5 Basic Methods of Market Research to Use for Your Business

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No business can ever be as successful as its owners want it to be without proper and sufficient market research. The more information you can get about your target market, the better you can be when it comes to developing and improving products and services. Market research gives you insight into practically anything, such as what your customers like or dislike about a product or service, and can help with things like pricing. 

For example, Conjointly’s Van Westendorp PSM is one research method you could use to assess what price range the market considers to be fair for your product.

Today’s businesses can take advantage of market research software and tools that can help make research easier, faster, and more accurate.If you’re preparing to do some research for your business, here are the basic methods to try.

1. Market Surveys

You can prepare straightforward questions for a sample group representing your target market. It’s ideal to have as many respondents for your survey as possible. This will give you more reliable results. Nowadays, market surveys can be done in four ways:

2. Focus Group Discussions

In a focus group discussion (FGD), you will gather a group of people that represent your target market. A moderator leads the discussion, asking prompt questions related to what you want to know from the group. FGDs can give you a more in-depth look at what consumers think since they can elaborate on their answers better. At least three FGDs can give you balanced insights.

3. One-on-One Interviews

This is basically like FGDs in a way that the questions are typically open-ended, and respondents are given a chance to further explain and elaborate on their answers. However, these personal interviews are performed one-on-one. Unlike in-person surveys, personal interviews are scheduled, longer, and more in-depth.

4. Field Trials

If you already have a new product, you can directly perform market research by putting the product on display. This lets you get information on how attractive your product is to customers and how the packaging performed under real-world in-store conditions, for instance. This information can help you improve your product further.

5.Market Observation

The simple observation of market behavior and trends can already give you an idea of how your products and services need to be developed and improved. If you have a store or office, you probably have security cameras installed. You can use the footage not just for security purposes, but for market research as well.

Deciding Which Is the Best Market Research Method for Your Business

Choosing the best research method will vary depending on what type of business or industry you’re in. You can also combine all of these methods as long as you have the workforce and budget to perform them.

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