So, what exactly is a marketing research tool? Just like you do research to study a topic to prepare for an exam, market researchers use special methods and tools to get information about a topic. These strategies and techniques allow them to analyze data and statistics in order to come up with the most effective marketing strategies and solutions. Observation is one of the basic marketing research tools that gives you a firsthand look at how people react to try and see how they think and behave. Some of the most common marketing research tools include: surveys, interviews, focus groups, case studies, experiments, and observation. Each one of these marketing research
Marketing research tools are used to help gather information to help companies make strategic decisions. The strategic decisions that you as a company make depend largely on the information that you receive from your marketing research tools.
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.
Common market research methods
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.
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 dangerous
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, and/or marketing message to gain deeper insights.
What makes focus groups so dangerous?
If you’re new to market research, I 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 is no replacement for customer surveys and interviews.
Great tools for market research
1. Google Keywords Tool
The Google Keywords tool acts as a window into the behaviour of consumers when searching online for products or services such as yours. To use this you’ll need to create a Google Adwords account (it’s free however) and it’s also advisable that you read a couple of introductory articles to the tool and making the most of it.
2. Questback
Questback is a premium service that bridges the gap between your company and your target market. It can undertake in-depth research on your behalf and provide invaluable feedback quickly and efficiently.
3. Klout, Kred and Peerindex
Need to build a solid reputation quickly? Then you need to know who the key influencers are in your market; from this you can then approach them to partner up, gain an avocation or learn from their successes. For this there are tools such as Clout, Ked and Peerindex.
4. KeySurvey
KeySurvey is a tool that allows for the creation of your own online questionnaires, you are however required to source your own participants.
5. Google Analytics
Whilst not technically a wider tool providing market research in its entirety, Google Analytics can provide feedback as to how your customers are behaving whilst on your website. It may show you which products many view, but few buy (or vice versa) and it can illustrate what social media channels your customers are responding to, amongst many other insights.
Google Trends
In the same realm as Answer the Public is Google Trends, which surfaces trends data from all over the internet. You can refine by the location you’re most interested in, or go worldwide.
When you enter a term into Google Trends, it shows you how that term has been trending over time, and assigns it a score out of 100. You can also compare different terms to see how they hold up against each other.
As an example, let’s say we enter ‘Christmas’ as the search term. We’re presented with a graph that clearly shows that it hits peak trendiness in December, for obvious reasons, and then trends very low for the rest of the year. And now, as I write this in October 2020, it’s beginning the upward trend again – a sign that perhaps people are willing Christmas to come early.
Conclusion
Marketing research is a process that a business will go through to learn about the needs and wants of their target market. Marketing research tools are methods used to collect data, information, and other insights from consumers, target markets, etc. so businesses can further develop products and services. This article will discuss marketing research tools and what they are used for.