Market research for marketers

How marketing teams can use market research

How marketing teams can use market research 600 442 Beth Hepple

There are many ways in which market research can help to shape the strategy of marketing teams, whether this is to do with planning a new campaign or formatting an existing one. Market research can help develop a marketing plan in so many ways, helping marketers gain audience insights and much more.

  1. Strategy implementation

Market research can help you identify areas of growth for your business and provide the right inputs to inspire ideas that you might not have had before. Plus, if you have insights aligning your business to your customers, you eliminate an element of risk and can have more confidence in your marketing decisions. You can determine the best kind of messaging for your marketing and get an idea of how you should create your marketing content plan in order to generate leads for your brand. You might have more than one approach to a marketing subject, but may not be sure which will be the most successful. The results of your market research could help form the basis of your decision, helping you decipher which is most likely to succeed and have the desired effect.

  1. Know your audience

The results of a successful market research project can help you better understand your audience to ensure that you select the right one for a new concept, or decide how to develop your brand or product to cater to your existing customers. If you conduct market research regularly and effectively, you will also be able to assess how the behaviour of your customers changes over time, so that you can make the appropriate business decisions for a successful campaign.

There are a number of well-known methods and pieces of data which marketers can use in order to help better profile their audience and gain more of an understanding of how they should market to them; understanding psychographics is a prime example of this. If you integrate psychographics into your market research you will learn so much more about your audience, finding out key information regarding their personality traits, that you could utilise in order to make your campaign more relevant. You might think that you know everything you need to know about your audience, but you might also be surprised at how consideration of their personality impacts your messaging and overall success rate when you get this information first hand.

In today’s climate, where citizens are becoming more and more data savvy, marketing teams are struggling to make their email campaigns innovative, because consumers are increasingly more conscious of how their data allows them to be marketed to. Despite big data having a positive impact on campaigns for years, the changes in audience awareness means that big data and survey data need to work together harmoniously to offer the best results.

  1. The knowledge you need to create the best campaigns

You may think you know your brand, but your perception and that of your audience are two completely different things! Conducting market research can highlight a number of points, including:

  • The reputation your brand has
  • What the target market of your brand or specific product should be
  • The kind of things your customers want or need from your brand
  • How aware people are of your brand
  1. Get the edge over your competitors

Market research can help you find out what it is about your competitors that your consumers like. It’s probable that even the most loyal of customers have used a competitor product at least once, so asking the right questions about the things that others in your field are getting right could help you decide on the next direction your brand will move in. You will be able to analyse where your brand is, in relation to the competition, and you can then optimise your position in the market.

Even if you haven’t conducted any kind of market research before and think it won’t have any impact on the success of your marketing campaigns, try it! The notion that market research is costly and time-consuming isn’t accurate with the options that are available today. Self-service survey and data platforms, including CitizenMe, offer accurate results and a rapid turnaround.

All marketers accept that split testing is a key aspect in getting campaigns right. You can use the same logic to test a campaign, one with and one without some background market research. Even if you know your market inside out, your research will identify any changes in your audience’s behaviour and will allow you to adapt your marketing strategy to cater to this, making for even more success with your marketing strategy. Don’t rest on your laurels marketers – dig a little deeper!

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