the possible goals of this practice, in fewer than 100 words:

Market Research Definition

Market research is the process of examining an industry's buyers, the product these buyers want, and where they're currently getting it. By engaging the right people and data, a business can use this research to position itself in the market and predict where the market will go in the future.

Market research can answer various questions about the state of an industry, but it's hardly a crystal ball that marketers can rely on for insights on their customers. Market researchers investigate several areas of the market, and it can take weeks or even months to paint an accurate picture of the business landscape.

However, researching just one of those areas can make you more intuitive to who your buyers are and how to deliver value that no other business is offering them right now.

Certainly you can make sound judgment calls based on your experience in the industry and your existing customers. However, keep in mind that market research offers benefits beyond those strategies. There are two things to consider: 

• Your competitors also have experienced individuals in the industry and a customer base. It's very possible that your immediate resources are, in many ways, equal to those of your competition's immediate resources. Seeking a larger sample size for answers can provide a better edge. 
• Your customers don't represent the attitudes of an entire market. They represent the attitudes of the part of the market that is already drawn to your brand. 

Why is market research important?

Market research allows you to get information from a larger sample size of your target audience, eliminating bias and assumptions so that you can get to the heart of consumer attitudes. As a result, you can make better business decisions from knowing the bigger picture.

Here are some examples of insights you can gain from market research:

• Consumer attitudes about a particular topic, pain, product, or brand
• Whether there's demand for the business initiatives you're investing in
• Where to advertise or sell to (geographically or online)
• Unaddressed or underserved customer needs that can be flipped into selling opportunity
• Attitudes about pricing for a particular product or service

Getting answers to these questions based on real data can help you make sound business decisions and minimize risk.

Types of Market Research

To give you an idea of how extensive market research can get, consider that it can either be qualitative or quantitative in nature -- depending on the studies you conduct and what you're trying to learn about your industry. Qualitative research is concerned with public opinion, and explores how the market feels about the products currently available in that market. Quantitative research is concerned with data, and looks for relevant trends in the information that's gathered from public records.

Let's talk about four different types of market research studies you can conduct , a potential goal of each one, and how these studies help you better understand your market.

Qualitative information

Interviews are the personal, one-on-one conversations you can have with the buyers in your industry. You can conduct interviews in person or over the phone.

Your interviewees can answer questions about themselves to help you design your buyer personas. These buyer personas describe your ideal customer's age, family size, budget, job title, the challenges they face at work, and similar aspects of their lifestyle. Having this buyer profile in hand can shape your entire marketing strategy, from the features you add to your product to the content you publish on your website.

Focus Groups

Focus groups are similar to interviews, but in this case, you're assembling a large group of people for one shared interview. A focus group consists of people who have at least one element of your buyer persona in common -- age or job title, for instance.

This type of market research can give you ideas for product differentiation, or the qualities of your product that make it unique in the marketplace. Consider asking your focus group questions about (and showing them examples of) your services, and ultimately use the group's feedback to make these services better.

Quantitative information

Surveys are a form of quantitative research, and you can distribute them over the phone, via email, or through an online survey. A survey could cater to people who've downloaded content from your website or interacted with a member of your business.

Enough completed surveys can help you determine your customer satisfaction level. This denotes how happy your customers are with what you're selling them. You might include questions like, "How well did we solve your problem?" and "Would you recommend our product to a friend?"

Secondary Data

The interviews, focus groups, and surveys are all sources of primary data. Secondary data , on the other hand, is the public information -- online and offline -- that characterizes your industry. This includes competitor websites, social media business pages, trade magazines, market reports, and even census data published by the government.

If you examine enough secondary data, you can learn how much brand awareness you have in the marketplace compared to the companies that provide the same product or service as you.

The market research you perform doesn't have to include every source of information described above. What data you collect will depend on the needs of your business and what you might be most interested in at the moment. 

Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Don't forget to share this post!

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How to do market research in 4 steps: a lean approach to marketing research

From pinpointing your target audience and assessing your competitive advantage, to ongoing product development and customer satisfaction efforts, market research is a practice your business can only benefit from.

Learn how to conduct quick and effective market research using a lean approach in this article full of strategies and practical examples. 

Last updated

Reading time.

A comprehensive (and successful) business strategy is not complete without some form of market research—you can’t make informed and profitable business decisions without truly understanding your customer base and the current market trends that drive your business.

In this article, you’ll learn how to conduct quick, effective market research  using an approach called 'lean market research'. It’s easier than you might think, and it can be done at any stage in a product’s lifecycle.

How to conduct lean market research in 4 steps

What is market research, why is market research so valuable, advantages of lean market research, 4 common market research methods, 5 common market research questions, market research faqs.

We’ll jump right into our 4-step approach to lean market research. To show you how it’s done in the real world, each step includes a practical example from Smallpdf , a Swiss company that used lean market research to reduce their tool’s error rate by 75% and boost their Net Promoter Score® (NPS) by 1%.

Research your market the lean way...

From on-page surveys to user interviews, Hotjar has the tools to help you scope out your market and get to know your customers—without breaking the bank.

The following four steps and practical examples will give you a solid market research plan for understanding who your users are and what they want from a company like yours.

1. Create simple user personas

A user persona is a semi-fictional character based on psychographic and demographic data from people who use websites and products similar to your own. Start by defining broad user categories, then elaborate on them later to further segment your customer base and determine your ideal customer profile .

How to get the data: use on-page or emailed surveys and interviews to understand your users and what drives them to your business.

How to do it right: whatever survey or interview questions you ask, they should answer the following questions about the customer:

Who are they?

What is their main goal?

What is their main barrier to achieving this goal?

Pitfalls to avoid:

Don’t ask too many questions! Keep it to five or less, otherwise you’ll inundate them and they’ll stop answering thoughtfully.

Don’t worry too much about typical demographic questions like age or background. Instead, focus on the role these people play (as it relates to your product) and their goals.

How Smallpdf did it: Smallpdf ran an on-page survey for a couple of weeks and received 1,000 replies. They learned that many of their users were administrative assistants, students, and teachers.

Next, they used the survey results to create simple user personas like this one for admins:

Who are they? Administrative Assistants.

What is their main goal? Creating Word documents from a scanned, hard-copy document or a PDF where the source file was lost.

What is their main barrier to achieving it? Converting a scanned PDF doc to a Word file.

💡Pro tip: Smallpdf used Hotjar Surveys to run their user persona survey. Our survey tool helped them avoid the pitfalls of guesswork and find out who their users really are, in their own words. 

You can design a survey and start running it in minutes with our easy-to-use drag and drop builder. Customize your survey to fit your needs, from a sleek one-question pop-up survey to a fully branded questionnaire sent via email. 

We've also created 40+ free survey templates that you can start collecting data with, including a user persona survey like the one Smallpdf used.

2. Conduct observational research

Observational research involves taking notes while watching someone use your product (or a similar product).

Overt vs. covert observation

Overt observation involves asking customers if they’ll let you watch them use your product. This method is often used for user testing and it provides a great opportunity for collecting live product or customer feedback .

Covert observation means studying users ‘in the wild’ without them knowing. This method works well if you sell a type of product that people use regularly, and it offers the purest observational data because people often behave differently when they know they’re being watched. 

Tips to do it right:

Record an entry in your field notes, along with a timestamp, each time an action or event occurs.

Make note of the users' workflow, capturing the ‘what,’ ‘why,’ and ‘for whom’ of each action.

Don’t record identifiable video or audio data without consent. If recording people using your product is helpful for achieving your research goal, make sure all participants are informed and agree to the terms.

Don’t forget to explain why you’d like to observe them (for overt observation). People are more likely to cooperate if you tell them you want to improve the product.

💡Pro tip: while conducting field research out in the wild can wield rewarding results, you can also conduct observational research remotely. Hotjar Recordings is a tool that lets you capture anonymized user sessions of real people interacting with your website. 

Observe how customers navigate your pages and products to gain an inside look into their user behavior . This method is great for conducting exploratory research with the purpose of identifying more specific issues to investigate further, like pain points along the customer journey and opportunities for optimizing conversion .

With Hotjar Recordings you can observe real people using your site without capturing their sensitive information

How Smallpdf did it: here’s how Smallpdf observed two different user personas both covertly and overtly.

Observing students (covert): Kristina Wagner, Principle Product Manager at Smallpdf, went to cafes and libraries at two local universities and waited until she saw students doing PDF-related activities. Then she watched and took notes from a distance. One thing that struck her was the difference between how students self-reported their activities vs. how they behaved (i.e, the self-reporting bias). Students, she found, spent hours talking, listening to music, or simply staring at a blank screen rather than working. When she did find students who were working, she recorded the task they were performing and the software they were using (if she recognized it).

Observing administrative assistants (overt): Kristina sent emails to admins explaining that she’d like to observe them at work, and she asked those who agreed to try to batch their PDF work for her observation day. While watching admins work, she learned that they frequently needed to scan documents into PDF-format and then convert those PDFs into Word docs. By observing the challenges admins faced, Smallpdf knew which products to target for improvement.

“Data is really good for discovery and validation, but there is a bit in the middle where you have to go and find the human.”

3. Conduct individual interviews

Interviews are one-on-one conversations with members of your target market. They allow you to dig deep and explore their concerns, which can lead to all sorts of revelations.

Listen more, talk less. Be curious.

Act like a journalist, not a salesperson. Rather than trying to talk your company up, ask people about their lives, their needs, their frustrations, and how a product like yours could help.

Ask "why?" so you can dig deeper. Get into the specifics and learn about their past behavior.

Record the conversation. Focus on the conversation and avoid relying solely on notes by recording the interview. There are plenty of services that will transcribe recorded conversations for a good price (including Hotjar!).

Avoid asking leading questions , which reveal bias on your part and pushes respondents to answer in a certain direction (e.g. “Have you taken advantage of the amazing new features we just released?).

Don't ask loaded questions , which sneak in an assumption which, if untrue, would make it impossible to answer honestly. For example, we can’t ask you, “What did you find most useful about this article?” without asking whether you found the article useful in the first place.

Be cautious when asking opinions about the future (or predictions of future behavior). Studies suggest that people aren’t very good at predicting their future behavior. This is due to several cognitive biases, from the misguided exceptionalism bias (we’re good at guessing what others will do, but we somehow think we’re different), to the optimism bias (which makes us see things with rose-colored glasses), to the ‘illusion of control’ (which makes us forget the role of randomness in future events).

How Smallpdf did it: Kristina explored her teacher user persona by speaking with university professors at a local graduate school. She learned that the school was mostly paperless and rarely used PDFs, so for the sake of time, she moved on to the admins.

A bit of a letdown? Sure. But this story highlights an important lesson: sometimes you follow a lead and come up short, so you have to make adjustments on the fly. Lean market research is about getting solid, actionable insights quickly so you can tweak things and see what works.

💡Pro tip: to save even more time, conduct remote interviews using an online user research service like Hotjar Engage , which automates the entire interview process, from recruitment and scheduling to hosting and recording.

You can interview your own customers or connect with people from our diverse pool of 200,000+ participants from 130+ countries and 25 industries. And no need to fret about taking meticulous notes—Engage will automatically transcribe the interview for you.

4. Analyze the data (without drowning in it)

The following techniques will help you wrap your head around the market data you collect without losing yourself in it. Remember, the point of lean market research is to find quick, actionable insights.

A flow model is a diagram that tracks the flow of information within a system. By creating a simple visual representation of how users interact with your product and each other, you can better assess their needs.

You’ll notice that admins are at the center of Smallpdf’s flow model, which represents the flow of PDF-related documents throughout a school. This flow model shows the challenges that admins face as they work to satisfy their own internal and external customers.

Affinity diagram

An affinity diagram is a way of sorting large amounts of data into groups to better understand the big picture. For example, if you ask your users about their profession, you’ll notice some general themes start to form, even though the individual responses differ. Depending on your needs, you could group them by profession, or more generally by industry.

We wrote a guide about how to analyze open-ended questions to help you sort through and categorize large volumes of response data. You can also do this by hand by clipping up survey responses or interview notes and grouping them (which is what Kristina does).

“For an interview, you will have somewhere between 30 and 60 notes, and those notes are usually direct phrases. And when you literally cut them up into separate pieces of paper and group them, they should make sense by themselves.”

Pro tip: if you’re conducting an online survey with Hotjar, keep your team in the loop by sharing survey responses automatically via our Slack and Microsoft Team integrations. Reading answers as they come in lets you digest the data in pieces and can help prepare you for identifying common themes when it comes time for analysis.

Hotjar lets you easily share survey responses with your team

Customer journey map

A customer journey map is a diagram that shows the way a typical prospect becomes a paying customer. It outlines their first interaction with your brand and every step in the sales cycle, from awareness to repurchase (and hopefully advocacy).

The above  customer journey map , created by our team at Hotjar, shows many ways a customer might engage with our tool. Your map will be based on your own data and business model.

📚 Read more: if you’re new to customer journey maps, we wrote this step-by-step guide to creating your first customer journey map in 2 and 1/2 days with free templates you can download and start using immediately.

Next steps: from research to results

So, how do you turn market research insights into tangible business results? Let’s look at the actions Smallpdf took after conducting their lean market research: first they implemented changes, then measured the impact.

Implement changes

Based on what Smallpdf learned about the challenges that one key user segment (admins) face when trying to convert PDFs into Word files, they improved their ‘PDF to Word’ conversion tool.

We won’t go into the details here because it involves a lot of technical jargon, but they made the entire process simpler and more straightforward for users. Plus, they made it so that their system recognized when you drop a PDF file into their ‘Word to PDF’ converter instead of the ‘PDF to Word’ converter, so users wouldn’t have to redo the task when they made that mistake. 

In other words: simple market segmentation for admins showed a business need that had to be accounted for, and customers are happier overall after Smallpdf implemented an informed change to their product.

Measure results

According to the Lean UX model, product and UX changes aren’t retained unless they achieve results.

Smallpdf’s changes produced:

A 75% reduction in error rate for the ‘PDF to Word’ converter

A 1% increase in NPS

Greater confidence in the team’s marketing efforts

"With all the changes said and done, we've cut our original error rate in four, which is huge. We increased our NPS by +1%, which isn't huge, but it means that of the users who received a file, they were still slightly happier than before, even if they didn't notice that anything special happened at all.”

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Market research (or marketing research) is any set of techniques used to gather information and better understand a company’s target market. This might include primary research on brand awareness and customer satisfaction or secondary market research on market size and competitive analysis. Businesses use this information to design better products, improve user experience, and craft a marketing strategy that attracts quality leads and improves conversion rates.

David Darmanin, one of Hotjar’s founders, launched two startups before Hotjar took off—but both companies crashed and burned. Each time, he and his team spent months trying to design an amazing new product and user experience, but they failed because they didn’t have a clear understanding of what the market demanded.

With Hotjar, they did things differently . Long story short, they conducted market research in the early stages to figure out what consumers really wanted, and the team made (and continues to make) constant improvements based on market and user research.

Without market research, it’s impossible to understand your users. Sure, you might have a general idea of who they are and what they need, but you have to dig deep if you want to win their loyalty.

Here’s why research matters:

Obsessing over your users is the only way to win. If you don’t care deeply about them, you’ll lose potential customers to someone who does.

Analytics gives you the ‘what’, while research gives you the ‘why’. Big data, user analytics , and dashboards can tell you what people do at scale, but only research can tell you what they’re thinking and why they do what they do. For example, analytics can tell you that customers leave when they reach your pricing page, but only research can explain why.

Research beats assumptions, trends, and so-called best practices. Have you ever watched your colleagues rally behind a terrible decision? Bad ideas are often the result of guesswork, emotional reasoning, death by best practices , and defaulting to the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion (HiPPO). By listening to your users and focusing on their customer experience , you’re less likely to get pulled in the wrong direction.

Research keeps you from planning in a vacuum. Your team might be amazing, but you and your colleagues simply can’t experience your product the way your customers do. Customers might use your product in a way that surprises you, and product features that seem obvious to you might confuse them. Over-planning and refusing to test your assumptions is a waste of time, money, and effort because you’ll likely need to make changes once your untested business plan gets put into practice.

Lean User Experience (UX) design is a model for continuous improvement that relies on quick, efficient research to understand customer needs and test new product features.

Lean market research can help you become more...

Efficient: it gets you closer to your customers, faster.

Cost-effective: no need to hire an expensive marketing firm to get things started.

Competitive: quick, powerful insights can place your products on the cutting edge.

As a small business or sole proprietor, conducting lean market research is an attractive option when investing in a full-blown research project might seem out of scope or budget.

There are lots of different ways you could conduct market research and collect customer data, but you don’t have to limit yourself to just one research method. Four common types of market research techniques include surveys, interviews, focus groups, and customer observation.

Which method you use may vary based on your business type: ecommerce business owners have different goals from SaaS businesses, so it’s typically prudent to mix and match these methods based on your particular goals and what you need to know.

1. Surveys: the most commonly used

Surveys are a form of qualitative research that ask respondents a short series of open- or closed-ended questions, which can be delivered as an on-screen questionnaire or via email. When we asked 2,000 Customer Experience (CX) professionals about their company’s approach to research , surveys proved to be the most commonly used market research technique.

What makes online surveys so popular?  

They’re easy and inexpensive to conduct, and you can do a lot of data collection quickly. Plus, the data is pretty straightforward to analyze, even when you have to analyze open-ended questions whose answers might initially appear difficult to categorize.

We've built a number of survey templates ready and waiting for you. Grab a template and share with your customers in just a few clicks.

💡 Pro tip: you can also get started with Hotjar AI for Surveys to create a survey in mere seconds . Just enter your market research goal and watch as the AI generates a survey and populates it with relevant questions. 

Once you’re ready for data analysis, the AI will prepare an automated research report that succinctly summarizes key findings, quotes, and suggested next steps.

An example research report generated by Hotjar AI for Surveys

2. Interviews: the most insightful

Interviews are one-on-one conversations with members of your target market. Nothing beats a face-to-face interview for diving deep (and reading non-verbal cues), but if an in-person meeting isn’t possible, video conferencing is a solid second choice.

Regardless of how you conduct it, any type of in-depth interview will produce big benefits in understanding your target customers.

What makes interviews so insightful?

By speaking directly with an ideal customer, you’ll gain greater empathy for their experience , and you can follow insightful threads that can produce plenty of 'Aha!' moments.

3. Focus groups: the most unreliable

Focus groups bring together a carefully selected group of people who fit a company’s target market. A trained moderator leads a conversation surrounding the product, user experience, or marketing message to gain deeper insights.

What makes focus groups so unreliable?

If you’re new to market research, we wouldn’t recommend starting with focus groups. Doing it right is expensive , and if you cut corners, your research could fall victim to all kinds of errors. Dominance bias (when a forceful participant influences the group) and moderator style bias (when different moderator personalities bring about different results in the same study) are two of the many ways your focus group data could get skewed.

4. Observation: the most powerful

During a customer observation session, someone from the company takes notes while they watch an ideal user engage with their product (or a similar product from a competitor).

What makes observation so clever and powerful?

‘Fly-on-the-wall’ observation is a great alternative to focus groups. It’s not only less expensive, but you’ll see people interact with your product in a natural setting without influencing each other. The only downside is that you can’t get inside their heads, so observation still isn't a recommended replacement for customer surveys and interviews.

The following questions will help you get to know your users on a deeper level when you interview them. They’re general questions, of course, so don’t be afraid to make them your own.

1. Who are you and what do you do?

How you ask this question, and what you want to know, will vary depending on your business model (e.g. business-to-business marketing is usually more focused on someone’s profession than business-to-consumer marketing).

It’s a great question to start with, and it’ll help you understand what’s relevant about your user demographics (age, race, gender, profession, education, etc.), but it’s not the be-all-end-all of market research. The more specific questions come later.

2. What does your day look like?

This question helps you understand your users’ day-to-day life and the challenges they face. It will help you gain empathy for them, and you may stumble across something relevant to their buying habits.

3. Do you ever purchase [product/service type]?

This is a ‘yes or no’ question. A ‘yes’ will lead you to the next question.

4. What problem were you trying to solve or what goal were you trying to achieve?

This question strikes to the core of what someone’s trying to accomplish and why they might be willing to pay for your solution.

5. Take me back to the day when you first decided you needed to solve this kind of problem or achieve this goal.

This is the golden question, and it comes from Adele Revella, Founder and CEO of Buyer Persona Institute . It helps you get in the heads of your users and figure out what they were thinking the day they decided to spend money to solve a problem.

If you take your time with this question, digging deeper where it makes sense, you should be able to answer all the relevant information you need to understand their perspective.

“The only scripted question I want you to ask them is this one: take me back to the day when you first decided that you needed to solve this kind of problem or achieve this kind of a goal. Not to buy my product, that’s not the day. We want to go back to the day that when you thought it was urgent and compelling to go spend money to solve a particular problem or achieve a goal. Just tell me what happened.”

— Adele Revella , Founder/CEO at Buyer Persona Institute

Bonus question: is there anything else you’d like to tell me?

This question isn’t just a nice way to wrap it up—it might just give participants the opportunity they need to tell you something you really need to know.

That’s why Sarah Doody, author of UX Notebook , adds it to the end of her written surveys.

“I always have a last question, which is just open-ended: “Is there anything else you would like to tell me?” And sometimes, that’s where you get four paragraphs of amazing content that you would never have gotten if it was just a Net Promoter Score [survey] or something like that.”

What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative research?

Qualitative research asks questions that can’t be reduced to a number, such as, “What is your job title?” or “What did you like most about your customer service experience?” 

Quantitative research asks questions that can be answered with a numeric value, such as, “What is your annual salary?” or “How was your customer service experience on a scale of 1-5?”

 → Read more about the differences between qualitative and quantitative user research .

How do I do my own market research?

You can do your own quick and effective market research by 

Surveying your customers

Building user personas

Studying your users through interviews and observation

Wrapping your head around your data with tools like flow models, affinity diagrams, and customer journey maps

What is the difference between market research and user research?

Market research takes a broad look at potential customers—what problems they’re trying to solve, their buying experience, and overall demand. User research, on the other hand, is more narrowly focused on the use (and usability ) of specific products.

What are the main criticisms of market research?

Many marketing professionals are critical of market research because it can be expensive and time-consuming. It’s often easier to convince your CEO or CMO to let you do lean market research rather than something more extensive because you can do it yourself. It also gives you quick answers so you can stay ahead of the competition.

Do I need a market research firm to get reliable data?

Absolutely not! In fact, we recommend that you start small and do it yourself in the beginning. By following a lean market research strategy, you can uncover some solid insights about your clients. Then you can make changes, test them out, and see whether the results are positive. This is an excellent strategy for making quick changes and remaining competitive.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld, and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.

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Quickonomics

Market Research

Definition of market research.

Market research refers to the process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data about a specific market or industry. It is a systematic and objective way of collecting information about consumers, competitors, and market trends to make informed business decisions. Market research can involve various methods such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, and data analysis.

Let’s say you are planning to start a new business selling organic skincare products. Before launching your products, you want to understand the market demand, competition, and preferences of potential customers. In order to conduct market research, you can start by designing a survey to collect information from a sample of your target audience. The survey can include questions about their skincare routines, preferences, and willingness to pay for organic products.

Additionally, you can analyze existing market data and reports to understand the competitive landscape and identify market trends. This might involve examining sales figures, market share data, and consumer behavior patterns in the skincare industry.

Based on your research findings, you can make data-driven decisions on aspects such as product development, pricing, marketing strategies, and distribution channels.

Why Market Research Matters

Market research is crucial for any business because it provides valuable insights and understanding of the market environment. It helps businesses identify opportunities and potential challenges, make informed decisions, and minimize risks. By conducting market research, businesses can gain a competitive advantage, tailor their products or services to meet customer needs, and develop effective marketing campaigns. It allows businesses to stay ahead of the competition, attract and retain customers, and ultimately drive business growth and success.

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Types of market research: Methods and examples

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Here at GWI we publish a steady stream of blogs, reports, and other resources that dig deep into specific market research topics.

But what about the folks who’d appreciate a more general overview of market research that explains the big picture? Don’t they deserve some love too?

Of course they do. That’s why we’ve created this overview guide focusing on types of market research and examples. With so many market research companies to choose from, having a solid general understanding of how this sector works is essential for any brand or business that wants to pick the right market research partner.

So with that in mind, let’s start at the very beginning and get clear on…

Market research definition

At the risk of stating the slightly obvious, market research is the gathering and analyzing of data on consumers, competitors, distributors, and markets. As such it’s not quite the same as consumer research , but there’s significant overlap.

Market research matters because it can help you take the guesswork out of getting through to audiences. By studying consumers and gathering information on their likes, dislikes, and so on, brands can make evidence-based decisions instead of relying on instinct or experience. 

What is market research?

Market research is the organized gathering of information about target markets and consumers’ needs and preferences. It’s an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness.

If a business wants to know – really know – what sort of products or services consumers want to buy, along with where, when, and how those products and services should be marketed, it just makes sense to ask the prospective audience. 

Without the certainty that market research brings, a business is basically hoping for the best. And while we salute their optimism, that’s not exactly a reliable strategy for success.

What are the types of market research?

Primary research .

Primary research is a type of market research you either conduct yourself or hire someone to do on your behalf.

A classic example of primary research involves going directly to a source – typically customers or prospective customers in your target market – to ask questions and gather information about a product or service. Interviewing methods include in-person, online surveys, phone calls, and focus groups.

The big advantage of primary research is that it’s directly focused on your objectives, so the outcome will be conclusive, detailed insights – particularly into customer views – making it the gold standard.

The disadvantages are it can be time-consuming and potentially costly, plus there’s a risk of survey bias creeping in, in the sense that research samples may not be representative of the wider group.

Secondary research 

Primary market research means you collect the data your business needs, whereas the types of market research known as secondary market research use information that’s already been gathered for other purposes but can still be valuable. Examples include published market studies, white papers, analyst reports, customer emails, and customer surveys/feedback.

For many small businesses with limited budgets, secondary market research is their first choice because it’s easier to acquire and far more affordable than primary research.

Secondary research can still answer specific business questions, but with limitations. The data collected from that audience may not match your targeted audience exactly, resulting in skewed outcomes. 

A big benefit of secondary market research is helping lay the groundwork and get you ready to carry out primary market research by making sure you’re focused on what matters most.

Qualitative research

Qualitative research is one of the two fundamental types of market research. Qualitative research is about people and their opinions. Typically conducted by asking questions either one-on-one or in groups, qualitative research can help you define problems and learn about customers’ opinions, values, and beliefs.

Classic examples of qualitative research are long-answer questions like “Why do you think this product is better than competitive products? Why do you think it’s not?”, or “How would you improve this new service to make it more appealing?”

Because qualitative research generally involves smaller sample sizes than its close cousin quantitative research, it gives you an anecdotal overview of your subject, rather than highly detailed information that can help predict future performance.

Qualitative research is particularly useful if you’re developing a new product, service, website or ad campaign and want to get some feedback before you commit a large budget to it.

Quantitative research

If qualitative research is all about opinions, quantitative research is all about numbers, using math to uncover insights about your audience. 

Typical quantitative research questions are things like, “What’s the market size for this product?” or “How long are visitors staying on this website?”. Clearly the answers to both will be numerical.

Quantitative research usually involves questionnaires. Respondents are asked to complete the survey, which marketers use to understand consumer needs, and create strategies and marketing plans.

Importantly, because quantitative research is math-based, it’s statistically valid, which means you’re in a good position to use it to predict the future direction of your business.

Consumer research 

As its name implies, consumer research gathers information about consumers’ lifestyles, behaviors, needs and preferences, usually in relation to a particular product or service. It can include both quantitative and qualitative studies.

Examples of consumer research in action include finding ways to improve consumer perception of a product, or creating buyer personas and market segments, which help you successfully market your product to different types of customers.

Understanding consumer trends , driven by consumer research, helps businesses understand customer psychology and create detailed purchasing behavior profiles. The result helps brands improve their products and services by making them more customer-centric, increasing customer satisfaction, and boosting bottom line in the process.

Product research 

Product research gives a new product (or indeed service, we don’t judge) its best chance of success, or helps an existing product improve or increase market share.

It’s common sense: by finding out what consumers want and adjusting your offering accordingly, you gain a competitive edge. It can be the difference between a product being a roaring success or an abject failure.

Examples of product research include finding ways to develop goods with a higher value, or identifying exactly where innovation effort should be focused. 

Product research goes hand-in-hand with other strands of market research, helping you make informed decisions about what consumers want, and what you can offer them.

Brand research  

Brand research is the process of gathering feedback from your current, prospective, and even past customers to understand how your brand is perceived by the market.

It covers things like brand awareness, brand perceptions, customer advocacy, advertising effectiveness, purchase channels, audience profiling, and whether or not the brand is a top consideration for consumers.

The result helps take the guesswork out of your messaging and brand strategy. Like all types of market research, it gives marketing leaders the data they need to make better choices based on fact rather than opinion or intuition.

Market research methods 

So far we’ve reviewed various different types of market research, now let’s look at market research methods, in other words the practical ways you can uncover those all-important insights.

Consumer research platform 

A consumer research platform like GWI is a smart way to find on-demand market research insights in seconds.

In a world of fluid markets and changing attitudes, a detailed understanding of your consumers, developed using the right research platform, enables you to stop guessing and start knowing.

As well as providing certainty, consumer research platforms massively accelerate speed to insight. Got a question? Just jump on your consumer research platform and find the answer – job done.

The ability to mine data for answers like this is empowering – suddenly you’re in the driving seat with a world of possibilities ahead of you. Compared to the most obvious alternative – commissioning third party research that could take weeks to arrive – the right consumer research platform is basically a magic wand.

Admittedly we’re biased, but GWI delivers all this and more. Take our platform for a quick spin and see for yourself.

And the downside of using a consumer research platform? Well, no data set, however fresh or thorough, can answer every question. If you need really niche insights then your best bet is custom market research , where you can ask any question you like, tailored to your exact needs.

Face-to-face interviews 

Despite the rise in popularity of online surveys , face-to-face survey interviewing – using mobile devices or even the classic paper survey – is still a popular data collection method.

In terms of advantages, face-to-face interviews help with accurate screening, in the sense the interviewee can’t easily give misleading answers about, say, their age. The interviewer can also make a note of emotions and non-verbal cues. 

On the other hand, face-to-face interviews can be costly, while the quality of data you get back often depends on the ability of the interviewer. Also, the size of the sample is limited to the size of your interviewing staff, the area in which the interviews are conducted, and the number of qualified respondents within that area.

Social listening 

Social listening is a powerful solution for brands who want to keep an ear to the ground, gathering unfiltered thoughts and opinions from consumers who are posting on social media. 

Many social listening tools store data for up to a couple of years, great for trend analysis that needs to compare current and past conversations.

Social listening isn’t limited to text. Images, videos, and emojis often help us better understand what consumers are thinking, saying, and doing better than more traditional research methods. 

Perhaps the biggest downside is there are no guarantees with social listening, and you never know what you will (or won’t) find. It can also be tricky to gauge sentiment accurately if the language used is open to misinterpretation, for example if a social media user describes something as “sick”.

There’s also a potential problem around what people say vs. what they actually do. Tweeting about the gym is a good deal easier than actually going. The wider problem – and this may shock you – is that not every single thing people write on social media is necessarily true, which means social listening can easily deliver unreliable results.

Public domain data 

Public domain data comes from think tanks and government statistics or research centers like the UK’s National Office for Statistics or the United States Census Bureau and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences. Other sources are things like research journals, news media, and academic material.

Its advantages for market research are it’s cheap (or even free), quick to access, and easily available. Public domain datasets can be huge, so potentially very rich.

On the flip side, the data can be out of date, it certainly isn’t exclusive to you, and the collection methodology can leave much to be desired. But used carefully, public domain data can be a useful source of secondary market research.

Telephone interviews 

You know the drill – you get a call from a researcher who asks you questions about a particular topic and wants to hear your opinions. Some even pay or offer other rewards for your time.

Telephone surveys are great for reaching niche groups of consumers within a specific geographic area or connected to a particular brand, or who aren’t very active in online channels. They’re not well-suited for gathering data from broad population groups, simply because of the time and labor involved.

How to use market research 

Data isn’t an end in itself; instead it’s a springboard to make other stuff happen. So once you’ve drawn conclusions from your research, it’s time to think of what you’ll actually do based on your findings.

While it’s impossible for us to give a definitive list (every use case is different), here are some suggestions to get you started.

Leverage it . Think about ways to expand the use – and value – of research data and insights, for example by using research to support business goals and functions, like sales, market share or product design.

Integrate it . Expand the value of your research data by integrating it with other data sources, internal and external. Integrating data like this can broaden your perspective and help you draw deeper insights for more confident decision-making.

Justify it . Enlist colleagues from areas that’ll benefit from the insights that research provides – that could be product management, product development, customer service, marketing, sales or many others – and build a business case for using research.

How to choose the right type of market research 

Broadly speaking, choosing the right research method depends on knowing the type of data you need to collect. To dig into ideas and opinions, choose qualitative; to do some testing, it’s quantitative you want.

There are also a bunch of practical considerations, not least cost. If a particular approach sounds great but costs the earth then clearly it’s not ideal for any brand on a budget.

Then there’s how you intend to use the actual research, your level of expertise with research data, whether you need access to historical data or just a snapshot of today, and so on.

The point is, different methods suit different situations. When choosing, you’ll want to consider what you want to achieve, what data you’ll need, the pros and cons of each method, the costs of conducting the research, and the cost of analyzing the results. 

Market research examples

Independent agency Bright/Shift used GWI consumer insights to shape a high-impact go-to-market strategy for their sustainable furniture client, generating £41K in revenue in the first month. Here’s how they made the magic happen .

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How To Do Market Research: Definition, Types, Methods

Jan 2, 2024

11 min. read

Market research isn’t just collecting data. It’s a strategic tool that allows businesses to gain a competitive advantage while making the best use of their resources. Research reveals valuable insights into your target audience about their preferences, buying habits, and emerging demands — all of which help you unlock new opportunities to grow your business.

When done correctly, market research can minimize risks and losses, spur growth, and position you as a leader in your industry. 

Let’s explore the basic building blocks of market research and how to collect and use data to move your company forward:

Table of Contents

What Is Market Research?

Why is market research important, market analysis example, 5 types of market research, what are common market research questions, what are the limitations of market research, how to do market research, improving your market research with radarly.

Market Research Definition: The process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information about a market or audience.

Market research studies consumer behavior to better understand how they perceive products or services. These insights help businesses identify ways to grow their current offering, create new products or services, and improve brand trust and brand recognition .

You might also hear market research referred to as market analysis or consumer research .

Traditionally, market research has taken the form of focus groups, surveys, interviews, and even competitor analysis . But with modern analytics and research tools, businesses can now capture deeper insights from a wider variety of sources, including social media, online reviews, and customer interactions. These extra layers of intel can help companies gain a more comprehensive understanding of their audience.

With consumer preferences and markets evolving at breakneck speeds, businesses need a way to stay in touch with what people need and want. That’s why the importance of market research cannot be overstated.

Market research offers a proactive way to identify these trends and make adjustments to product development, marketing strategies , and overall operations. This proactive approach can help businesses stay ahead of the curve and remain agile as markets shift.

Market research examples abound — given the number of ways companies can get inside the minds of their customers, simply skimming through your business’s social media comments can be a form of market research.

A restaurant chain might use market research methods to learn more about consumers’ evolving dining habits. These insights might be used to offer new menu items, re-examine their pricing strategies, or even open new locations in different markets, for example.

A consumer electronics company might use market research for similar purposes. For instance, market research may reveal how consumers are using their smart devices so they can develop innovative features.

Market research can be applied to a wide range of use cases, including:

• Testing new product ideas
• Improve existing products
• Entering new markets
• Right-sizing their physical footprints
• Improving brand image and awareness
• Gaining insights into competitors via competitive intelligence

Ultimately, companies can lean on market research techniques to stay ahead of trends and competitors while improving the lives of their customers.

Market research methods take different forms, and you don’t have to limit yourself to just one. Let’s review the most common market research techniques and the insights they deliver.

1. Interviews

3. Focus Groups

4. Observations

5. AI-Driven Market Research

One-on-one interviews are one of the most common market research techniques. Beyond asking direct questions, skilled interviewers can uncover deeper motivations and emotions that drive purchasing decisions. Researchers can elicit more detailed and nuanced responses they might not receive via other methods, such as self-guided surveys.

Interviews also create the opportunity to build rapport with customers and prospects. Establishing a connection with interviewees can encourage them to open up and share their candid thoughts, which can enrich your findings. Researchers also have the opportunity to ask clarifying questions and dig deeper based on individual responses.

Market research surveys provide an easy entry into the consumer psyche. They’re cost-effective to produce and allow researchers to reach lots of people in a short time. They’re also user-friendly for consumers, which allows companies to capture more responses from more people.

Big data and data analytics are making traditional surveys more valuable. Researchers can apply these tools to elicit a deeper understanding from responses and uncover hidden patterns and correlations within survey data that were previously undetectable.

The ways in which surveys are conducted are also changing. With the rise of social media and other online channels, brands and consumers alike have more ways to engage with each other, lending to a continuous approach to market research surveys.

3. Focus groups

Focus groups are “group interviews” designed to gain collective insights. This interactive setting allows participants to express their thoughts and feelings openly, giving researchers richer insights beyond yes-or-no responses.

One of the key benefits of using focus groups is the opportunity for participants to interact with one another. They spark discussions while sharing diverse viewpoints. These sessions can uncover underlying motivations and attitudes that may not be easily expressed through other research methods.

Observing your customers “in the wild” might feel informal, but it can be one of the most revealing market research techniques of all. That’s because you might not always know the right questions to ask. By simply observing, you can surface insights you might not have known to look for otherwise.

This method also delivers raw, authentic, unfiltered data. There’s no room for bias and no potential for participants to accidentally skew the data. Researchers can also pick up on non-verbal cues and gestures that other research methods may fail to capture.

5. AI-driven market research

One of the newer methods of market research is the use of AI-driven market research tools to collect and analyze insights on your behalf. AI customer intelligence tools and consumer insights software like Meltwater Radarly take an always-on approach by going wherever your audience is and continuously predicting behaviors based on current behaviors.

By leveraging advanced algorithms, machine learning, and big data analysis , AI enables companies to uncover deep-seated patterns and correlations within large datasets that would be near impossible for human researchers to identify. This not only leads to more accurate and reliable findings but also allows businesses to make informed decisions with greater confidence.

Tip: Learn how to use Meltwater as a research tool , how Meltwater uses AI , and learn more about consumer insights and about consumer insights in the fashion industry .

No matter the market research methods you use, market research’s effectiveness lies in the questions you ask. These questions should be designed to elicit honest responses that will help you reach your goals.

Examples of common market research questions include:

Demographic market research questions

• What is your age range?
• What is your occupation?
• What is your household income level?
• What is your educational background?
• What is your gender?

Product or service usage market research questions

• How long have you been using [product/service]?
• How frequently do you use [product/service]?
• What do you like most about [product/service]?
• Have you experienced any problems using [product/service]?
• How could we improve [product/service]?
• Why did you choose [product/service] over a competitor’s [product/service]?

Brand perception market research questions

• How familiar are you with our brand?
• What words do you associate with our brand?
• How do you feel about our brand?
• What makes you trust our brand?
• What sets our brand apart from competitors?
• What would make you recommend our brand to others?

Buying behavior market research questions

• What do you look for in a [product/service]?
• What features in a [product/service] are important to you?
• How much time do you need to choose a [product/service]?
• How do you discover new products like [product/service]?
• Do you prefer to purchase [product/service] online or in-store?
• How do you research [product/service] before making a purchase?
• How often do you buy [product/service]?
• How important is pricing when buying [product/service]?
• What would make you switch to another brand of [product/service]?

Customer satisfaction market research questions

• How happy have you been with [product/service]?
• What would make you more satisfied with [product/service]?
• How likely are you to continue using [product/service]?

Bonus Tip: Compiling these questions into a market research template can streamline your efforts.

Market research can offer powerful insights, but it also has some limitations. One key limitation is the potential for bias. Researchers may unconsciously skew results based on their own preconceptions or desires, which can make your findings inaccurate.

• Depending on your market research methods, your findings may be outdated by the time you sit down to analyze and act on them. Some methods struggle to account for rapidly changing consumer preferences and behaviors.
• There’s also the risk of self-reported data (common in online surveys). Consumers might not always accurately convey their true feelings or intentions. They might provide answers they think researchers are looking for or misunderstand the question altogether.
• There’s also the potential to miss emerging or untapped markets . Researchers are digging deeper into what (or who) they already know. This means you might be leaving out a key part of the story without realizing it.

Still, the benefits of market research cannot be understated, especially when you supplement traditional market research methods with modern tools and technology.

Let’s put it all together and explore how to do market research step-by-step to help you leverage all its benefits.

Step 1: Define your objectives

You’ll get more from your market research when you hone in on a specific goal : What do you want to know, and how will this knowledge help your business?

This step will also help you define your target audience. You’ll need to ask the right people the right questions to collect the information you want. Understand the characteristics of the audience and what gives them authority to answer your questions.

Step 2: Select your market research methods

Choose one or more of the market research methods (interviews, surveys, focus groups, observations, and/or AI-driven tools) to fuel your research strategy.

Certain methods might work better than others for specific goals . For example, if you want basic feedback from customers about a product, a simple survey might suffice. If you want to hone in on serious pain points to develop a new product, a focus group or interview might work best.

You can also source secondary research via secondary research companies , such as industry reports or analyses from large market research firms. These can help you gather preliminary information and inform your approach.

Step 3: Develop your research tools

Prior to working with participants, you’ll need to craft your survey or interview questions, interview guides, and other tools. These tools will help you capture the right information , weed out non-qualifying participants, and keep your information organized.

You should also have a system for recording responses to ensure data accuracy and privacy. Test your processes before speaking with participants so you can spot and fix inefficiencies or errors.

Step 4: Conduct the market research

With a system in place, you can start looking for candidates to contribute to your market research. This might include distributing surveys to current customers or recruiting participants who fit a specific profile, for example.

Set a time frame for conducting your research. You might collect responses over the course of a few days, weeks, or even months. If you’re using AI tools to gather data, choose a data range for your data to focus on the most relevant information.

Step 5: Analyze and apply your findings

Review your findings while looking for trends and patterns. AI tools can come in handy in this phase by analyzing large amounts of data on your behalf.

Compile your findings into an easy-to-read report and highlight key takeaways and next steps. Reports aren’t useful unless the reader can understand and act on them.

Tip: Learn more about trend forecasting , trend detection , and trendspotting .

Meltwater’s Radarly consumer intelligence suite helps you reap the benefits of market research on an ongoing basis. Using a combination of AI, data science, and market research expertise, Radarly scans multiple global data sources to learn what people are talking about, the actions they’re taking, and how they’re feeling about specific brands.

Our tools are created by market research experts and designed to help researchers uncover what they want to know (and what they don’t know they want to know). Get data-driven insights at scale with information that’s always relevant, always accurate, and always tailored to your organization’s needs.

Learn more when you request a demo by filling out the form below:

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Market Research: Meaning, Types, Methods and Examples

Today's entrepreneurship landscape is very fast-paced. Consumer demands and market conditions change frequently, often predetermining the product's chances for success or failure. And although following your intuition can sometimes help, when it comes to business where a lot is at stake, making factless calls is almost equal to using a Magic 8 ball.

What should business owners do to withstand the competition and stay afloat among all the unpredictability? Repeatedly conducting market research could be the answer. Like a skilled detective, teams must take a magnifying glass, gather evidence, and look into the data and recent findings to find clues and invaluable insights to unravel fundamental mysteries.

The bottom line here is that thorough investigation can lead to a deeper consumer understanding and more informed decisions. So, if you're ready to put on your detective trench coat, keep browsing the page, as we'll give the definition of market research, provide answers to questions like what is market research necessary for, go over the various types of market research, common methods, and provide examples.

What Is Market Research?

Giving the market research definition, it refers to the process of investigating customer behavior, client preferences, market trends, industry intricacies, and various competitive landscapes . This is a systematic and methodical process, which can help bring valuable insights to light. By navigating through the labyrinth of data and analyzing the findings, teams may gather and piece together the clues to base their decisions on.

What else does the meaning of market research imply? This approach is used to omit guesswork and raises the lid on multiple things like:

• customer preferences;
• product appeal;
• existing market trends;
• current competitors, their strengths or weak spots.

To obtain such information, teams apply various techniques, including surveys, interviews, competitor analysis , among others. In the end, it empowers organizations by revealing answers to many questions, regardless of whether the team is only going through proof of concept , moving toward project planning and the discovery phase , or upgrading or modifying the product.

Why Is Market Research Important? 

As you see, it's sort of a detective-like quest to solve a confusing case that requires clue allocation, studying the "suspect" behavior, and deciphering the obtained information. It isn't an easy process, and it requires a lot of time and effort. So what is market research needed for, and which business gains does it bring? Here are several notable points. Email validation plays a crucial role in ensuring the accuracy, deliverability, and effectiveness of market research efforts by maintaining a clean and reliable database of email addresses. Employing proper email validation methods and bulk email verifier tools can contribute to the success of market research campaigns.

1. Getting to Know the Target Audience

Market research makes it possible to gain a comprehensive understanding of the market size and target audience. After all, you need to clearly identify who can find your offering useful and know all the ins and outs of whom you're building your product for . This includes their behavior, desires, expectations, needs, pain points, aspirations, and buying habits.

2. Improving the Product or Offering

When you're aware of which customer needs are unmet, it becomes much easier to address them. Hence, market research becomes leverage for tailoring products to better meet specific client demands , needs, and desires.

This certainly strengthens the creation process at all stages of the product development life cycle . Plus, it helps reinforce the sales and marketing strategies and the product itself (from packaging and positioning to pricing, monetization paths, etc.).

3. Informed and Strategic Decision-Making

As follows from the above, making calculated, data-driven decisions that are backed by facts (instead of your gut feeling) can accelerate other vital business processes that don't necessarily have to deal with the product directly. Because market research implies in-depth analysis, not surface-like observations, data unveils various patterns and possibly hidden opportunities , which can define the entire business trajectory. To streamline the process of organizing market data, you can consider exploring Google Sheet alternatives to foster efficient collaboration among team members involved in the analysis processes.

4. Shaping the Business Plan

Surely, market research can be considered one of the pillars of business strategy creation. Such data provides a sturdy foundation for planning business development steps and crafting an optimal product development roadmap . It also allows for making more accurate project estimations and reduces the chances of making non-precise assumptions that will be completely off the mark.

5. Reducing Risks

Like a guiding compass, market research may enable team members to avoid uncalled-for risks . For starters, it often helps uncover possible pitfalls, allocate potentially hazardous areas, or identify sketchy moves.

Moreover, it can minimize risks related to an ineffective product or MVP launch . For example, it could signal an untimely release or, even more importantly, the threat of launching something people don't need or that doesn't resonate with their expectations. Certainly, this saves invested resources like time, effort, and money from being put to waste.

6. Helping Teams Learn

Undoubtedly, market research is a versatile source of knowledge . It flags what you're doing right or wrong and illuminates the paths that can be taken. Gathering feedback and measuring customer satisfaction can assist in evaluating how effective a promotional campaign is, what to improve in the product, or how to spend the budget more optimally.

7. Becoming More Flexible and Adaptable

Agility is an essential component of a successful business, and market research can also expose the necessity for a strategic adjustment or business pivot . Such data grants teams the chance to anticipate shifts and adapt to the changes in due time. This can not only ensure that you're staying ahead of market trends but also that the product and offering remain relevant.

8. Gaining a Competitive Advantage

Of course, businesses strive to obtain a competitive edge, and that won't be possible if you don't understand the competitive landscape . Who are your competitors? What are they doing? How are they getting on? Do they have any visible strong sides or weaknesses?

Market research definitely lends a helping hand in identifying market gaps . It hints at untapped opportunities to try seizing and how to amend the strategy to differentiate your product in the market and put your best foot forward to help it win over clients and stand out.

Types of Market Research

Just as detectives, business owners have to use fragments of the data puzzle to see the full picture and perspective. What are the three types of market research? In a broad sense, we can actually distinguish four. Below, we describe a few main categories or approaches to how research can be conducted based on its data source, focus, or purpose.

Primary Research

There are different types of market research, but primary research deals with gathering original data from firsthand sources to obtain new, tailored, and business-specific insights. For instance, teams can collect information from:

• their target audience directly via observations, interviews, surveys, personal one-on-one contact;
• controlled experiments (held for hypothesis testing or data gathering purposes or to get an answer to a specific question or objective).

Secondary Research

What’s for secondary research, such types of market research rely on your own historical data and previous findings or on data that was collected by someone else . It implies analyzing and even synthesizing data that already exists, shortening the time and the required resources to gather the information and offering a broader perspective. Here are some things that may serve as sources for analysis:

• your own previous research results;
• industry reports;
• research publications;
• data analysis and statistics by government agencies;
• public records;
• online databases;
• statistical repositories;
• market studies.

However, it is crucial to keep in mind that the data may have originally been collected for a different purpose. It can be handy if you want to explore trends or validate what you've discovered from your own primary research.

Quantitative Research

The market research types can also be distinguished by being either quantitative or qualitative. The former places an emphasis on quantity, that is, it's exploratory market research that involves the collection and analysis of numerical data and objective measurements . Data can be collected from:

• surveys or polls with predetermined responses;
• questionnaires with closed-ended questions;
• experiments, regression or correlation analysis;
• and other sources.

As a result, teams get statistical insights that make it possible to compare, generalize, or make conclusions using a rather large sample size. 

Qualitative Research

Mentioning qualitative types of market research, they place emphasis on digging deep to find answers to specific questions based on non-numerical data , such as the points of view of select individuals. In this case, subjective experiences are under analysis with the aim of allocating patterns, getting extensive insights, and generating hypotheses.

For instance, to get descriptive insights and obtain business-specific answers to many "whys", teams can: 

• hold in-depth interviews with open-ended questions;
• run detailed opinion polls in focus groups to understand the users' motivation, behavior, or attitude toward something.

Now that we've shed light on the question of "what are the types of market research", as an additional tidbit, it is worth noting that both primary and secondary research could be quantitative and qualitative . It depends on which analysis methods are chosen and the data sources.

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Market Research Methods

Businesses can use various techniques for collecting data and gathering insights about their competitors, target market, and industry. But how exactly do teams approach the matter? Let's take a closer look at the most common methods of market research that can help teams "crack the case".

Surveys and Polls

Surveying or asking people to give answers to a poll are quite cost-effective research options. They are best applicable for getting information from a large number of respondents. The extensiveness and depth of the questions depend on the aims.

Polls or surveys can be run in person, but the more popular online channels of distribution are email send-outs, social media, or specialized platforms. Luckily, there are lots of MVP tools that can visibly simplify the process of creating polls, questionnaires, etc.

Interviews and Focus Groups

Leveraging data from customer interviews with individuals is a first-hand source of truth that teams often turn to (as long as it's not an interrogation, right?). Just as with surveys, the size and level of detail of the interviews will vary. They can be held via video chats, phone calls, face-to-face meetings, or even in written Q&A chat format.

Focus groups, however, entail gathering a petite group of people who match the company's target customer profile or market segments. They can watch a demo, provide feedback on something, or test the product. This is also a qualitative method but assumes questioning more than one person at a time in the course of a discussion.

Observations and Usability Tests

The observation method implies taking out your detective binoculars and studying the target audience or even competitors and how they act in their natural environment. This silent tactic is generally unintrusive but can provide a pretty realistic picture of how users interact with the product and their behavior. Such methods of market research as usability testing, scrollmapping, heatmaps, clickmaps, or shop camera footage may be the "footprints" or "fingerprints" of observational research, offering in-depth insights.

Product Testing

Certainly, market research may be a challenge if you have an incomplete product or lack one on the whole. Nevertheless, there exist very simple MVP types like smoke tests, fake doors, or email campaigns. They apply simple solutions like landing pages to test user interest or collect data, contact details, and feedback. If you do have a new service or product to show, you can assess its quality and how happy people are with it by running usability tests.

Competitive Analysis

Competing with other players on the market is tough if you don't know who they are and their strengths and weaknesses. That's why competitive analysis plays an important role in the market research process and benchmarking your offering. Teams overview various business aspects of direct and close competitors, including their used business or startup digital marketing strategy, product advantages, pricing, and brand positioning. Then, they may apply these findings to differentiate their own product.

Social Media Listening

Social media platforms and forums can become a great source of data, too, if you want to reveal the latest trends or customer sentiment and desires. After choosing the most appropriate channels, teams can monitor, track, and analyze information such as comments, threads, mentions, and often discussed topics. Moreover, social media may serve as a tool for obtaining feedback, discovering opportunities, or learning about issues. You can also use social media analytics tools to delve deeper into audience insights and engagement metrics, which will help in refining your content strategy.

Brand Research

Such research revolves around brand positioning, i.e., user interaction with it, awareness, perception, etc. Teams do their best to measure customer satisfaction and brand loyalty (for instance, by studying client reviews, ratings, feedback forms, and complaints submitted to customer service, as well as metrics like the customer retention rate, repeat purchases, customer lifetime value, and others obtained from Google Analytics, Mixpanel or Amplitude ). They can then amend the product and the marketing and sales strategies correspondingly.

Data Mining

This approach highlights the analysis of big datasets to uncover vital business learnings such as prominent behavioral patterns. Multiple things can act as sources, e.g., social media, site analytics, or product performance metrics . Nonetheless, in this case, the larger the volume of assessed data, the better.

Neuromarketing

Interestingly, neuroscience has made its way into the field of research, too. It focuses on the subconscious and helps teams understand crucial things, such as how people make choices. The techniques applied include brain imaging and eye tracking to assess reactions to marketing stimuli.

Experimental Research

Additionally, teams can run various controlled experiments to test their ideas and assumptions. For instance, A/B testing, split or multivariate tests may be of great help if you want to ensure which option to select. Say, you'd like to know which landing page color scheme or CTA phrase to choose, then you randomly direct traffic to each version and, after a while, make conclusions based on user clicks and engagement.

How to Do Market Research

Now that we've overviewed the possible types of market research and the often applied methods, it's time to figure out the sequence of steps teams generally take throughout the process.

Step 1: Determine the Objective

Begin by clearly defining the purpose of why you're planning to invest time and effort into research. What reason led you to the need to conduct this market research? Who is in focus (e.g., market trends, competitors, a customer segment, or a specific buyer persona group)? What are you planning to achieve?

The "why" can be determined by lots of things like initial research to learn whether it's worth taking a shot at starting a startup or building a product, a market shift, a sudden drop in sales, or your team's overall KPIs and OKRs . The "what" should specify who is the focus of the study. Jotting it all down can be a good start. 

Step 2: Select the Best-Fit Research Strategy and Plan It

What kind of research type is best applicable to help you find answers? Which specific market research methods can be of use? What do you have enough resources for? At this point, you have to line out the plan and strategy :

• put your research hypotheses on paper;
• mark the expected results and the success/failure indicators;
• pick the ways to collect data;
• choose the best-fit types of market research and channels;
• select the groups of participants, test subjects, or respondents;
• indicate the duration of the procedure;
• possibly note the incitive or reward for participation;
• make a research plan noting the activities;
• assign responsible people;
• decide on the budget if necessary. 

Step 3: Start the Work

Next, you have to prepare the actual instruments of research . For instance, you can:

• spend time making a logical and consistent list of questions for the focus group interview;
• think though the survey and poll content (you can use Typeform or Google Forms to speed things up);
• or put together several versions of the landing page that you'll run split tests for (e.g., using VWO ).

Then, set up the tools or organize the processes that'll help you track the results and collect data.

Step 4: Analyze Collected Data

When the execution stage is complete, move on to analyzing the gathered data and interpreting the findings . Carefully study the results to try to find patterns, identify trends, and set aside repetitive insights. The evaluation process can entail:

• analyzing statistical information;
• going through interviews or survey replies one by one;
• using data visualization ;
• and other methods.

On another note, organizing a separate space to store the knowledge you've obtained thanks to market research, hypothesis tests, and other used methods is considered a best practice. Having all your data analysis reports at hand with a quick overview of what you were searching for, when, why, and the results can help keep the whole team on track, share the findings, and have a single source to return to later.

Step 5: Make Conclusions and Act on the Findings

Which key findings did you get? Draw conclusions on the outcomes and note the results to help you make data-backed business decisions. Then, continue by taking after-research steps related to fine-tuning the strategies, going through feature prioritization once again, refining the offering, and other actions.

Once these changes are implemented, make sure to keep monitoring the results. If relevant, return to the research data after some time or repeat the process.

Examples of Market Research

Here are a few hypothetical market research examples that can better illustrate cases of how teams can utilize this approach.

Startup W is thinking about working on a product in a highly competitive market . To understand how to position the product and what to emphasize, they spent time on a detailed competitor analysis. First, they singled out their potential direct industry competitors and then took a deep dive into their pricing, features, marketing, and available client feedback. The results illuminated a market gap and the possibility of formulating a unique value proposition that could make their product stand out.

Let's assume that the founders of Startup X have a great product idea. They want to ensure there is market demand for it and that people will be willing to pay for such a product. They wish to find this out at the early stages of startup development before investing significant resources into its creation. To test demand, they put together a fake door landing page, showcasing a video with a mini demo of the to-be product. Tracking the number of CTA clicks and filled-out forms gave them a primary understanding of customer interest. 

‍ Startup Y isn't certain about the problem their product should solve and which user needs to address. Hence, to learn about the target audience's challenges and pain points, the team created user stories and target audience profiles. Then, they conducted detailed interviews with a focus group to determine the customer preferences, what is expected from the product, and which feature set to focus on first. Afterward, the team also ran a survey via email and social media channels.

Startup Z is currently working on the MVP design for their early product version. They made a clickable prototype and decided to present it to potential customers to see whether it's usable and gets what people want done. They analyzed the recorded user sessions and feedback, which allowed them to spot inefficiencies in the user flow and make the product better before release.

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Concluding Thoughts on the Types of Market Research

In this article, we've answered the question of "what is market research", overviewed which types of market research exist, and found out why it is integral for business development. By utilizing various techniques, teams can make important discoveries and gain invaluable insights into various areas.

Like detectives, they analyze data instead of relying on the sixth sense to learn about the market state, the competitive landscape, and important factors related to the customers to make informed calls and enhance business strategies. Plus, this comprehensive approach allows us to avoid many costly mistakes down the line and make better, data-backed decisions.

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Market Research Definition, Types, Tools and Benefits

Published on Jul 01, 2022

More than doubling in size from 2008 to 2021, the market research sector brought in over $76.4 (Statista) billion worldwide in 2021.  

What is Market Research?

Market research is the process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information about a market, about the product or service to be offered for sale in that market. It is also about the previous, current, and potential customers for the product or service. 

Data collection, analysis, and interpretation are the three main steps in any successful market research project. The data could pertain to a certain demographic, general consumers, rival businesses, or the entire market. This is the cornerstone of any thriving business. The findings can be used for anything from discovering a fresh opportunity to entering the market to developing an entirely new product or service. 

Small business owners can benefit greatly from conducting market research. It can eliminate uncertainty in the creative process and direct energy and funding toward the most promising ideas and initiatives. Many types of market research are conducted by businesses at many different stages. 

Market Research for Businesses  

Accurate and comprehensive data gives a plethora of information on potential and existing customers, competitors, and the industry as a whole, making it the bedrock of any successful commercial endeavor. It helps entrepreneurs weigh the odds of success before sinking a lot of money into a new firm. 

An essential aspect of every successful business plan is conducting market research to gather data that can be used to address potential marketing obstacles. In reality, it is not viable to develop tactics like market segmentation (identifying distinct groups within a market) and product differentiation (establishing a unique selling proposition for a product or service that distinguishes it from the competition) without conducting market research. 

Types of Market Research  

1. quantitative research .

The results of quantitative studies are typically presented using numerical and graphic representations. It's the gold standard for verifying or disproving hypotheses. It is possible to establish broad, overarching truths about a subject by conducting this kind of study. Experiments, numerically recorded observations, and surveys with a limited number of predetermined answer choices are all examples of common quantitative approaches. 

2. Qualitative research 

Words are the currency of qualitative inquiry. It's a tool for making sense of things like ideas and experiences. Using this method, you can learn more about a topic from every angle, which is very useful for researching controversial or poorly understood subjects. Open-ended interviews, written descriptions of observations, and in-depth analyses of the existing literature are all examples of common qualitative techniques. 

Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research 

Quantitative research focuses on numerical and statistical facts, while qualitative research examines concepts and interpretations. Both are necessary to learn various things. Comparatively, qualitative research draws its conclusions from interviews and documents rather than statistics and reasoning. Quantitative studies typically report their findings numerically or graphically, while qualitative studies report their findings verbally. 

3. Primary Research 

Primary data refers to a study that seeks to collect firsthand information from real-world participants. Primary research is data collected by the researcher themselves through various techniques of approaching the target audience directly. You have full legal and ethical rights to the data set you to create. Primary research can be challenging due to the time, money, resources, and familiarity with the topic that it demands. 

4. Secondary Research 

Secondary research is a study that is done after primary research has already been conducted, and it consists of analyzing, interpreting, and summarizing the results of the primary research. A more precise definition of secondary research would be any study that makes use of publicly available data. When conducting secondary research, scholars refer to information that has already been gathered, processed, and made public (and therefore, you do not own this data). Since the accessible data has already been evaluated and interpreted, the researcher just needs to determine the data he wants to use, i.e., the data that is necessary for his project. 

Primary Research vs. Secondary Research

Research that involves the collection of new information, or "primary" research, is distinguished from secondary research by the fact that it is conducted for the first time on a particular topic. Instead, secondary research makes use of information that has previously been gathered through primary research. The fundamental dividing line between primary and secondary research is whether the research has been done before. 

5. Market Research 

Market research on branding can help a business develop, launch, and sustain its brand. This may involve the firm's ethos, branding, visuals, ideals, or very name. Interviews, focus groups, and surveys are all viable options for conducting research. 

6. Customer Research 

Market research on customers is learning what factors most strongly affect your demographic of interest and what adjustments may be made to better attract and retain them as paying customers. The objective of this study is to acquire an intimate understanding of your consumer base and their habits and preferences as they relate to your business. 

7. Competitor Research 

Conducting market research on your competitors entails learning about their businesses and assessing how they stack up against your own. Your competitive product in the market or how to break into a new market could also be a topic of discussion. The study's overarching goal is to help your company prepare for the future by identifying methods to set itself apart from competitors and by learning from customers' opinions and suggestions. 

8. Product Research 

Conducting market research on your items is essential to ensuring they will sell successfully once they hit the shelves. Finding out how people feel about your product and if they feel it's valuable and functioning properly is the goal of this study. The ability to think creatively about enhancements and new features is another benefit. 

Benefits of Market Research 

According to a survey, the market research business is expected to increase at a rate of 12-14% (The Economic Times) per year through FY26, at which point it would have surpassed the $4 billion mark. 

The following is a list of the most important reasons and benefits of marketing research: 

It's a great tool for boosting companies' standing. The ability to think critically and act on that thinking is the key to success. You can keep your business one step ahead of the competition by conducting market research to expand your knowledge of your market or target audience. 

Reduces the potential for loss on an investment. This is a basic point to think about, but it is often crucial to the success of a firm. When starting a firm, it makes sense to spend what amounts to a negligible amount on research and testing the market, product, concept, or idea. 

Possible dangers and benefits are highlighted. Insurance against these two glaring pitfalls lies in both primary research (fieldwork) and secondary research (desk research). Opportunities or red flags may be uncovered through the combination of this with qualitative research for further investigation. 

You can learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of your own business and of your competitors. To achieve entirely objective reporting, it is generally recommended to collaborate with a market research agency. Take advantage of what you've learned from study to improve in areas where you're weak and to gain an edge over the competition. 

Strategic preparation is helped by this. Where do you stand with the core principles of your company plan? If it's supported by data, and you've put in the time and effort to do your own (hopefully continuous) research, you can rest assured that you're giving yourself the best chance of success in your commercial endeavors. 

This aids in the identification of developing tendencies. Being the first, the best, or coming up with the idea that nobody else has is typically what it takes to stay ahead in business. Taking the pulse of your industry on a regular basis is an important habit. You can learn more about the tools available to you to identify and capitalize on these trends by consulting with a research firm or expert. 

Helpful for firms in keeping up with the competition. Being the best calls for an insatiable need for knowledge and a propensity to experiment. The key to success, and the ability to maintain that success, is knowing how to effectively apply the information gleaned from market research, audience research, and data research. 

It includes forecasts for future income. One of the most important parts of any market study is a forecast, which looks into the future and predicts the size, makeup, and trends of the market you're interested in. This allows for the categorization of prospective clients. You should prioritize the market that is the best fit for your business rather than the largest or fastest-growing. 

It's geared toward meeting the wants and desires of its patrons. Many things in business, including research, benefit from keeping clients front and center. By reaching out to individuals through online panels, web forums, telephone surveys, in-depth interviews, and focus groups, market researchers can learn where their business's ideas, services, and products can be strengthened. 

Using this method, one can measure the progress of one's company against predetermined standards. Utilize data gathered from the market to study the competition, gauge employee enthusiasm, identify knowledge or skill shortages, and identify development opportunities. This will allow you to consider novel approaches, ideas, and resources for boosting your company's efficiency. 

Market Research Tools 

In order to better understand your market and target audience, you need to use market research techniques. It's fundamental to every company's success, and in today's more crowded marketplace, a thorough familiarity with your target market is more important than ever. Good news: you don't have to be an "insights genius" to get started collecting the data you need, owing to the proliferation of market research tools. Some of the best and most widely used methods of market research include: 

• Answer the Public 
• Attest 
• Google Trends 
• Social Mention 
• Remesh 
• Heartbeat Ai 
• Think With Google 
• Spyfu 
• Latana 
• BuzzSumo 
• Statista 
• Typeform 
• Otter.ai 
• Dimensions.ai 

How to Conduct Research for Your Business: Market Research Strategies 

Despite their different objectives, market research and marketing research should use the same framework for gathering and analyzing information about your company's target audiences. These help in primary research as well as secondary research.  

Clearly identify the problem at stake. Establish an initial research topic. Having a clear research question in mind will allow you to better organize your findings. 

Start by figuring out your financial and time constraints. How much money do you have to put into your study? When do you anticipate finishing data collection? Research, like any other tactic for expanding your company, should be carried out within your means. Nonetheless, it may be worthwhile to spend more money to receive the most comprehensive results available, especially if the questions you are answering are time-sensitive. 

Planning your approach and requirements. Find out what information needs to be gathered and figure out how to get it. Observation, surveys, phone calls, and focus groups are among the alternatives. Consult a professional research agency if you are unsure of how to organize your data collection. 

Pick a way to sample the data. I need to know how you plan on picking people to take part in your study. You may require a cross-section of the consumer population at large, a subset of the population who share a particular characteristic of their way of life, or just the opinions of those who are already familiar with your brand. Develop a plan for tracking down and contacting the persons who will take part in your research. 

Prepare a data analysis strategy. Think about the methods you'll use to examine the data. Do you require numbers for statistical analysis, or can you get a sense of things from qualitative, observable data? Spend some time learning about the many types of analysis so you can pick the one that will yield the most useful results for your study. 

Gathering information. The next step is data collection, which may begin once you have settled on a research question and developed a strategy for answering it within the bounds of your time and money. Research is often outsourced to professional firms or consultants by many corporations. 

Examining the information. It is important to apply certain methods of analysis to make sense of your data, no matter how simple it may appear at first. Which analytical techniques you employ are most suited to your data is a function of the information you've gathered. Also, this is the time to double-check for any mistakes that might have crept into your data gathering, analysis, or sampling. 

Make the report you need. Concluding your research with a written report is the next to last stage. From formulating a problem statement to discussing the findings of your data study, your report should include it all. 

Why is Market Research Important?

Over 44,000 businesses across the United States provide some form of market research. Their total annual income is around $23 billion (QuestionPro).  

The importance of Market Research is the following -  

1. Identifies new products or services

By conducting market research, a business can learn what consumers want and how to best meet their demands. Identifying the major challenges associated with creating a product or service can help you save money. It's useful for figuring out what customers value most and how to implement that into your product or service offering. 

2. Identifies potential customers

You may learn more about your clientele by analyzing demographic information like their gender, age, income, occupation, and interests. You'll have a better idea of who to target with your future advertising efforts if you have a clear picture of your current clientele. When a product is marketed to the wrong demographic, sales suffer. 

3. Establishes viability of a product or service

If your organization is considering introducing a novel product or service to consumers, you should find out if there is a need for it. Do people need this product? Do the people you plan to sell to actually want this product? Does it have any chance of succeeding, and does it even have a chance of being a viable trend? 

4. Anticipates and discovers future market trends 

If you are familiar with your market and the tendencies that are just beginning to emerge, you will be better prepared to build tactics to combat any negative tendencies that may threaten your company. As a result, you can use rising tendencies to your advantage and propel your company forward. 

5. Keeps your company ahead of competitors

Examining your company's performance in relation to that of its rivals is a prime use for comparative research. If they're much ahead of you, it's a fantastic chance to figure out what you're doing wrong. It is possible to devise business plans that will help you surpass the competition. 

6. Decide the best marketing strategy

Conducting research is helpful for pinpointing the optimal distribution platform for reaching your target audience. If you find out that a large portion of your audience prefers one form of communication over another, it makes sense to concentrate your efforts there. Because of the scarcity of these resources, it only makes sense to direct them toward endeavors with a high probability of success. 

7. Reduces risk and increases profitability

The ability to assess the value of potential risks in light of past performance and anticipated future market behavior is a crucial business skill. The success or failure of a business idea depends heavily on the results of market research. Understanding your consumers and their habits is another crucial step in risk reduction. Taking less risk leads to greater financial rewards. 

8. Identifies threats and opportunities

The SWOT analysis is likely familiar to many of you. The acronym SWOT refers to a company's "strengths," "weaknesses," and "All four of them can be figured out with the use of market research . While a lot of data can be collected through market research, not all of it needs to be used. Use only information that is directly related to your major objective (which you will have established in advance). 

9. Helps to understand existing customers

By conducting market research, you can learn more about your current clientele. Because of this complexity, you can't assume that you know what your clients require. If you want to be successful, you need to take the temperature of your clientele on a frequent basis. Satisfaction levels among customers can also be measured with the help of surveys. You can find out what is bothering them and make adjustments if necessary. If they are already rather high, you can examine the factors that led to this success and implement changes to maintain it. 

10. Assists in realistic goal setting

Goals that are more realistic can be established with the support of up-to-the-minute information on your market and customer base. Knowing what to expect and how to realistically expand growth over time is greatly aided by establishing a growth pattern throughout time. Setting objectives that are too lofty will cause you to waste time and energy trying to achieve something that is impossible. 

How Efficient is Market Research? 

You should only invest time, energy, and money into market research if you expect to see a favorable return on that investment. Because it is so worthwhile, market research continues to play a significant role in the success of any organization. Market research won't ensure your company's success on its own, but it will arm you with the data you need to make the moves that will. 

Many of the advantages of this type of study were examined, but the drawbacks were also taken into account. If you don't conduct market research, you run the danger of losing clients to the competition, missing out on growth prospects, being more susceptible to hazards, making bad business decisions, and more. Some companies succeed without first doing their homework, but those situations are unusual. To build your firm and avoid typical errors, conduct market research. 

Market Research Methods  

Although there are a variety of approaches to conducting market research, the majority of companies opt to utilize one of the following five fundamental approaches: surveys, focus groups, personal interviews, observation, and field trials. Which strategies you decide to implement for your company will depend on the kinds of data you require as well as the amount of money you are ready to pay. Some of the major methods of market research are following - 

1. Surveys 

Surveys ask participants questions. They can use numerous survey methods. Surveys are a cost-effective technique to collect data for the study. Written surveys may encourage truthful responses since participants feel like they're speaking privately. 

2. Discussions 

Focus groups are moderated discussions. Companies assemble consumers to conduct focus groups, pose questions, and record replies. Participants' replies may reveal what consumers want in a firm or a product because they represent a broad group. Focus groups offer longer participant interaction than surveys. 

3. Interviews 

An interview combines focus group and one-on-one survey aspects. It includes recording one participant's comments at a time. Open-ended questions elicit in-depth answers from the interviewee. Researchers can ask follow-up questions and let interviewees ask their own. 

4. Social media listening 

Social media users routinely discuss corporations and their products. Researchers can search for discussion topics and measure consumer sentiment through social media listening. 

5. Observations 

Observation in market research means studying how consumers shop. Filming shoppers in a store and studying their shopping habits is common. This strategy can reveal their natural selves if they are ignorant of the observation. 

6. Experiments 

In a field trial, a corporation lets participants use a product under typical conditions and collects data. Participants' feedback was used to improve the product. 

7. Competitive analysis 

Competitive analysis is a secondary market research process where companies acquire and analyze competition information. It entails identifying primary and secondary rivals and analyzing their offerings, revenues, and marketing methods. 

8. Statistics 

Public data entails seeking and evaluating public market data. This research is often free online or in libraries. Research centers, polls, or government databases may provide this information. Public data is often used to confirm or compare primary market research. 

9. Purchased data 

Companies without the time or resources to perform their own market research can buy it. Several market research companies sell database subscriptions. Small and medium-sized businesses that can't afford primary market research may benefit from this approach. 

10. Analysis of sales data 

Competition analysis is just one way that may be used in tandem with sales data analysis to show how different business tactics affect revenue. It can also reveal consumers' buying behavior and consumer trends. 

Functions of Marketing Research  

The following are the main functions of Marketing Research - 

Description: Marketing research details customers. Age, sex, education, income, etc., are listed. It describes the market and competitors. This description helps marketing decision-makers and problem-solvers. 

Evaluation: Marketing research evaluates firm performance. It evaluates production and marketing policies. It measures customer reactions to product quality, price, packaging, advertising, sales, and promotions. If consumers dislike the company's policies, they must alter them. It contrasts company and rival policies. 

Explanation: Marketing research answers all marketing questions. It explains why sales are declining, why retailers are unhappy, etc. It explains the problem's causes. It gives a solution. 

Prediction: Marketing research forecasts. Predictions are future forecasts. It predicts sales, market prospects, dangers, marketing environment, customer behavior, etc. All predictions may be wrong. Predictions help the organization create plans and policies. It helps seize possibilities. It prevents future hazards. 

Decision Making: Marketing research aids decision-makers. It gives decision-making data. Decision-making involves choosing between options. Decision-making requires accurate data. MR helps the marketer decide. It gives decision-making data. It offers alternatives. It compares each option's pros and cons. It helps marketing managers choose the right action. 

Conclusion 

The world's markets are changing at a dizzying rate, making it more important than ever for companies to adapt quickly enough to be competitive. One method is to conduct market research. The results of your market research and analysis will provide you with a thorough understanding of your target audience's wants and needs, as well as your competitors' strengths and weaknesses. 

The key to making your business successful in the face of intense competition is identifying and fixing your deficiencies. The right market research tools will aid you in doing just that! The time to begin expanding your company is now.  

With a presence in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, London, Zurich, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, SG Analytics, a pioneer in Research and Analytics, offers tailor-made services to enterprises worldwide.    

A leader in  Market research services , SG Analytics enables organizations to achieve actionable insights into products, technology, customers, competition, and the marketplace to make insight-driven decisions.  Contact us  today if you are an enterprise looking to make critical data-driven decisions to prompt accelerated growth and breakthrough performance.

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Market research is a thriving industry, full of invention and innovation. In such a busy, future-thinking industry, it can be hard for newcomers to know where to start when learning about insights. So here is FlexMR’s guide to market research, exploring the ins and outs of market research – the industry, process, methodologies, tech, tools, and current trends.

In this article, we'll cover four key areas that it's important for all research and insight professionals to understand:

•  A market research overview (definitions, approaches and technologies)
•  Common research methodologies (qual, quant, primary and secondary)
•  The market research process (recruitment, collection, analysis, activation)
•  Examples of effective research from industry leaders

An Overview of Market Research

The earliest recognised example of market research took place in the 1920s. During this period, Daniel Starch developed a theory that proposed advertising had to be remembered in order to be effective. To test this theory, he asked people on the street if they could remember specific adverts in select publications that they read. Soon after, George Gallup proposed a rival theory known as aided recall that would go on to influence media measurements for years to come.

Between those early years and the present day, the pracitice of market research has developed significantly. It now encompasses a broad range of qualitative and quantitative methods, many proposed throughout the golden age of the 1940s - 1980s. New innovations today push the boundaries not in the realms of process of methodology, but in technology - continually refining research activities and unlocking greater efficiencies.

Market Research Definition

The Oxford English Dictionary defines market research as “the action or activity of gathering information about consumers’ needs and preferences.” 

But, as noted in another of our blogs , this is a basic working definition. In fact, market research has many uses beyond identifying consumer behaviours and trends, and also works to help stakeholders understand the capabilities, efficiency and need when it comes to their own brand, products, processes and services, even the industry they operate in. Market research holds the key to understanding the current situation in all its facets and then exploring the best way to navigate into the uncertain future.

Everyone’s experience of market research differs depending on their objectives, the methodologies used, and the answers gained. Most stakeholders have a sense of how important market research is for future success, but there is still some ground to be gained from insight teams.

The main objective of market research is to provide accurate and relevant answers to stakeholder questions – anything more specific would depend on the questions themselves.

Approaches to Market Research

There is universal applicability of the insights generated from market research. Stakeholders are able to embed insights in businesses spanning all industries to inform strategies working through a range of situations and challenges, such as:

• Competition analysis and brand tracking 
• Customer profile and trend tracking
• Opportunity spotting and future-proofing
• General trend forecasting
• Product/service development and enhancement
• Effective Market Analyses
• Marketing and ad testing

Market research is a great way to find answers to more specific challenges and questions unique to the stakeholder organisation. Perhaps stakeholders have a communication strategy in place that needs updating or a particular part of their customer experience under review, or even an employment experience that needs renovating in order to attract new talent - market research is a flexible and widely applicable experience that can gain influential insights to inform all decision-making processes.

Depending on the challenge at hand and the experience of the stakeholders involved, there are a couple of different ways to approach market research:  

• If there is a challenge presenting itself, the best way would be to enlist the help of an insight team to help devise a research experience to gain insights on how to resolve the issue effectively.  
• If there is a question presenting itself that is less time-sensitive and the stakeholders have some previous experience of basic insight generation, then stakeholders might look for secondary data or previous in-house research projects to see if any answers present themselves there first before requesting more research be done.

All approaches to research must aim for the same goal: objective clarity, communicated in a way that everyone understands and can use to the full extent of their particular power.

Typically, the traditional starting format of a research experience is for stakeholders to first define the problem, hypothesis, and potential answers they expect to pop up at the end; then they commission insight professionals (in-house or agency) to create the research experience and guide them through the process of finding the right answers.

Market Research Technologies

Technology has driven innovation in the market research industry for decades now, with most of the innovation focussed on the most heavy-lifting data collection and analysis tools. In the last 30 years, our vocation has grown from face-to-face research to mostly online insight generation. With innovation injected into every aspect of the research process, the result is new research tools and creative methodologies for insight teams to take advantage of when designing new exciting research experiences.  

We have developed a large catalogue of research technologies for the research technology stacks insight teams need. Research technology stacks are uniquely tailored to each team and organisation, so the technology each team has available or will need available will need to be outlined and understood in the research brief and design stage of the research experience.

We incorporate research into everything we do. Although we conduct a lot of surveys, access to agile, qualitative options enable us to dive deeper into insight and really understand customers. Research Analyst, SkyBet

Finding the right technology vendors can be a heavy task for insight teams with all of the latest research technology on offer, so the question becomes: how do we choose which technologies should go into the research stack?

There are numerous considerations insight teams need to take into account, such as:

• How well their technology fits in with the other tools and tech the insight team are currently looking at.
• The values, objectives, and future of the vendor in question, and if they align with the values, objectives, and future of the insight team/stakeholder organisation.
• How well they understand and are able to cater towards the requirements of the insight team, whether that’s on a long-term basis or just for one project.

We have created a free template for insight teams to keep track of all the considerations they’ll need to find the right vendors to work alongside.

Research Methodologies

There are two broad ways in which market research methodologies are classified. Primary vs secondary looks at whether the data was collected first-hand or via existing sources. Whilst qualitative and quantitative methods differentiate between measures that are statistical or subjective in nature.

Primary Research

This is the type of research that most of the insights industry specialises in – where insight teams generate original data by getting in touch with customers and consumers to find out their opinion first-hand and forwarding that data onto stakeholders to influence strategic decisions within their business.

There are a couple of paths stakeholders can choose to take depending on their resources, they can either conduct the research themselves (if they have the time, experience and knowledge to do so), they can request the research be done by their in-house insight team (if their organisation has one), or they can hire an external research agency to work with them and conduct the research for them.

Each research agency will provide similar and different products and services for hire, so if stakeholders do need to hire an external agency, it’s vital they do a bit of research and speak to each agency they consider to make sure the partnership is right for all involved.

Secondary Research

This is the research that’s already been conducted by other people and published for others to use for their own purposes. Most of this data comes at a cost and is published in private or subscription-based academic or industry journals. While the data in these journals are typically well-thought-of and proven, researchers need to be wary and make sure the secondary data sources are reliable enough to factor into research experiences.

These secondary data sources were originally sourced through primary data collection and analysis, but by other researchers or teams not involved in this particular project. Secondary research sources can be used within a research experience alongside primary data collection, even going so far as to influence the primary research taking place if stakeholders are wanting to test the reliability or replicability of the secondary data gathered.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research and data have become synonymous with market research. It is the typical numerical, statistical data that most stakeholders are used to seeing in research reports. This data is typically gathered from quantitative methodologies such as surveys, polls, questionnaires, observations and in-depth interviews. This research provides measurable statistics that work to quantify the opinions and attitudes of research participants.

The statistical output of quantitative research means that researchers are able to objectively test theories and measure the attitudes of their target audience. Surveys are usually the first thing anyone thinks of when they hear about quantitative market research, as it’s the most common quantitative research methodology used both inside and outside of the insights industry.

We are answering challenging questions through our quantitative panel. It provides insights that help us make decisions today, as well as the capacity to continue improving products and campaigns. Customer Insights Manager, Specsavers

Quantitative data analysis is a very logical process, and as such requires a good knowledge of mathematics and statistical analysis to derive meaning from data points on graphs and tables, finding correlations without attributing them to causations, and either proving or disproving a current hypothesis. 

Find out more about quantitative research in our blog here .

Qualitative Research 

What comes to mind when you think about qualitative research? Probably not too much other than the typical focus groups and interview-based research methods. These were probably the most used in conjunction with surveys throughout market research history, and it’s only now in the past couple of decades when there were more options available to researchers and stakeholders.

With the drive of technological innovation and the need powered by the events of 2020, online focus group technology is powering stakeholder efforts to conduct more online qualitative focus groups.

But there isn’t just focus groups to consider. More creative research methods are able to provide just as good data with potentially more intriguing results. Scrapbooks, sentiment-based heat maps, diary studies, and more are suitably poised to drive the generation of deep contextual insights in research experiences - boosting quantitative data more than simple focus groups every could on their own. While it depends a lot on the insights stakeholders need, focus groups might not be the answer to gaining more contextual information from the survey data collected. Or at least not on their own. Insight teams need to try and blend research tasks, tools and methodologies to get the right insights for their stakeholders.

Find out more about qualitative research in our blog here .

Passive Research

While this is still a developing segment of the research sector, there are passive ways of generating primary data. Data mining , using social media , geolocation tracking, and eye/movement tracking technologies are being developed up to a high standard and implemented as a part of modern research experiences.

There is a lot of insight to be gained from tracking consumers behaviour rather than trusting their word alone. Observation research is one of the founding principles for this, however as we move into an increasingly technological age where most of the global population is living a life online, behavioural science principles have evolved to track online behaviours as well as offline behaviours:

• Social media is a great stage for behavioural data mining and more active research tactics such as quick polls. 
• Geolocation uses our smartphones to track our movements (when permissions allow) and businesses can use that data to get a better sense of consumers daily lives.
• Eye-tracking software can be used to see which parts of a website, advertisement or retail store is more attractive based on what we see first and which parts we linger on more.

The Market Research Process

As a key step in the marketing process, it is vital that research is carried out with care and due diligence. The following five steps outline the order in which research activities should be completed to deliver project success.

Step 1: Research Brief and Design

A market research brief is a document a client produces, detailing important information about their unique situation and research requirements – so a brief is an essential document for insight teams to obtain before even thinking about the rest of the research process.

Stakeholders create the brief, most of the time in a form produced by the insights team, defining the problem or situation they are currently encountering, the current business objectives this research would also work towards (if applicable), the research objectives they believe would be good to work towards, the constraints they’re working with (time, budget, etc.), and how involved they would like to be throughout the process.

There are a number of other factors that could go into the research brief, for example, any contextual factors stakeholders think might influence the research experience, etc. However, we created a template for a research brief that covers a lot of the criteria mentioned here for ease – feel free to download and use it to your advantage.

This brief is then the basis of the research design and planning. The insight teams involved take the brief and use the information within it and their expertise to design the most appropriate research experience possible that will generate accurate and relevant insights for the stakeholder organisation.

A plan is similar to a brief, in which is holds vital details about the market research project and is an often overlooked part of the process - but an effective plan is critical to research success. We have created a guide on how to write an effective market research plan, complete with a template to help stakeholders and insight professionals make sure they have given all aspects equal consideration.

Step 2: Recruitment 

This next stage is a little trickier. Most insight teams might do well to consider the recruitment options and planning in the research design and brief stage and reserve this part of the process for active recruitment and research platform setup.

However, for those only starting to consider recruitment, insight teams will need to take this stage for both planning and active recruitment. Consider the sample you’re looking to gain insight from, which customers or consumers might be best placed to provide the best data for insight generation. This determining of the sample can make or break a research project, with the right sample able to produce relevant and accurate data that can be applied to full effect in stakeholder decision-making processes.

Then consider the recruitment method or sample provider insight teams are working with. It might be that the sample the team needs is all active on social media, and recruitment through targeted ads might be a good DIY tactic to implement. However, to take the stress out of recruitment, commissioning a sample provider might be a better way to go. Sample or recruitment providers are skilled in this area and typically already have a database of willing participants they can put insight teams in touch with for a set fee.

However, another popular tactic is to recruit research participants out of a business's existing customer base. This means stakeholders and insight professionals know they’re engaged with the business to some degree, and the branded or business-specific research will already be completed by their target audience.

Our customers are our stakeholders; their opinions and feelings are vital to the success of the society. As such, their engagement with our research is crucial. Customer Insights Specialist, Coventry Building Society

Once the sample and provider have been determined, it’s time to sort the wheat from the chaff. It’s common to use a screener survey to make sure the sample is exactly what insight teams need, and segment the sample by demographic or other more project-specific factors, and upload them onto the platform the team are using to conduct research on. This platform might host a dedicated research community or simply a panel platform to hold the information in and create dedicated research tasks to send to research participants through email.

Step 3: Data Collection

The most recognisable stage of market research. This is where all the data collection tools and methodologies decided in the research design stage are implemented to full effect. If the research experience is designed correctly, the data gained in this stage will be accurate and relevant, ready for insight teams to analyse and pull directly actionable insights for stakeholder use.

There are numerous data collection tools and methodologies available to the  modern insight professional. Common market research methods include:

• Online, telephone and street surveys
• Online and in-person focus groups
• Written or online diary studies
• Smartboards and image markup
• Long-term, pop-up and listening communities
• Traditional, mobile and web ethnographies
• Biometric response research
• Wearable-based research
• Vox pops and video surveys
• Social media intelligence
• Augmented reality-based testing
• Gamification research

It’s hard to name all of the market research methods and tools in existence because there are so many. The tools and methods mentioned here are the ones used most often, or the ones most requested in the insights industry, and while they are varied in how they collect data, all of them provide either quantitative or qualitative data for research analysis.

Step 4: Data Analysis and Insight Generation

This is the second most recognised stage of the research process, where all the hard work collecting the data comes to light and is seen in full. The data collected in the previous stage needs to be accurate, otherwise, the insights generated at this stage of the research experience will be worthless and irrelevant to the stakeholder situation, and thus will be a waste of time, money, and effort.

For quantitative data handling, statistical analysis is the primary method of analysis. Cross-referencing data from tables, charts, and graphs to interpret the clear meaning and determine any correlations or causations of consumer behaviour. However, this mathematical ability doesn’t always come naturally, and so there are a number of statistical tools out there to help researchers gain more traction in this particular arena. Tools such as FlexMR’s NumbersMR produces both simple and complex data tables for better analysis, and graphical representation at the push of a button to make statistical analysis more available to stakeholders as well as researchers.

For qualitative data, this analysis can be slightly trickier. Qualitative data analysis can be objective but is also rooted in subjective interpretation. However, because of the more open content of the data, it can be easier for even non-researchers to derive a few insights from the raw data.

Because of recent innovations in qualitative data collection, there are up and coming methods of qualitative data analysis to match the quality of the incoming data. Video analysis tools now have a prominent place in the market researchers’ arsenal with the rise of video data collection. Tools such as our own VideoMR are rapidly gaining an appreciation for their streamlining of qualitative video analysis processes, with features such as auto-transcription and clip/montage creation making it easy to analyse and group content together, as well as provide a great new format for video clips for more engaging, connective, and immersive insight reports.

Step 5: Insight Reporting and Activation

There is a myth outside of the research world, that the research experience ends once the report has been handed over. This myth was brought to life and perpetuated through previous experience of early market research when that might have been true for most stakeholders and insight professionals; however the world has moved on, and the market research industry can offer so much more than simple insights. We are beginning to now offer the true power of knowledge with ways in which the insights provided can be activated.

To master insight activation is to harness the true power of market research and make positively impactful decisions in real-time. The best way to help this happen is to inject creativity into your reporting and be consistent in your communication.

There are a few ways we can boost the interest level of stakeholders in insight reports:

• Using video , animation, and graphic images can bring a whole new level of interest to a research report. Whether it’s using video clips of research participants for better connectivity or using the medium of video to communicate the report itself, video, animation, and graphical imagery are proven to easily engage audiences on thought-provoking topics.
• Interactive insight sessions are a great way to break through the barriers between stakeholders and insight teams. With in-person or online insight workshops and forums, researchers can deliver the insights face-to-face with stakeholders and take the time to explain the insights generated and answer any questions stakeholders have.
• Using creative methods such as interpretive art to represent insights and tell the story in physical form. Art is a powerful form of storytelling and has been proven through our Insight as Art programme to engage stakeholders in insights through intrigue and interpretation.
• Storytelling techniques are great for engaging even the most disconnected of audiences, enrapturing them in the respondents, scenarios, and challenges of the research experience through created characters, settings, and narrative plot.

Customisation is the key to a truly impactful insight report; insight teams need to understand how stakeholders like their insights communicated and what engages them in order to make the best report possible. To help, we’ve created a simple template to help insight teams present impactful results in the research report.

Now that we’ve established a few different reporting techniques, we need to talk about the importance of consistent communication. Embedding the right communication channels and practices between stakeholders and the insight team is incredibly important for the success of the research experience. Without communication , the connection between stakeholder and insight report will vanish, as will the actionability and memorability of the insights contained within the report, meaning that the impact of the insights will be zero.

There are a few communication tactics insight professionals use regularly within stakeholder organisations; for example, regular insight newsletters, insight forums and workshops, insight immersion days, and even creating data warehouses to break down departmental silos that are detrimental to the productivity of stakeholders teams throughout the organisation.

Examples of Effective Research

Today, research is considered an essential part of many strategic processes. From new product development to advertising effectiveness, brand loyalty and market expansion. Here are a number of examples of how effective market research can have a real impact on your business.

1. The Caravan and Motorhome Club

The Caravan and Motorhome Club (CMC) use market research wisely for future-proofing their business, making sure that they’re changing with the times and in accordance with their own members’ behaviours so they can provide the best services possible.  

As they operate distinctly in both the tourism and automotive industries, their recent attentions have turned to sustainable camping in the response to the advancements made to electric and hybrid technology development and the growing concerns for more environmentally friendly forms of camping.

In the InsightHub, the CMC used qualitative focus groups to gain intelligence into how their members are currently using electric and hybrid vehicles, as well as their thoughts on the future of this use in domestic and international tourism. With their ultimate purpose to use the insights to redevelop a current campsite into a sustainable one, the insight team also used image-based stimuli to spark conversations on the practicalities of developing a campsite for electric and hybrid vehicles for a more sustainable future.

Find out more about the insights the CMC gained in our case study here .

2. Specsavers

Specsavers have a long-term research panel dedicated to insight generation on a variety of different topics. Most recently and notably, the Specsavers insights team used online quantitative tools to gain some insights to inform their ‘Don’t Lose The Picture’ glaucoma health campaign, as well as glasses product testing.

Being a multi-national health service as well as a retail brand, Specsavers are recognised experts in their field of optometry and audiology, and they must remain seen as these experts while also balancing a certain amount of self-promotion to be successful in both endeavours. Their glaucoma health campaign needed to balance marketing and health awareness tactics in order to push people at risk of glaucoma to take action to prevent it from happening - and that is why they conducted market research with a sample of their customers on their research panel to make the most effective campaign since their renowned ‘Should Have Gone to Specsavers’ adverts.

To learn more about their success and the outcome of their survey research, read the case study here .

3. The Coventry Building Society

The Coventry Building Society, like all building societies, are a member-led financial institution . Their members are their stakeholders, and as such are directly involved with the strategic decision-making within the organisation through market research. The Coventry’s long-term research community use primarily qualitative research tools to relate feedback on a variety of topics from the strategic trajectory of the organisation to their general communication strategies and customer experience.

With such direct involvement and the use of new research methodologies that are purpose-built for listening to customer insights (participant-led research rather than researcher-led), this has led The Coventry to build an award-winning standard of customer experience excellence - their challenge now is to maintain this excellence by building customer experience solutions that work for everyone.

To find out how their research is going, take a look at our case study here .

Insights Empowerment and Efficiency 

Insights empowerment is the key to realising a business’ potential. Creating a culture of insights within organisations and connecting stakeholders closer to customers and consumers can revolutionise decision-making processes, with stakeholders able to make decisions more accurately in real-time through consistent access to powerful insights. 

FlexMR has designed its trademark Insights Empowerment Framework to help identify clear steps in a business’ trajectory to improve in the domains of efficiency , scale, and reach. In other words, how efficiently insights are produced and communicated across the organisation, how much they’re able to influence stakeholders that come across them, and how many stakeholders actually have access to them.

This game-changing way of thinking addresses the three issues insight teams face when working with stakeholders throughout their organisation and works to improve them in a timely fashion, so their insights are used to their full potential within the organisation and driving transformational change .

Find out more about FlexMR’s Insights Empowerment Framework and how it can help revolutionise your strategic decision-making processes here .

About FlexMR

We are The Insights Empowerment Company. We help research, product and marketing teams drive informed decisions with efficient, scalable & impactful insight.

About Emily James

As a professional copywriter, Emily brings our global vision to life through a broad range of industry-leading content.

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Market Research: Definition, Types & Examples

What happens when you develop a new product or service and want to get it in front of the right audience? How do you know who the right audience is? And how are you supposed to determine the most effective way to get in front of them?

There is a lot that goes into figuring all this out. Luckily, market research is for this exact type of scenario. So how does market research work and what should you include?

This guide will cover everything you need to know as well as a few examples. Plus, we included information on how to conduct market research and the importance of doing it properly.

You will have a better opportunity to get your new product or service in front of the right audience. Before you know it your business can see an increase in sales and loyal customers.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Market research helps determine how viable a new product or service will be.
• Market research can range from focus groups, interviews, and competitive analysis. It can also include campaign research, brand awareness research, and market segmentation research.
• Doing research allows you to better understand customer wants, needs, desires, and pain points.

What Is Market Research?

Market research is a process that you take to learn as much information as you can about your target market. It’s used to help verify the effectiveness of a new product or service. As well, it aids your entire team in better understanding your brand perception.

This is important information to compile so you’re effectively communicating the value your business offers. It’s not a fortune teller or a way to see into the future. But you can gain extremely valuable insights that can help paint a clearer picture.

Consumers today hold a lot of power when it comes to the products and services they want to use. By simply doing some quick online research, they’re able to come to a purchasing decision all on their own.

So, market research is going to help you verify if a product or service will have success. It’s also going to help you better understand existing products and market size to ensure brand perception is effective. These details will lead to the most accurate way to communicate the value your company offers.

There are several areas of market research to look into for a complete picture. Yet, just understanding a single area can provide actionable and valuable insights. You’ll be able to understand who your buyers are and the value they’re looking for.

Why Should You Do Market Research?

There can be different market research methods to learn more about existing and prospective customers. But with the amount of competition that is out there today, finding out exactly what your target customer is looking for is paramount. By understanding their pain points , problems, and desired outcomes, you can ensure you offer the right product or service.

To take it even further, market research helps generate additional insights into several other things. Some of these can include:

• The attitudes a customer has for certain products, brands, or topics
• How and where your target customer does their research about a product or service
• What new trends are evolving
• Who is included within your market and some of the challenges they face
• Which competition your target customers are navigating towards
• If there is a demand for the new initiatives, products, or services you’re exploring
• Customer needs that aren’t being addressed or served, and finding a way to leverage that opportunity
• The attitudes your customers have about price points for products and services

As you can see, market research is going to provide a ton of valuable information to use. You can develop a better sense of who your target audience is and what they’re looking for. And through all of this, you can make more informed decisions in the future.

This is why it’s more important now than ever to adapt your marketing strategy to complement consumers’ buying behavior. You need to have a deep understanding of who they are and the specific market they’re in. Plus, it’s equally as important to know more about what might influence their purchase decisions.

And instead of speaking to one of your sales reps, consumers are more likely to ask a friend or family member or read reviews online.

By finding out more information about the insights outlined above, you gain a better sense of your market. Then, you can use this information to answer and address specific questions.

These can include things like:

• Is there a demand or desire for the product or service you’re offering?
• How many people are going to be interested in your product or service?
• Are there any similar products or services that are already available?
• What is the employment rate and income range of your target audience?
• How is your business going to reach your customers and where do they live?
• How much are customers willing to pay for your products or services?

When you’re able to compile data and research from all the above points, you get an inside look into your target audience . This is important to help eliminate the possibility of any. And, you will be able to dive deep into the specific attitudes your customers have.

All in all, market research is important to help you make better and more informed business decisions.

Types of Market Research

Certain types of market research can be more effective compared to others. This is because there can be a different strategy put into place depending on the product or service you offer.

For example, observation-based research would work well to uncover the challenges a product might face. Whereas something like pricing strategy research would allow you to create an accurate pricing strategy.

Below you will find a breakdown of several of the different types of market research you can use.

Focus Groups

Focus groups are an effective way to get in front of potential customers and better understand what they like and don’t like. Through carefully selected participants, you can test out product features. Once the focus group has a chance to explore, they can provide feedback and you can ask targeted questions.

It’s a powerful way to determine differentiation and highlight the qualities your product or service provides. You can gain insights from both primary sources and secondary sources.

Observation-Based Research

With this type of market research, you take an observation approach to understand how customers use your product or service. It highlights the benefits and pain points of the entire user experience.

Observation-based research allows you to see the challenges the customer might face. This can be a good way to find new opportunities or solutions to make the experience better.

Similar to a focus group, but instead of a group of people it’s a one-on-one discussion. It can be either in a virtual or natural setting, or in-person which allows for the conversation to flow naturally.

With an in-depth interview approach, you can craft questions to ask the interviewee to better develop buyer personals. You will learn more about their budget, challenges they face, ideal customer age, and other lifestyle aspects.

Developing an in-depth buyer persona will allow you to create a more effective marketing strategy.

Pricing Research

You might have the perfect product or service, but if you don’t price it properly it can lead to fewer sales. Pricing research will give an inside look into other products or services that are similar in your market.

Pricing research lets you define an accurate pricing strategy and you can generate a wide variety of options. By doing this you can ensure you price your product or service fairly and in the same range that the customer expects to pay.

Market Segmentation Research

When you truly understand the needs of your customers you can also understand their expectations. Market segmentation research is an effective way to put your target audience into categories. You do this based on certain defining and specific characteristics.

Competitive Analysis

It’s not always as simple as pricing your product or service at a lower price point than your competition. A competitive analysis allows you to understand the competition within your industry and market. You will gain insights into what products or services are doing well and which ones aren’t.

As well, you can compare your product or service to others that are similar. By doing it this way you can determine opportunities to set yourself apart.

Campaign Research

Have you ever had a campaign that went extremely well? What about a campaign that didn’t? With campaign research, you can take a deep dive into past campaigns and analyze what worked and what didn’t.

You will be able to make certain adjustments, changes, and updates to ensure what you’re doing will be effective.

Customer Satisfaction Research

Do you know what your customers love most? Have you had a product or service in the past that customers couldn’t get enough of? With customer satisfaction research, you can determine effective ways to get returning customers.

Plus, you can also find insights into what motivates your customers to keep coming back. This is all actionable information that you can then incorporate into your strategy.

Brand Awareness Research

Having positive brand recognition is important. Without it, customers won’t take your product or service seriously. Brand awareness research dives into what your customers recognize and know about your brand.

It’s basically a way to understand what your customers associate your brand with when they purchase something from you. And it can generate insights into why they interact with your business in the first place.

Example of Market Research 

Let’s say that you have a new product or service that you want to take to market. You have created a business plan and have started to develop an in-depth business plan . But still, you want to receive some more valuable information.

Conducting market research will help confirm several details:

• Consumer interest
• Consumer demand
• An accurate pricing strategy
• Consumer behavior
• Consumer desires

Gaining insights into these areas will allow you to move forward with the business plan you have in place. You will be able to make sure your product or service is priced accordingly and will reach the right audience.

If you choose to skip over some of these things, or if the market research comes back negative, some adjustments might be required. The key point to keep in mind with market research is that you want to align with customer needs, desires, and interests.

Primary Market Research and Secondary Market Research

Market research can be a massive undertaking and an extensive process. It’s worth recognizing that depending on the information you want to learn, it can be either quantitative or qualitative.

With quantitative research, it’s more focused on actual data and helps highlight reverent trends. You can find this information through certain public records.

With qualitative research, it’s more focused on the public’s opinion. You’re able to explore the reasons behind how a market feels about certain products available in the market.

From here, there are two main ways to conduct market research . They are primary research and secondary research. Let’s take a closer look at both and how they work.

Primary Research

Primary research is a way for you to get immediate information about your customers and the market they’re in. It can be most useful when you’re looking to differentiate between certain buyer personas.

You can then break primary research into two specific approaches: exploratory primary research and specific primary research. Here’s how each of them works:

Exploratory Primary Research

This is usually taken as the first step in your market research. It’s more concerned about potential problems you should be aware of. And less about potential consumer trends.

Think of things such as surveys, feedback forms, or open-ended interviews as good examples.

Specific Primary Research

A lot of the time, specific primary research will come after the exploratory stage. It gets used to focus on the main opportunities and issues you have already identified. In this case, you’re able to ask targeted questions to try and find a solution to a potential problem.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is much more focused on the available data you have at your disposal. This information can come from public records like market statistics, industry content, and trend reports.

This approach is especially useful when you want to get an inside look into and analyze your competition. From here, there can be a few approaches to take with secondary market research.

Commercial Sources

Commercial sources will often come from industry insights and market reports. Keep in mind that it can be common for commercial sources to have a cost associated with obtaining them.

Public Sources

On the flip side, public sources are usually free to obtain and contain a ton of valuable information to use. For example, if you’re looking for public market data you can access information from the Bureau of Labor & Statistics.

Internal Sources

This type of information is information that you’re typically already going to have access to. Think of things like your customer retention rates, revenue per sale, and any other relevant historical data. It’s an effective way to determine what buyers might be looking for at that moment.

Taking the time to conduct effective market research can be the difference between a product or service being successful or not. It’s an important process to take to ensure you’re not wasting valuable time and money on something that won’t work. You can gain insights into customer buying decisions, product differentiation, and economic trends.

Even if you think you know your target customer, there can always be things you’re unaware of. Plus, you can conduct market research in any number of different ways. It could be through interviews, focus groups, campaign research, or competitive analysis.

Whatever type of market research you do you’ll end up with valuable information. This will help lead to a successful product or service with better business decisions. And you can ensure it’s a product or service your customers want and need.

Frequently Asked Questions

It’s all going to depend on what you want to get out of your market research. For example, you can see if there’s a demand for your product or service. You can also look into similar products in the market or how much customers are willing to pay.

The type of market research you conduct will dictate how you gather the information. For example, focus groups can provide feedback and you can also ask questions. Something like campaign research is a way to find out what has worked or not worked in the past.

It might depend on the type of research you’re going to conduct, but there can be a few common ways to find participants. You could contact past trial or research participants or crowdsource on social media. Or, you could recruit internally or contact your email subscribers.

Market research focuses on the specific aspects of your target customer and the market that they’re in. Marketing research, on the other hand, looks into all the marketing processes. These can include pricing, packaging, advertising, and even policymaking.

Paid market research surveys are where participants receive an incentive, usually a monetary amount, for taking part in the survey. They might also receive other incentives such as gift cards for inviting other friends and family members to take part.

A market study is similar to market research. It’s a proactive analysis of a specific market and what the demand for a product or service might be. It will typically look into things like location, competition, price, and economic activity.

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What is marketing research? Definition and examples

Marketing Research involves systematically collecting data about consumers, rivals, and other entities. That data is analyzed to gain a better understanding of consumers’ needs and other features of the market. Marketing people then summarize the data and conclusions in a report. The report helps senior managers and business owners make informed decisions regarding future plans and strategies.

Effective marketing research also aids in identifying potential new markets or customer segments, allowing companies to expand their reach and diversify their customer base.

Moreover, marketing research continuously evolves to adapt to emerging trends and technologies, ensuring that businesses stay competitive in rapidly changing markets.

“Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data about issues relating to marketing products and services. The goal is to identify and assess how changing elements of the marketing mix impacts customer behavior.”

Three main types of marketing research

Marketing research generally consists of three main types of research: 1. Market research . 2. Product researc h. 3. Consumer research .

Market research

Market research is a study of the market, specifically who purchase a product, why they buy it, how competitors behave, and how something is sold.

It is an organized effort to gather and analyze data about target markets. The following quote comes from our article that defines market research:

“We often use the term with the same meaning as marketing research. However, marketing research concentrates on the marketing processes, while market research is about the market in general.”

Product research

Product research involves identifying a need or want and the characteristics of the product or service that will satisfy it. In other words, if consumers have a desire or want, what features or benefits of your product satisfies them and to what extent.

This type of research helps companies determine what consumers really want or need. They can then tailor their goods or services to match those consumer wants and needs.

According to mnbaskool.com:

“Product research is the marketing research that provides information on the desired characteristics of a product or service . Product research helps companies to understand what the customers really want, so that the product can be tailored to match the needs of the customer. This research can help to refine new product ideas.”

Consumer research

Consumer research is all about identifying consumer preferences, motivations, and purchasing behaviors. Specifically, the consumers that the company is focusing on; in other words, the target consumer.

Many marketing experts say that consumer research is part of market research. Marketers gather information through published sources, direct observation, face-to-face interviews, and mail surveys. Telephone interviews are also popular.

Who performs this type of research?

Some companies perform the research themselves while others hire third-party experts or consultants.

Hiring a consulting firm has both advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is that consultants are marketing research experts. They probably have more experience and training than employees within the company.

The main disadvantage is that they may not understand some the products or services as well as company employees do. The same may also apply to customers and potential customers.

Compound phrases with ‘marketing research’

A compound phrase consists of two or more words. In business and marketing English, there are many compound phrases with the term ‘marketing research’ in them. Let’s have a look at the give most common ones:

Marketing Research Techniques

Refers to the specific methods and tools used in conducting marketing research. As in:

“The company employed various marketing research techniques, such as surveys and focus groups, to understand consumer preferences.”

Marketing Research Analysis

The process of examining and interpreting data collected through marketing research. For example:

“After conducting surveys, the marketing research analysis revealed a growing demand for eco-friendly products among consumers.”

Marketing Research Ethics

Principles and standards guiding the conduct of marketing research to ensure honesty, fairness, and responsibility. For instance:

“Adhering to marketing research ethics, the firm ensured all participant data was kept confidential and used solely for research purposes.”

Global Marketing Research

Research conducted to understand marketing dynamics, consumer behavior, and trends in international markets. As in:

“In their global marketing research, the company discovered significant cultural differences in consumer behavior across different regions, impacting their product strategy.”

Digital Marketing Research

Involves collecting and analyzing data related to digital marketing efforts, such as online consumer behavior, social media trends, and digital advertising effectiveness. For example:

“The digital marketing research showed that the company’s target audience predominantly engaged with their brand through social media platforms, leading to an increased focus on social media advertising.”

Vide – What is Marketing Research?

This video presentation, from our YouTube partner channel – Marketing Business Network , explains what a ‘Marketing Research’ is using simple and easy-to-understand language and examples.

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What you need to know about primary market research

Last updated

3 April 2024

Reviewed by

Cathy Heath

Market analysis template

Save time, highlight crucial insights, and drive strategic decision-making

• What is primary market research?

Focus groups

Primary market research not only allows you to work out how to sell your product or service more effectively but also helps you see the types of consumers that are not your target market.

It can be qualitative or quantitative data , or a combination of both to help your business gain insight into the market.

These valuable marketing insights will save you time and money and enable you to use your resources much more effectively.

• Why use primary market research?

While secondary research can give you a more generalized look at overall trends and markets, primary research focuses on a specific, customized aspect.

Secondary market research may be easier and faster, but primary research is more tailored, and you get data ownership of the results.

• Primary vs. secondary market research: what's the difference?

Secondary market research has already been gathered and can be used where relevant. Reports and surveys by other businesses or government agencies are a form of secondary market research.

Primary market research is carried out by you with your customers or clients, so it is more focused on your direct business. It may take longer and cost more than secondary research, but it is more targeted.

Secondary market research is more general and may not focus solely on things that affect your business and goals.

• Primary market research: research approaches

There are five main primary market research approaches:

Observational research

Survey research, experimental research.

Observational research is used to watch customers in their natural setting and is used extensively in marketing. There is little control over the components of the research; the aim is to observe the interaction between the consumer and the product or service.

There are two forms of observational research:

Strict observation: the researcher can only watch the consumer and make notes. This is one of the best ways to get raw data without any outside interference.

Slight interaction: the researcher may interact with the customer but not influence or sway the research in any way

Surveys extract data from existing customers or potential customers who have consented to receive marketing material and given their contact information. You can gather feedback , explore customer experience of your service or product, and analyze business hypotheses.

Decide on the target market to give the survey to; the more survey respondents, the more reliable the result.

Surveys are good for getting quantitative data such as:

Household income

Purchasing patterns

Price research

These surveys can be in person or via phone, email, or online questionnaire . Alternatively, you could use the "old-school" method of sending out a direct mail form.

Experimental research, also known as field research , is a quantitative approach to getting consumer information. Experiments are performed in an uncontrolled setting to test certain variables and answer questions on how consumers use your product or service and what their buying habits are.

While conducting these experiments, you can talk with people in the natural retail setting to see their true-to-life interaction with the product or service.

Experimental research provides accurate data without moderation and can give you insight into the product or service, levels of customer satisfaction , and your business and brand in general.

Interviews are more like a one-to-one focus group scenario in which you question one person instead of a group. Structured but open-ended questions are used so you can discover preferences and behavior as well as consumer experience with your product or service. 

Interviews are ideal when testing a soft or new launch or to get customer perceptions of your marketing campaign.

These interviews get high response rates which are more truthful than other methods, as there is no peer pressure or influence from a group setting. Follow-up questions can help refine the data further.

Focus groups are great for discovering a specific demographic's opinions. They are best suited to collecting qualitative research.

This research method allows businesses to obtain data and analyze it from a specific market segment, with in-depth answers. This is helpful for decision-making and fine-tuning a product or service.

Many companies use focus groups to play through "what if" scenarios before implementing them in real life or for A/B testing on marketing material.

• When to use primary vs. secondary market research

The decision of whether to use primary or secondary market research is up to each business. Primary research is mainly done when the business needs recent data for a specific context. They want to look at a particular research aspect.

Secondary research is chosen when existing data can be insightful without the need for customized data or specifics. It can be gathered for the core of research projects .

What are the four types of secondary market research?

The four main types of secondary market research are:

Government or organizational agencies

Commercial and trade reports

Market research intelligence tools

Competitor websites

These all are sources of existing data about target groups that may benefit your business.

Why are interviews used in market research?

A form of primary research, interviews allow direct feedback from customers and clients to help inform a business about its consumers’ needs.

The researcher can use client responses from interviews to come up with more customized questions. They can extract more research information and more comprehensive answers than from other research methods.

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Marketing research

Definition, how-to, examples.

Marketing research is the process of using surveys, feedback, and observations to better understand audiences and the market for your brand and products. Discover how to conduct your own marketing research with examples.