Market Research: What You Need to Know

 
Knowing how to do market research is important to understand your business' niche, your target audience and your competition.
 
Many successful companies use this tool, as it offers quality information from a variety of sources.
 
Fortunately, you don't need to have a finished product to learn how to use it; the research can be applied at different stages of your enterprise, serving a variety of purposes.
 
However, the biggest challenge here is to have the necessary knowledge to use this tool efficiently, in an organized manner that generates relevant results for your company.
 
With that in mind, we prepared the following content. Keep reading and learn more about the subject!
 

What is market research?

 
We can define it as a means to understand the market reality and improve decision making within the business.
 
The research helps the company gather important information so that the business can grow based on better and safer decisions.
 

 
This data usually includes consumption habits, behavioral characteristics or benchmarking of organizations from other sectors.
 
Such information can be collected in the following ways:
 
– primary research: all research is carried out by the company that will use the data collected;
 
– secondary search: all research is carried out by a third party — a professional or specialized company — including reports, articles and other materials published by the competition;
 

What are the main types of market research?

 
Each market survey varies depending on the company's goals, the methodology applied and the profile of its audience. See the main types below.
 
Consumption habits

 
This type of market study usually focuses on a company's audience and is designed to better understand its customers, gathering consumer information.

 It is also possible to identify any hidden demands from this data.

 Its main advantage is that it offers the necessary tools to create a strategic marketing planning fully aligned with the wishes of consumers.
 
With this type of research, you can find out which social network your company will have the most results on, which business model is most effective, which pricing strategy to adopt, and other valuable insights for developing a business.
 
Brand strength
 
In this model, the object of study is the company. Its purpose is to identify how much attention your brand receives compared to market competitors, in addition to discovering positive or negative points in branding actions.
 
If your business does not perform satisfactorily with your audience, you can apply the necessary improvements. It will be the data generated by the research that will drive an eventual repositioning.
 
Clients satisfaction
 
Analyzing customer satisfaction with a brand is essential, as they are the ones who decide who grows or who perishes in the market. In this type of study, an evaluation of the feedback is carried out.
 
Consumers rarely access a company's service channels to offer praise or complaints. Therefore, the most effective way to gather this information is by promoting surveys via forms or interviews.
 
This analysis model must be done frequently to win back customers who are about to be lost, in addition to enabling the optimization of marketing actions.
 
Employee satisfaction
 
An internal survey is one focused on analyzing the employees of a company. That's because motivated professionals tend to generate better results and stay longer in their positions.
 
Whenever the team is not aligned with the company's values, or they feel overwhelmed and not valued, negative effects are perceived not only in the development of the business, but also in the relationship with customers.
 

What are the main steps to market research?

 
Traditional market studies consist of interviews and questionnaires that can be completed in person or over the Internet. The steps to create a survey like this are:
 
- objective: establish product variety, improve prices, sell more, etc.;
 
- target audience: competitors, suppliers, employees, or consumers in general;
 
- sampling: number of people interviewed;
 
- road map: consists of the form itself. Questions should be simple and to the point;
 
- analysis: compilation of data, analysis of responses and statistical overview.
 
 

What are the secrets to carrying out assertive market research?

 
There are different ways to perform a research of the kind. You can use quality tools to process the collected data more efficiently. Some are completely free.
 
See the suggestions below:
 
Performance indicators
 
For your research to present reliable results, it is essential that the data collected is also of quality. Portals that present relevant information can be:
 
– Think with Google: official Google page with relevant texts, reports and ideas about the market, technology and consumer behavior;
 
– Sebrae (Brazil): Brazilian Entrepreneurship Support Service is a Brazilian reference in content related to entrepreneurship.
 
Competition Analysis
 
There are platforms that can help you understand the market reality more assertively.
 
Keeping track of what your competitors do is one way to ensure your business is on the right track.
 
The main tools for this purpose are:
 
– Buzzsumo: analyzes the performance of competitors' campaigns and allows monitoring their publication;
 
– Website Grader: drill down into your website and the competition based on SEO, mobile experience and security;
 
– SEMrush: offers numerous features, one of them being “Domain vs. Domain”, which compares your website's keywords with those used by your competitors.
 
Interview with customers
 
As we said above, customer feedback is one of the most valuable pieces of information a company can obtain.
 

 
After all, they know their business well and can provide great praise and criticism about the user experience with your brand.
 
You can include forms on your page with the help of plugins. But, if you prefer to provide a more complete form, you can use the following options:
 
– Typeform: beautiful simplicity, responsiveness and intuitive interface stand out;
 
– Survey Monkey: offers numerous templates and allows you to create custom questionnaires;
 
– Opinion Box: national solution developed by experts for creating online surveys;
 
When should I invest in market research?
 
Many still believe that market research is not as beneficial as it appears.
 
They think there is no reason to follow the strategies of other companies, after all, this can make the business less innovative and just more of the same in the market.
 
However, a market study is not limited to analyzing the competition.
 
It encompasses data from different sources, which provide a complete overview of the entire ecosystem of the enterprise.
 
It is essential to know the market environment in which it operates, understand the obstacles imposed by its strategies, in addition to discovering the needs that have not yet been explored.
 
All this is only possible from a systematic market study.
 
In this sense, in order to understand the best time to carry out market research, you need, first of all, to turn your gaze to the enterprise's needs.
 
That's because you can't start a market study without knowing your own business in depth.
 
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