Consumer Research Studies: What it means and why your business needs it

The most important stakeholder in your business is your consumer. If you want to grow and scale, you need to take a lot of time to understand your customer needs. One of the best ways to do this is by conducting consumer research studies. In its simplest form, consumer research involves identifying the preferences and motivations of your targeted customer by using them as your respondents in the research method. 

Identifying your customer segment and persona

While you may be selling a product or service that can be used by everyone, keep in mind that every business has a targeted customer. The first step to understand your consumer is getting to know your customer groups and buyer personas. A customer group or segment is simply a group of people who share the same traits such as spending habits, age, and interests and make specific purchasing decisions. Understanding these traits will allow you to create campaigns that are best tailored to those specific groups.

Consumer research allows you to understand what these customer segments prefer so that you can improve your product and successfully market it. At Product Insights, we use multiple consumer research methods to collect data about your target customers. The most common ones include focus groups, one-on-one interviews, and surveys.

Interviews

To start with, interviews can be the first way to get detailed insights into your customers’ needs, wants, and motivations related to your product or service. However, preparing interviews, especially internally is quite time-consuming for most organizations. Product Insights allows you to carry on with other critical aspects of your business as we handle every interview on your behalf. Your organization can use all the data collected from interviews in every aspect of marketing. It’s a solid way to gather data, especially if you have the resources and skills to ensure the interviews are done properly.

Surveys

Another popular consumer research method is the use of surveys. At Product Insights, we have been approached by many organizations looking to get their customers to participate and provide feedback in a quick and simple nature. We recommend surveys if you want to reach hundreds or even thousands of customers at a time and get feedback that will not only help you to improve your product or service but also make your customers feel valued. Surveys can be done via email, over the phone, or using survey apps and websites. You may also choose a survey that’s self-conducted where the respondents read and respond to the questions attached on their own or one that is conducted by someone who records their answers.

Analytics

Product Insights also conducts consumer research by using analytics. In this case, we look at actual customer data to understand certain trends and behaviors. This is more of an observational research, which we recommend to really keep track of changing behavior and advise organizations on how they can make improvements to get better results. Product Insights offers consumer research that can help start-ups make improvements based on factual data in order to scale and grow so contact us today to get started.