Companies, organizations or professionals who create, develop and/or sell goods and services today cannot ignore the thoughts, actions and characteristics of the end user, be it a person or a company. Because if the Customer Experience speaks above all in terms of quality, numbers are the language through which we can translate listening to the consumer into effective actions.
What is market research?
The term ' market research ' refers to a marketing analysis carried out through the study and interpretation of the main market phenomena and the socio-economic context in which a company operates (reference market, product sector, competitors, consumer behaviour, opportunities and risk factors), in order to allow the company itself to make marketing decisions, product decisions (for example creating a new product or positioning an existing product on a new market) , expansion decisions to improve penetration and acquire new market shares .
Every market research is therefore one of the processes through which marketing actions are built and planned. In the same way it allows to decide whether to start a business or expand the range of products and services offered, showing the decision maker what the opportunities and risks of any decision are, in order to build effective strategies.
Through market research, the behaviors expressed by the end user, as well as their decision-making processes, are studied and analyzed in order to develop, in other business processes, appropriate decisions, which aim to satisfy the needs and requirements of the recipient of the product . If carried out correctly, market research is probably the best source of information for the professionals who, within a company, deal with making marketing decisions (and not only).
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Why do market research and who needs it
Doing business is always a risk, but thanks to market research it is a calculated risk with the aim of obtaining an objective competitive advantage.
Research is essential to understand market trends, consumer behavior, needs and trends, even in comparison to your competitors.
One of the most studied aspects through market research is that which concerns consumers: their experience ( Customer Experience ), satisfaction ( Customer Satisfaction ) and the path towards the purchase of your products and services ( Customer Journey ). Analyzing how your target customer behaves and how they experience the relationship with brands and in particular with your brand allows you to adapt operations to meet their needs and to fill any gap between what you promise, what the customer expects and what they actually receive.
What needs to be understood is therefore first of all the business objective that you want to achieve through the market research, since different surveys will provide answers on different aspects of the company: from the perception of the brand to the products, from customer service to sales service, from the use of e-commerce to communication, etc.
Business goals you can achieve with a market research
As we can easily imagine, through a marketing analysis we can reach very different objectives, belonging to different moments in the life of a company:
Evaluate the opportunity to start a business in a specific sector or find new business opportunities by analyzing the demand in your target market;
Identify any risk factors;
Identify current and future trends by adapting production, service provision and consumer and customer relationship strategies;
Through a competitor analysis, verify the activities and positioning of competitors, between errors and winning strategies, to find the right way to differentiate yourself in your sector and increase your market share;
Study Customer Journey and Customer Experience to transform the consumer into a customer, build loyalty and start a powerful advocacy strategy;
Align the activities of different stores to a single strategy with precise objectives based on objective data.
