How Can Your Brand Benefit from High-Quality Market Research?

Market research is an exceptionally intricate field of work. It often plays a determining factor in the success of a brand’s growth, its product development and customer satisfaction rates, yet it can be difficult to get right.

Although it may seem like an overwhelming task upon first glance, it is nonetheless essential in your efforts to streamline your branding.

Without the right tools, market research will likely have you fumbling around in the dark. Getting hold of data is fairly easy, but said data needs to be reliable if it is to retain any value whatsoever, otherwise, you could be led along the wrong path.

If you wanted to find out more about a fascinating aspect of the business arena, here are some of the many, many ways in which your brand can benefit from high-quality market research.

Using Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is valuable. So valuable in fact, that it has the potential to influence the direction your brand ends up taking in the long run.

For example, say you needed to do some follow up research in order to alter, adapt, or improve one of your latest products – conducting customer interviews and approaching your process through the lens of the consumer might be the best way to go. After all, they are the ones who need to be appeased for your brand and your products to remain desirable.

The interview process can be time-consuming and possibly even inaccurate if measures are not put in place to ensure that the most important information is not lost in the heat of the moment.

It is likely worth implementing a reliable and accurate media transcription solution like Verbit into your process, as this can allow you to assuredly record and revisit your interview findings.

Using transcriptions can save you a huge amount of time in this area, as it essentially negates the need to sort through the information and type up your conversations by hand.

Determining Your Brand’s Position in the Market

Establishing your brand’s position means finding out where exactly you currently sit in relation to your customers and the competition.

It can be extremely hard to determine this position without credible research to back it up in the first place.

You may be barking up the wrong tree if you fail to seek out any external input, no matter how strong your business analytics might be.

Conducting market research is a wonderful way to gain a deeper insight into where your company stands in the eyes of the customer and in relation to your rivals, which in turn, can inform your next move.

Supporting Your Expansion

If an expansion of any kind is on the cards, market research is a must. For starters, there needs to be an audience to reach if you aim to take your brand further afield.

An audience should exist; it is simply a question of discovering them. Five key research points to think about in this regard include:

#1. Customer Demand

If there is no demand for your product outside of your current localized processes, you may have a hard time selling anything. A lack of demand for your brand might stem from fierce competition or an absence of necessity.

#2. Who is Your Customer?

This is possibly one of the most important findings in all of market research – who exactly is your customer? Finding out what your customer might look like in unfamiliar territory is tough, but once you do it, you know exactly how to present your brand.

#3. Rules and Regulations

Your brand’s message, while it might be noble and perfectly reasonable to your current audience, may not translate elsewhere, particularly if you were thinking of going global. Taking a look at the local rules and regulations should inform you on which direction to take when it comes to advertising.

#4. What do You do Differently to the Competition?

If you are struggling with breaking into a new market, you may need to obtain some more info about your rival companies. For example, what differentiates your brand? Is it your values? The quality of your product or your customer service?

#5. Recognize Cultural Sensibilities

A successful branding stunt may work wonders for one audience but fall flat on an international scale. Recognizing the difference in cultural sensibilities can help you in a myriad of ways, from your brand’s tone of voice to your overall aesthetic.

Expansion is difficult, but the potential for reward is certainly an enticing point, provided you have the research to back you up.

Monitoring and Improving Your Processes

It can be hard to say what you are doing right or wrong without acknowledging the real-world consequences of your business decisions.

Branding is no different in this regard. If an advertising campaign works, it works for a reason, it is not magic, there a rational and logical reason behind it.

Similarly, if a campaign fails, you need to know why it has failed if you wish to make better use of your marketing budget in the future.

Market research can be used to identify these points. In a competitive environment full of actors who thrive on data-driven decisions and process, learning how to obtain and practically apply that data to your own branding efforts can help you come out on top.

Monitoring your own processes is one of best ways to identify areas of improvement, and if there aren’t any areas to improve in, the chances are you are not looking hard enough to begin with.

Pricing

Learning how to effectively price products can be the making or breaking of a small business, especially one who is just starting out.

Solid pricing helps define your brand while it simultaneously represents the value and desirability of your product.

Bad pricing turns customers away before they even give you a second thought. Using market research to determine the position and value of your product can be a good way to avoid this potentially disastrous pitfall.

While it can be pricey, market research has a habit of paying for itself many times over in the long term.