MARKET RESEARCH BRAND IMPORTANCE1

The Importance Of Market Research For Brands

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Market research involves getting know-how on your market. This know-how is then used to fuel informed decision-making. The information provided by market research reflects current trends and so is more effective in guiding companies to take the right steps. 

It is a prudential mechanism that empowers companies with the right knowledge, and without it, companies would just be taking a shot in the dark. So, let’s understand what exactly market research is and how important it is for a brand.

What is market research ?

Market research is the process of gathering relevant data from a target group of people who are suitable and eligible as a source of information for a particular topic using various market research tools. There are a number of methods that organizations consider appropriate for the collection of accurate data that best serves their motive. 

This kind of research provides a layout of the market conditions and consumer mindset. It helps brands decipher what customers like and the aspects they don’t prefer. This research includes a variety of sub-types that differ depending on the nature of the study.

MARKET RESEARCH BRAND IMPORTANCE2
MARKET RESEARCH BRAND IMPORTANCE3

What are the types of market research in the B2B industry?

Market research for brands is a broad category that includes multiple research sub-types. Each type can help you meet specific goals and gather relevant data. Before we jump into the importance of MR in gathering insights, let’s explore the four common types of MR in the B2B industry. 

1. Brand research :

Whether you’re a newly launched brand or a big industrial name, understanding how your customers view and perceive your brand image is very important to planning marketing and messaging tactics. Brand-related research breaks down the customer perspective of the brand and studies it for each individual market segment.

Brand research helps gather insights into the brand characteristics, such as image, personality, recall, and resonance. This helps the brands to modify their brand positioning in a way that makes it appealing to the target audience.

2. Competitive analysis :

As a brand , it is imperative for you to keep a check on your performance as against your competitors. Competitive research provides brands with the information about the efficacy of their current practices, strategies and methodologies adopted by other brands, benchmarking , market share distribution amongst other valuable knowledge. This helps the brand to maintain a stronger competitive footing by defying major and upcoming industry rivals.

3. Customer research :

Keeping customer experience as a priority is a must. Customer-related research helps brands become customer-centric by understanding needs, wants, expectations, motivations, and more. This knowledge is then used to bifurcate the customers into small groups based on their similarities and differences and allows brands to serve individual needs. 

It can be implemented using various online survey tools. This research inquires about customer preferences and how close the brand is to meeting these. Based on this, brands alter their offerings and services to suit the customer, thus developing loyalty.

4. Product research:

Product market research mainly entails understanding customer perception of brand products. Through this mechanism, brands are able to understand if a particular product is market-ready or not. The brand measures the product based on usability, price, packaging, and a set of other relevant characteristics that assist in identifying the plus points and drawbacks of a product.

Also read: 10 Types of Market Surveys & How You Can Use Them

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Why exactly should a brand carry out market research?

The idea behind any market research is simple: The better you know and understand your customers, the better you’ll be able to serve them. However, many organizations ignore the role that nuanced market research plays in the success of the business. 

So here, let’s explore the reasons that should be enough to push an organization to invest and practice conducting regular market research

1. To create customer focus strategy:

In any industry, the customer is king. Customers expect brands to indulge in a two-way interaction with them. This way, customers are able to communicate their ideas and suggestions in a way that is openly accepted and implemented by the brand. The fact that brands engage in the extra effort of enquiring about customer needs, perceptions, ideas, and motivations makes the customer feel that the brands are interested in something more than just their own revenue. 

Gather feedback from customers on multiple channels using omnichannel survey software. This helps generate a loyal customer base, as customers feel respected and valued. 

There is no better way to understand your target customers to help build a seamless customer experience. The more easy it is for your customers to achieve their end objective the more likely they are to stick and promote your brand. 

Market research helps you design a customer-centric approach with its three-way strategy. 

  • It allows you to segment the customers based on their shared characteristics, behavior, demographics, etc. 
  • The segments help you tailor a more targeted approach so you can focus on delivering relevant experience to each segment. 
  • Finally, the feedback helps you position a strategy to address your target market better than the competitors. 

2. To maintain a competitive edge :

The examples of Papa John’s in the USA and Dunkin Donuts in India must be enough to understand the whereabouts of your local or high-level market. Brands need to keep an eye out for competitors who are willing to snatch market share by stepping up their business practices to make themselves more appealing and viable for the customer. 

The idea behind a competitive analysis is to highlight the methods and best practices as the industry benchmark and adapt accordingly to prevent losing customers. Moreover, there is no shortage of competition in today’s markets.

Each of these brands has its own USP to attract customers from relevant target groups. Brands need to strike a balance between the values that they offer to their customers in order to offer a comprehensive customer experience based purely on thorough market research.

3. To identify growth opportunities: 

Market research helps brands in more ways than just evaluating new products or assessing customer satisfaction. When conducted periodically, it can help you discover new growth opportunities and widen your business scope. 

Gathering customer feedback may help you uncover unexplored markets or unreached customers. It can help identify potential customers who just don’t know about your products and services yet. This insight can help you modify your marketing approach to show this new customer base how they can benefit from your brand. 

Through market research, you can also identify the shortcomings in your products or services. With user-reported feedback, you can discover opportunities to improve the product or upsell/cross-sell it based on customer’s preferences. 

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4. To mitigate risk by concept testing :

Developing ideas, products, and services based on the market knowledge of brand personnel is a great way to start, but not a foolproof process that guarantees market success. Once a brand has any concept to put out, it is always a refined approach to test if the market is really ready or excited for the brand’s launch. 

During the development or even when the final product is ready, it is better to test out the concept by evaluating market reaction based on the response of a sample group of people. This sample group is accurately picked in order to resemble the target group of customers for which the brand has designed the concept. This way, the brand can assess and make improvements in a precise manner.

Also read: Making the most of your Market Research Survey

5. To adapt to changing market circumstances:

Market conditions and customer preferences don’t remain stagnant. If a customer preferred your product 5 years ago, there is a higher chance that they may be looking for something different if your brand fails to change in line with market dynamics. It is only through regular market research that a brand stays up to date and adapts to suit the changing circumstances.

This way brands do not go obsolete in the way they function and are able to serve current customer needs. Analyzing trends even points out the earlier trends and practices that are no longer worth investing in. Thus , resources are utilized in an optimized manner while making sure that customers remain satisfied with their brand choice.

6. To capture and evaluate customer awareness :

Conducting market research allows customers to increase their knowledge about the brand and its products, and brands to grasp the customers’ point of view in a holistic manner. Market research gives you the opportunity to understand your target audience better. 

It helps you gather their unfiltered opinion about market strategies, product concepts, brand awareness, and customer satisfaction. In a customer-centric business, every feature of your product, every marketing campaign, visuals, and message should resonate with your target audience. 

A well-thought market research helps brands gain insights into customer psychology while the customer becomes more aware of what they engage with. 

7. To assess marketing strategies:

Your marketing and promotional efforts need to suit your brand personality and ensure that customers resonate with the content. For this, brands can conduct market research to find where the audience traffic is maximum and likely to be more effective. 

Marketing campaigns can be tested to determine audience sentiment and modify the messaging to maximize efficacy. It is also not necessary that your customers have an equal presence on all the available channels of communication. Market research helps to figure out exactly the medium and channel that customers find preferable so that the marketing can be directed in a way that helps reach the target customers.

Conclusion

In the B2B market research landscape, customer feedback is the cornerstone upon which you can tailor your strategies. It helps you grow the business consistently with the support of data-driven decisions. 

It drives innovation by helping you identify unmet needs, emerging trends, and ever-changing preferences. By anticipating shifts in market demands, market research helps you mitigate risks and stay ahead of the curve. 

It fosters customer-centricity by soliciting feedback and gauging satisfaction, thus empowering businesses with the agility to proactively respond to evolving market dynamics and tailoring offerings that align with the target market.

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