In this blog, we talk about consumer market research and how it empowers businesses to make informed decisions about new product development, marketing campaigns, and their overall business strategies.
Table of Contents:
- What is consumer market research?
- The growing importance of consumer market research
- The consumer market research process
- Key components of successful consumer market research
- (Some) applications of consumer market research
- Consumer market research examples and use cases
- How does quantilope help with consumer market research?
What is consumer market research?
Consumer market research is a type of research that involves gathering and analyzing data about your current and potential customers to understand their wants and needs. Consumer market research can be done using various research methods that collect data about consumers – such as their demographics, psychographics, and behaviors. Essentially, it's about getting into the minds of consumers to leverage their feedback in as many areas of your business as you can. Understanding and acting on consumer feedback is what contributes to brand loyalty and positive word-of-mouth recommendations over time.
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The growing importance of consumer market research
Consumer market research is rapidly evolving. Today’s insights professionals and market researchers are no longer limited to agency-led surveys with long turnaround times and extensive budgets. With a variety of market research solutions, platforms, and modernized tools like AI co-pilots at their disposal, researchers can achieve more in less time, allowing them to meet increasingly tighter deadlines for insights.
Brands that invest in consumer market research are likely to stay relevant and successful over time due to:
- Changing consumer behavior: Consumer behavior is constantly shifting, in part due to social media influence, new and improved technologies, and changing societal expectations (i.e. sustainability, inclusivity, etc.). Businesses need to stay ahead of these changes to remain competitive.
- Increased competition: New markets and competitors are emerging all the time which means consumer perceptions are constantly shifting too. Consumer research arms brands with a competitive advantage by identifying unmet customer needs and market gaps before competitors do.
- Data-driven decision making: Brands that make business decisions on a whim or on gut feel will quickly learn that data-driven decisions are far more valuable. Rather than a guess-and-see approach, brands are using real consumer data to optimize their products and allocate resources effectively. This helps ensure no money is left on the table.
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The consumer market research process
The consumer research process looks different for each business and their unique research needs, but generally follows a similar process:
Define research objectives
The first step in any successful consumer market research project is to clearly define the research objectives and specific questions you’d like to answer. This involves identifying your target audience and determining the appropriate sample size to ensure your research is representative. Based on your objectives and target audience, you'll then select the most suitable research tactic and methodology, which might include a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Consider secondary data
Before diving into primary research (new data you collect yourself), consider gathering secondary data (existing data and information) from relevant sources. This might include market research reports, industry publications, government data, or competitor websites. Secondary data, when available, is great at helping you understand the market landscape, identify potential opportunities, and gain preliminary insights that can guide the design of your primary research approach.
Conduct primary research
This stage involves collecting data directly from consumers, such as online surveys, focus groups, in-depth interviews, or product tests. Ensure that your chosen data collection methods are reliable and valid to produce accurate, unbiased, and meaningful results. Leveraging modern technology and tools like automated, end-to-end online survey platforms can streamline primary data collection and shorten the time between research and insights.
Analyze data
Once you've collected your data, it's time to analyze and extract meaningful insights. Data analysis techniques might include statistical software for analyzing quantitative data or using qualitative data analysis tools to extract insights from interviews and focus groups. The goal is to identify patterns, trends, and relationships to incorporate into data visualizations and charts.
Create a report
The market research process comes together through a compelling report that translates key insights and conclusions into actionable business recommendations. A clear and actionable report is often the main source of truth for stakeholders to base strategic decisions off of.
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Key components of successful consumer market research
Exploring the above steps in more detail, let's now consider the key components that make up successful consumer market research initiatives. These components include data collection that is thorough and robust, data analysis that’s thoughtful and detailed, and business recommendations that are easily actionable.
Comprehensive data collection
As mentioned above, consumer market research involves careful data collection. This often involves crafting online questionnaires or qualitative question guides to ensure you’re capturing the necessary information from various angles/approaches. Often, researchers will combine data collection techniques, following up on their quantitative questionnaire with an in-depth focus group (or vice-versa). They may even supplement these primary research methods with secondary sources like industry reports or publications.
Below are some ways to collect primary data. Keep in mind, the ‘optimal’ approach will depend on your unique research needs.
- Qualitative research comes from techniques like in-depth interviews or focus groups to learn about a target audience's perceptions and experiences with a product, service, or brand. Qualitative research delves into the "why" behind consumer actions and opinions, giving researchers an opportunity to explore consumer perspectives in great detail. Online communities and forums can also offer valuable insights into consumer conversations and sentiment, with individuals building off of one another’s feedback. The key to a successful qualitative research approach lies in a well-structured discussion guide to encourage thoughtful responses and uncover deep-rooted motivations. Skilled moderators and interviewers play a crucial role in facilitating these engaging discussions to mitigate any type of research bias.
- Quantitative research, on the other hand, focuses on numeric, measurable data. Online surveys, with carefully crafted questions and targeted distribution, allow researchers to collect data from a much larger sample size, providing statistically significant insights into consumer preferences and behaviors. Quantitative research also includes advanced methodologies like MaxDiff, Conjoint, and TURF analysis, each of which provide a level of insights brands can’t get from qualitative research alone. Analyzing quantitative data reveals patterns, trends, and correlations that inform strategic decision-making. It’s also often relatively cheap and quick to do.
As mentioned above, many researchers use qualitative and quantitative methods in tandem, exploring their quant insights with follow-up focus groups, or starting with qualitative feedback sessions to guide the creation of a quantitative questionnaire.
Thoughtful data analysis
Collecting data is only the first step. The real value of consumer research lies in the ability to effectively analyze and interpret the findings. Interpretation of your data is what empowers you to take action and will depend on the type(s) of data you collect.
Qualitative data requires careful transcription and coding to identify recurring themes, patterns, and sentiments. Researchers sift through interview transcripts and focus group discussions, categorizing data and extracting meaningful insights. For quantitative data, researchers will use statistical techniques to identify trends, correlations, and significant differences between sample groups (e.g. how different demographic segments perceive a brand or product). By combining both qualitative and quantitative data findings, researchers can gain a comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior. For example, quantitative data might reveal that a certain age group has a low preference for a particular product; qualitative data can then provide insights into the reasons behind this preference, such as unmet needs or negative perceptions.
Regardless of the type of data you analyze, the key to successful consumer research remains the same: be thoughtful in your analysis. If you notice a trend or shift in data, why might that be? Are there other data points that might explain or support that change? Can you cut that data point across different sample groups to see if it’s a universal shift or specific to one particular group? Be nosy, ask yourself ‘why’, and carefully analyze your available data to make data-backed conclusions. This type of analysis process is what leads to actionable insights – that last key component of successful consumer research.
Actionable insights
The general goal of any consumer market research approach should be to generate actionable insights that inform business decisions.
Craft clear, concise, and compelling narratives based around your insights. Research reports should effectively communicate key findings, conclusions, and recommendations to stakeholders that they can easily act on. Data visualizations are a big part in that, making sure that any charts, graphs, or infographics present complex data in an easily digestible format. Data visualizations help stakeholders to quickly grasp key takeaways and understand research implications, such as how to improve products, optimize marketing campaigns, refine pricing strategies, or drive business growth.
If you get stuck, many research platforms even offer the support of AI tools or assistants that can help generate compelling takeaways.
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(Some) applications of consumer market research
Consumer market research is a powerful tool that's applicable across various areas of a business. By understanding consumer needs, preferences, and behaviors, businesses can optimize their products, services, and marketing strategies to achieve their goals. Below are just a few common applications of consumer market research:
Product development
Consumer research plays a critical role throughout the product development lifecycle, from new product ideation to product launch and beyond.
Consumer research for product development often includes:
- Identifying preferences: Research helps uncover consumer preferences for specific product features, packaging aesthetics, and pricing models. This information guides new product development to align with consumer expectations and desires. A great advanced research method for identifying preferences is a MaxDiff, which forces respondents to make tradeoff decisions. Many researchers also leverage concept testing for new product development.
- Iterative testing: Sometimes it takes a while to get a new product just right, which is why many brands will research iteratively (building on each round of their research using insights gained from the previous study). Some researchers might even opt for an A/B testing approach, where they test a different version of their product among different audiences and see which performs better.
- User testing: Utilizing methods like product testing and focus groups, companies can gather valuable hands-on feedback around product prototypes or existing products. This feedback can help identify areas for improvement in design, functionality, and user experience.
Marketing strategy
Effective marketing relies on a deep understanding of your target audience. Consumer research provides the insights needed to develop targeted marketing strategies that resonate with specific consumer segments.
Consumer research for marketing often includes:
- Market Segmentation: Consumer research allows businesses to segment their target market based on various factors such as demographics (age, gender, location), psychographics (lifestyle, values, interests), and buying needs (known as Need-based Segmentation).
- Message testing: By understanding consumers’ needs, motivations, and preferences, companies can develop tailored messaging strategies that hit on each of those points. This personalized approach increases a marketing campaign's effectiveness and outcome.
- Channel Optimization: Consumer research can also identify the most effective marketing channels and media platforms to reach a target audience. This ensures that marketing efforts are focused on channels where consumers are most likely to engage with the brand. A great advanced method for channel optimization is a TURF analysis, which stands for Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency.
Pricing
Setting the right price for a product or service is crucial for business success. Consumer research provides valuable data to inform and justify pricing strategies.
Consumer research for pricing often includes:
- Understanding price sensitivity: Research helps gauge consumer price sensitivity and willingness to pay for different products or features. This information is essential for determining the optimal price point. A great advanced method for this type of research is the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter.
- Determining price importance: Price is just one of many factors that can influence consumers’ purchasing decisions. To understand just how important price is, researchers can leverage a Choice-based Conjoint analysis. This type of analysis incorporates many different features of a product or service, price being just one of them.
- Analyzing the competitive landscape: Monitoring competitor pricing and understanding consumer reactions to price changes in the market is just as important as analyzing your own pricing approach. This helps ensure your pricing strategy remains competitive and aligns with market trends.
Customer satisfaction and loyalty
Building a loyal customer base is essential for long-term success. Consumer research helps businesses understand and improve customer satisfaction, leading to increased loyalty and repeat business.
Consumer research for customer satisfaction often includes:
- Measuring Net Promoter Score: Net Promoter Score (NPS) lets a business know how likely consumers are to recommend their business to someone else. A low NPS indicates that the brand has some work to do at building up customer loyalty and trust.
- Understanding the customer experience: Consumer research can uncover pain points in the customer journey and identify new opportunities. This may involve improvements in customer service, product usability, or brand communications.
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Consumer market research examples and use cases
Below are a few general examples of how brands can leverage consumer market research to make better business decisions.
- A food and beverage company wants to launch a new line of organic baby food. They conduct qualitative focus groups with parents of young children to gather feedback on different flavor combinations, packaging designs, and messaging concepts. During these focus groups, parents participate in taste tests with their babies, allowing researchers to observe their reactions and gather feedback on factors like ease of use, texture, and perceived nutritional value. This research helps the company refine the product line and its marketing strategy to better align with the preferences and needs of their target audience.
- A clothing retailer is looking to expand its online presence and attract a younger demographic. They use a quantitative online survey to understand the psychographics and purchase decisions of their core target audience (Gen Z and Millennials). Their survey collects data on preferred clothing styles, online shopping habits, influential social media accounts, and brand perceptions. This data informs their marketing campaigns, allowing them to personalize messaging and target specific consumer segments with relevant promotions and content. For example, they might use messaging that emphasizes sustainability and ethical sourcing for environmentally conscious consumers, while focusing on trendy styles and influencer collaborations for fashion-forward shoppers.
- A technology company is developing a new project management software solution for small businesses. They conduct in-depth interviews with potential customers – small business owners and project managers – to identify their needs and pain points related to existing project management tools. These interviews delve into their current workflows, challenges they face in managing projects, and desired features in an ideal software solution. This research guides their product development roadmap and ensures they’re addressing real customer problems, such as improving cross-team collaboration, streamlining communication, and increasing overall efficiency.
The above examples are just a few that demonstrate the power of consumer market research. Any sized brand, in any category or market, with a low or high budget, can conduct market research to gather valuable insights about their consumers.
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How does quantilope help with consumer market research?
quantilope’s automated Consumer Intelligence Platform offers the largest suite of advanced methodologies to streamline the consumer market research process and empower businesses to make faster, smarter decisions.
With quantilope, brands have access to:
- Real-time insights: Access real-time data and dashboards at any time, simply by logging into quantilope’s platform.
- End-to-end automation: Automate all stages of the research process, from questionnaire design to data analysis and reporting.
- Pre-built templates: Utilize pre-built research templates to get a head-start on your custom research project, or build a fully custom survey using drag-and-drop modules.
- AI co-pilot assistance: Lean on quantilope’s integrated AI co-pilot, quinn, to generate survey inputs and key takeaways or to answer specific research questions.
- Expert support: Along with quinn, receive dedicated support from quantilope's team of experienced research professionals throughout your entire research journey.
By leveraging quantilope's platform, businesses gain a deeper understanding of their target consumers, optimize their marketing strategies, and drive business growth.
To learn more about quantilope’s platform for consumer market research, get in touch below!
