What are market research tools?

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Market Research is the process used by businesses to gauge their target audience. The research helps a company understand their customers inside out – desires, needs, demands, etc. 

Market research gathers valuable data that companies use to position themselves in the market. The collected data also gives insight into the change in the market environment and the changes that may happen in the future. 

Market Research tools make it possible for companies to conduct Market Research. Market research tools are designed to ease the process of conducting market research. 

Companies don’t have to assume what their customers like. They don’t have to spend too many resources and labor to conduct research. Market research tools can help you gather data that paints an extensive picture of the target market. The tools gather insight that can assist you to build strategies backed up by real data. 

Market Research Software consisting of market research tools can help a researcher conduct surveys at any scale, gather a large volume of data and analyze the data accurately. 

Whether you want to uncover customer’s preferences, market trends, or useful strategies, Market Research Tools can make the entire process a whole lot easier and faster at a low cost. 

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Why are Market Research Tools important for your business?

There is no organization that does not need customer insight to make effective decisions. The research tools help you make sense of the data and make a confident decision for the growth of your business. The tools can help you to understand customers, optimize marketing campaigns, test product or service concepts, etc. 

Market research tools help reduce risks in business decisions. A good research tool should not only collect data but also analyze it. It should provide the insight required to make better decisions and prove hypotheses about the market. The insights should enable you to optimize sales campaigns, advertisements, etc. 

Research tools help uncover the market segments where your products or services are most likely to sell. Analyzing the customer feedback can help you discover where there is a demand for your product which can help you identify your target market.

What features Market Research Tools should have?

There are various platforms on the internet providing different market research tools to help an organization with their market research. To get the most out of your market research you need to equip your company with the tools that fit your purpose the best.

Simple and easy Survey Builder:

You need to make different surveys for different market research purposes. Your market research tool should offer you a survey builder which can be used by anyone from your team. A simple function like Drag and Drop can make the process of creating a survey easy. 

  • A drag and drop feature allows you to simply select a question you want to include, drag and drop it on the survey. This takes less time for the researcher and allows you to focus on other tasks in the market research. 
  • Your survey builder should also offer different types of questions such as multiple-choice, rating scale, ranking scale, NPS® , Likert, emoticon, star scale, etc. A wide variety of questions can make the survey interesting. 
  • It should also offer other advanced features like easily  handling sophisticated logic, advanced skip patterns,multi-language capability, etc. 

Survey Templates:

Other than different types of questions available to build your survey, your market research tool should also provide pre-built survey templates. 

  • The survey templates are created by market research experts. There are templates for all sorts of market research studies and methodologies to fulfill the specific requirements. The survey templates must include all relevant questions and advanced features that aid in online surveys.
  • These pre-built survey templates may also include reporting. The feature will automatically analyze and present the result on the dashboard with the required insights.

A panel of Respondents:

Market research tools nowadays offer access to respondents for the survey from the software you use. Depending on whether you need a general population or respondents from a specific demographic, the tool must let you create your panel of respondents. 

The market research tool should offer rich panel management tools to help you maximize your survey response rates. This feature gives the researcher control over the process of market research and makes it easy to obtain information needed for the objective of the research. 

Omnichannel capability:

You should look for a market research tool that integrates all the collected data in a centralized dashboard. No matter what channel you use to gather customer insight, the tool should synchronize the data and record it in a central database for you to access.

Distribution of Survey:

To gather accurate data for your research your survey needs to be distributed to a broad audience. There are several channels you can use to distribute your surveys to a wide range of audiences. The market research tool you use should be flexible to distribute the same survey over multiple channels. 

Ensure that your market research tool has the following channels for survey distribution:

  • Email
  • Social media
  • Mobile app
  • Website
  • SMS

With multiple channels at your disposal, you can reach a wide audience. As a result not only will you be able to reach the right audience but also obtain accurate data that can be generalized against the entire population. 

Real-time results and Reporting:

  • The real-time results keeps you updated of changes in market and customer demands at the present moment. You don’t want weeks-old data. Cloud-based market research tools offer agility which enables you to get real-time insights. The research tool should turn the data into insights that can help you make important business decisions right away. 
  • The tool should also enable you to report the analyzed insights. It should offer you easy-to-use and read graphs, tables, charts, and other features that can make the report engaging. The market research tool should upload the reports to your dashboard in real-time.

Real-time data and reporting can help you be on track and share the information with the right people. The reports should be easy to understand, the trends should be easy to spot by anyone looking at the report. 

Analytics tools:

Analytics translate your data into information that can be useful for your business. You need to select powerful analytics tools for your market research. 

  • Text Analysis: Uses AI and machine learning to understand customer’s sentiment and identify trends from their feedback. It helps analyze open-text feedback thus providing deeper insights. 
  • Statistical Analysis: Helps quantify quantitative data. It simply analyses the responses to closed-ended questions and provides insightful data. Your statistical analysis should be able to perform
  • TURF analysis – Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency gives you insight on market potential
  • Conjoint analysis 
  • SWOT analysis – Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat
  • Cross tabulation
  • Trend analysis

Predictive Analysis: Uses different statistical analyses to predict the future behavior of the customers.

Integration:

Look for market research tools that can integrate with your existing system. It should allow you to integrate your surveys into apps or emails. This way, your audience can choose the right moment to provide feedback in a few simple steps. 

The market research tool should also integrate rewards into surveys to encourage the audience to participate. These incentives are offered to those who have completed the survey. 

What are the advantages of Market Research tools?

  • Cost-effective: Market research tool replaces a third party research agency which saves your resources. You have to pay half the amount of what you paid a third party agency and get done with your market research. 
  • In-depth analysis: With different types of analytics tools available you can gain deeper insight. You can analyze quantitative as well as qualitative data with these research tools. 
  • Accurate Data: The market research tools gather and analyze the data in real time. This helps you gauge the market as it is in real time. The tools also use machine learning which reduces scope of human error in data. 
  • Data-driven decisions: The research tools provide you with accurate data which helps you to confidently make decisions regarding your business. You can predict customer behavior, identify trends, and determine best marketing campaigns.

How to choose a market research tool?

Be it companies or research agencies, market research tools are used with the aim to gather and analyze data to help a business make better and effective decisions. The features include survey tools with analytics and reporting tools. These features help design a survey, conduct a study, gather data, and turn it into valuable insights. 

There are several factors you need to ensure your market research tools possess:

  • The tools should be simple enough to use even for those with little experience in Market Research
  • It should be powerful for research programs
  • It should integrate with your system

There are several tools available with many platforms offering free trials or demos. You can have a test drive to see how easy or not it is to use the tools, what data it provides, or how it analyzes and reports the data. See if the tools can help you accomplish your research goals with ease before you spend any money on a market research tool.

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