{"id":114231,"date":"2020-11-09T03:50:48","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T11:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/?p=114231"},"modified":"2025-02-07T02:43:39","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T09:43:39","slug":"marketing-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/marketing-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing research: Definition, steps, uses & advantages"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is marketing research?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Marketing research is defined as any technique or a set of practices that companies use to collect information to understand their target market better. Organizations use this data to improve their products, enhance their UX, and offer a better product to their customers. Marketing research is used to determine what the customers want, and how they react to products or features of a product.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gather research insights<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Four standard marketing research methods<\/b><\/h3>\n

The four most common marketing research methods are surveys, interviews, customer observations, and focus groups. You can research various ways without limiting yourself to just one way. Let’s dive deeper into each of these marketing research techniques.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Surveys<\/b><\/h4>\n

Researchers collect responses by deploying surveys and managing data via online questionnaires or on-screen surveys at the POS. These surveys contain closed-ended and open-ended questions. They are popular and are the most widely used research techniques.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why are online surveys popular?<\/b><\/p>\n

Surveys are inexpensive, simple to set-up, deploy, and gather responses. It gets easy to collect multiple answers from a tailored audience group using surveys. Researchers rely on quantitative data, and online surveys provide quick responses compared to the more traditional offline methods. You can collect large amounts of data within minutes from anywhere in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Interviews<\/b><\/h4>\n

Face-to-face or personal interviews are a more traditional way of doing marketing research. It is a slow and more expensive way of collecting responses. Researchers doing large scale marketing research do not prefer this method to collect a large number of responses. Interviews are conducted both in-person and on the telephone (CATI).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why are interviews important?<\/b><\/p>\n

Personal interviews may not be widely used but play a significant role in understanding precisely what the respondent feels. You can record more than just verbal responses and understand the customer better. Often, when two humans interact with each other, more information is shared because of the dialogue. Personal interviews are useful in small-scale studies, where the researcher wants to interview a specific group of local respondents. CATI\u2019s are helpful when the respondent base is more expansive.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Focus groups<\/b><\/h4>\n

Focus groups or online focus groups involve several respondents who participate in discussions about a particular topic. A researcher conducts focus groups to obtain richer information. The main reason for a focus group is to hold a dialogue between various people on a particular topic of interest. Unlike interviews, focus group members are allowed to interact with each other and influence one another.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why are focus groups impactful?<\/b><\/p>\n

It is no secret that focus groups are hugely impactful in decision making. Researchers gain a lot of information by organizing focus groups. Often, focus groups bring up issues not foreseen by researchers. Online or video focus groups have a broad reach, and many organizations have now started creating and nurturing research communities for better respondent handling and data gathering. Direct interaction of business groups and customers positively impacts users because they feel that their voices are heard.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Observation<\/b><\/h4>\n

Observation, though not popular and widely used, gives intuitive feedback. Research companies organize customer observation sessions to gather information on how they engage with the product or service (or a similar competitor product or service). Feedback from people’s behavioral attitudes is a powerful tool for researchers looking to improve their products and services.<\/span><\/p>\n

What makes observation so powerful?<\/b><\/p>\n

Observational market research<\/a> is an excellent alternative to focus groups. It\u2019s not only an inexpensive research tool, but you will also witness people interacting with and using your product in a natural environment. The downside is that you will have to make inferences about their feelings and reactions.<\/span><\/p>\n

LEARN ABOUT:<\/strong> market research trends<\/a><\/p>\n

How to conduct marketing research<\/b><\/h3>\n

Follow these four marketing research steps to help you understand what your users think and feel about your product, service, or business.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Create simple user personas<\/b><\/p>\n

A user persona<\/a> is nothing more than a fictional character that represents a user or a customer. Understanding user personas will help you gauge how different persons react to other products and services to understand their needs. To create a persona, your questions must answer these types questions<\/a> about the user or customer:<\/span><\/p>\n