Have you found yourself reading this article because you’re in the dark about how a decision is going to impact your business? Or maybe you’re stuck in a rut without knowing how to make your business more successful. Perhaps you simply want to make more evidence-based decisions overall.
Whatever the situation, the change from ‘guessing to knowing’ through market research is going to be profound.
Market research is the process of gathering and interpreting information from the real people that matter to your business to provide you with real insights, helping you move beyond assumptions and guesswork to uncover what truly drives your customers, employees, or stakeholders – getting straight to what works! Imagine market research as your guide to making the most informed decisions in your organisation – no more guessing.
Here we unpack the benefits of market research from the initial insights into the long-term impact.
Immediate insights
You might think market research is purely a long-term investment, but the truth is, it can deliver powerful results right away.
Market research can give you an immediate and specific snapshot of where you are at that time. As it’s independent, you also often uncover insights that would not have been possible if completed internally.
Our clients, VANTEC, experienced this with their employee research, with their Head of Human Resources confirming our insights went much further than their own. Completed to inform their employer brand strategy, we were able to provide them with a clear understanding of what their employees thought about working for them, eliminating questions and uncertainties.
With this information, they were able to know immediately the things they were doing right, and the areas they needed to enhance; no assumptions. Not wasting any time, they quickly implemented new processes addressing some of these gaps highlighted in the research.
They used this employee research to create an employer brand to recruit more employees that would align with their brand values.
Action that takes more time
Market insights don’t stop at the initial eye-opening beginning.
Knowing where you are at the moment is the best place to start, but now you have the momentum and insights to guide you to make decisions and take actions that take a little more time to implement. Businesses are able to plan to fine-tune their offerings to more suitably meet the needs and wants of their clients, stakeholders and employees.
This will depend on the reason for the research in the first place, but some common examples include:
- The evaluation of a current product, or service: insights have uncovered pain points or areas of opportunity to guide the development of your product, really homing in on customer-centric product development. Market research shows you something real, and not just guesses and assumptions.
- Brand perception: research has uncovered the key areas your business is recognised for, but shows that an area of your business that you want to grow is under-recognised and requires a different plan.
- Employee engagement: insights have given your business a clear view of your employee perception, with your strengths but also highlighted areas that risk losing your workforce.
These medium-term actions on the insights your research delivered are where big changes can happen. What you thought was the case may now have clarified and changed, and now is the time to put plans in place to maximise on the new intelligence.
Long term vision
How often you complete market research will differ from business to business, or product to product.
It will make sense for some to be completed periodically – completing a net promoter score each year is perfect example of this – to establish how effective any changes have been and to keep you heading in the right direction, or to evaluate your actions.
Others may be a complete one-off before making a big decision. Our clients at Ryecroft Glenton brought us in recently to help a client of their understand customer perceptions prior to an acquisition.
Some businesses, including our long-standing client, iamproperty, have gone so far as to effectively incorporate market research into their business practices, backing up every key decision with knowledge and intelligence, not guesswork.
It’s time to start knowing
Ultimately, acting on real information from real people grows your reputation and demonstrates you take their voices seriously. It fuels innovation and growth through identifying areas that work and those that don’t.
Through knowing, and not guessing, you mitigate risks when everything is on the line.
Market research really is worth every penny – especially when it comes to generating more pounds!
