With a recession looming, we can expect consumers to slow down their spending and re-evaluate their priorities during these challenging times, and companies alike are often tempted to follow suit.
During times of economic uncertainty, consumer brands often pull research budgets, reduce marketing spending, and turn-in the advertising towel to conserve cash.
However, market research during a recession can maximise profits and save your brand money as industry pull-back creates lower media costs and less competition.
Here are five ways market research can help your brand:
Provides certainty when everything is ambiguous
By gathering and analysing data, market research is able to provide consumers, and companies, with accurate and factual information to make informed, strategic business decisions.
When everything else is ambiguous, market research provides predictability and reduces the uncertainty surrounding important decision-making through data, insights, and analysis.
Taking calculated and survivable risk during an economic downturn is crucial for success to provide certainty and value during uncertain times.
Understanding consumers’ price points and what they’re willing to pay
Market research can help brands to understand consumers’ price points and their price preferences.
During economic booms, recessions and recovery periods, consumers are likely to adjust their spending habits, so it is important for brands to know what price points will deter consumers and which will secure a purchase.
Using market research to identify the optimal price for services and products allows brands to strategically place their products on the market at a suitable price that reflects the current economic conditions.
A good way to understand where consumers’ priorities lie and what their pain points are
During a threat of recession, and more recently a cost of living crisis, it is likely that consumers will slash their spending and search for deals, incentives, and support.
Market research is a great way to understand new consumer priorities and the struggles they are facing. Pain points are the problems consumers face, and to get ahead of the competition, brands use market research to solve them.
Understanding why your brand appeals to consumers, as well as what makes competing brands appealing, can help businesses correctly position themselves and make smarter, more informed decisions during a recession.
Understand what your competitors are doing and how to get the edge over them
Every brand has competitors, but as the economy shrinks, so does the demand. Operating in a smaller market, it is essential for brands to understand their competitors and identify using market research for what makes them different.
By conducting competitive analysis on major competitors, brands can gain insight into competing products and sales, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and identify a brand niche.
Understanding what your direct and indirect competitors do well and how they do it, give brands a significant advantage during an economic drawback.
Using desk research to explore other markets and opportunities
Also known as secondary research, desk research can be used to explore alternative markets and identify more opportunities. By using existing research with proven results, data research helps brands to validate and support important decision-making.
Desk research is a great way to assess the performance of businesses before and after the recession and allows brands to access intelligence to identify tactics and strategies with proven success.
If you’d like to stay ahead of the competition and keep your finger on the pulse of what your customers think, please get in touch today!
