The importance of good quality Market Research: Now more than ever businesses have a wealth of data they can tap into, to assist them in the day to day running of their company or to highlight areas ripe for development to keep them ahead of their competitors.
With this in mind we have partnered up with B2B data specialist, Marketscan to examine why good market research is so valuable in shaping an organisation’s success. Whether it’s to identify strengths and weaknesses in a business, to better understanding the needs of clients, or as a tool for making decisions around business development, targeting, or differentiating factors, there is no doubt that professional market research can be hugely beneficial to the strategic direction an organisation takes.
Regular market research can provide a steady flow of up-to-date, reliable data about the really important areas to the business. With Blue Donkey’s expertise this article explores a snapshot of how effective market research can help today’s marketers achieve their goals in the face of constantly shifting landscapes.
Explore new markets and customers
For any business to be truly successful and fulfil its potential, it is important to start by looking at new markets and evolving your offering as trends, wants, and needs change. Technology is continually progressing at alarming rates and this always has an impact on your customer needs.
Understanding existing customers is a fundamental element of a successful business. Knowing your customer’s likes and dislikes, and their rationale for choosing your products or services can be invaluable for enabling new market development initiatives. Researching your customer base to understand who they are, what they do, how they are similar, how they differ, their demographic, their sector, their spend levels, and much, much more can help organisations understand who their product appeals to most so that it can be specifically targeted at that group. Marketers call this ‘heterogeneity’, so finding clients with similar needs and preferences can help them package products in a way and at a price that fits new customers and new markets perfectly.
There are several ways you can approach engaging this segment of a market. For example, you can look at the channels that resonate with them which may include Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn that can be used for targeted advertising. Alternatively purchasing new and up-to-date data for direct mail or email campaigns may be a far more effective way of reaching your target audience. Once you know the channel and the profile you can become more targeted and as a result more efficient and streamlined in your marketing activity which will make your sales team unbelievably happy.
Improve service delivery
Most markets, whether it’s selling products or services, have a level of saturation. Due to this, it is important to really set yourself apart from your competitors to ensure your business thrives.
There are very few products or services where an organisation can honestly boast a truly unique selling point. At best, individual companies will have particular features or benefits that competitors haven’t quite mastered in the same way (the same but better or easier to fathom). Knowing where your product has the edge over your competition is an important enabler of future development. Whether this is faster delivery times, pricing, particular product features, understanding the appetite for your service in comparison with those of your competitors is a great way to maintain a competitive edge.
