In the world of business, the ability to obtain reliable market research is essential for success. As a business owner, you need to understand customer preferences and behaviors to make informed decisions. However, it can be challenging to find the right market research tools that can help you stay ahead of the curve. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to the best market research tools to use in 2023. In this blog post, we’ll explore the various types of market research tools and how they can help your business. Let’s dive in!
Marketing research tools are an essential part of any successful business. They provide companies with valuable insights into customer needs and preferences, as well as overall market trends. Common examples include surveys, focus groups, interviews, and observational studies. Surveys are an effective way to collect quantitative data from large numbers of people, while focus groups and interviews allow companies to gain qualitative insights.
Observation studies provide a way to track behavior and preferences in real time. By utilizing a combination of these tools, businesses can gain a more accurate picture of their target market and develop effective strategies.
Let’s discuss the different types of market research tools available, the benefits of each, and how to choose the best ones for your business.
Just because you have terabytes of market research data at your disposal doesn’t mean you’re necessarily getting an optimal return on your investment of time, effort, and capital. This is where data storytelling comes in, you need to be able to make sense of huge swathes of data at a glance and this can only be done by having the context and full visualization of the data you are trying to interpret.
This can be a problem without the right data visualization tools. Fortunately, Business Intelligence tools like Tableau make it easy to interpret market research data in colorful and highly customizable graphs and charts.
What’s more, it’s easy to share market research data with your workforce. Because market research can have implications for all departments, their metrics, and their KPIs, this is highly advantageous. It helps put research data in the context of departmental goals as well as the bigger picture.
Whatever your market research strategy, there’s a good chance that surveys play a part in it. What simpler way is there to find out what your target audience thinks about you than by asking them?
Tools like SurveyMonkey allow you to create and share fully customizable surveys for free. What’s more, it also has a range of scalable paid options which include provision for sample selection, data analysis, and bias elimination. SurveyMonkey even offers outsourced brand management and marketing solutions to small business clients.
However you choose to make and distribute your surveys, there are ways you can make sure you get the most out of them.
A survey has little value on its own. It’s the responses that provide the data from which you can form the meaningful insights you need. And guaranteeing responses, even with a robust social media presence, can feel a bit too much like trusting in luck for some.
Qualtrics Panels, however, can provide users with access to hundreds of thousands of opt-in survey respondents in the B2B and B2C space. All respondents are already vetted and qualified so you can be assured of a high volume of meaningful, high-quality responses.
In the post-GDPR landscape, there’s no such thing as being too careful — even if you’re confident in knowing how the legislative changes will affect your business. When you conduct market research surveys, you unwittingly risk a lapse in GDPR compliance.
Fortunately, there are automated tools that make it quick and easy to create GDPR-compliant surveys through methods such as anonymization, processing restriction, consent questions, and fair processing measures.
If you’ve implemented the above survey tools but still received lackluster responses, perhaps you could take steps to make your surveys more effective. Typeform is a cloud-based survey management platform that specializes in the building of optimal online forms and surveys.
Its suite of capabilities eclipses those offered by SurveyMonkey with a range of functionalities for survey design, configuration, and distribution. It even has its analytics tools within the same suite.
Finished forms can be embedded and distributed in several ways such as on-site pop-ups, push notifications, emails, or social media links. There are even native integrations for MailChimp and Google Sheets to make sharing results easy.
Video is a great way to capture live interview data and help research teams to create a permanent record of everything that is communicated by respondents. However, one of the inherent problems when working with video is that it isn’t searchable in the same way that a text document is. At least… not without the right tools.
Video coding software allows users to make videos searchable by keywords or phrases so that they don’t need to waste time searching for the exact part of the video they need. This makes for quicker and easier access to meaningful insights within video footage.
If you’ve been following the latest trends in market research, you’ve likely already heard of MAXQDA. MAXQDA is the result of several evolving technologies including facial recognition and sentiment analysis. Because it can be applied to online video focus groups, it allows researchers to deliver insights at scale — even for high volumes of respondents. This means that researchers no longer need to sacrifice quality for quantity.
Respondents will typically share more information verbally than in writing, which makes MAXQDA an extremely effective tool for gleaning quality data. When integrated into online surveys they can help to ensure that both “hard” and “soft” data are mined for valuable insights even when dealing with big sample sizes.
Speaking of searchability… market researchers (whether partners or internal) tend to collect a lot of video and audio data. So much so, that it can be extremely difficult to mine all these hours of footage for insights. Even if the content of the qualitative data itself is high value, the lack of searchability can create a barrier that makes it borderline inaccessible, especially when dealing with larger sample sizes
Transcription services are an affordable and scalable way to get actionable insights from large volumes of video and audio data. Many services provide different kinds of transcripts. For example, detailed notes may suit market researchers best as the transcript type cuts away any irrelevant filler words and ensures everything is on-topic, meaning you get the exact data you want.
Many transcription services are also industry-specific, so they’ll know exactly what market researchers need from their transcripts, and don’t battle with industry jargon making them a helpful solution.
Along with exit surveys, In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) are the bread and butter of market research. And if you carry out IDIs over the phone, call recording software is an essential investment.
It can be implemented over both PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) and VoIP (Voice over IP) frameworks. It collects and stores call data automatically in a digital audio file which can later be retrieved, played back, and shared to make the call data from recordings readily accessible to all. Again, transcription services may be useful in conjunction with call recording software to create better searchability of call data.
You don’t always need to engage customers to collect market research data from them. They may be telling you a great deal every time they log into and browse your website. Their behavior online can tell you about which products are of the most interest to them, what sort of content they engage with, and even potential barriers to conversion.
Google Analytics is a free and easy-to-use suite with an intuitive dashboard that helps you to get easy access to useful insights. There are a great many other analytics suites available, but Google’s free tool should be more than capable of meeting the analytical needs of most market research teams.
CRM platforms are useful tools for all kinds of business operations. Sales teams use them all the time to track the customer journey through their pipeline and ensure continuity of service to the customer. But there are myriad ways in which they can be effectively leveraged by market research teams.
They can be used to identify market trends, gauge customer preferences, test the feasibility of new products within your existing market, carry out competitor analysis and even anticipate future consumer perspectives.
Sometimes the most effective tool is the one you had in your inventory all along. Looking at your CRM differently can be a valuable source of market research data, without additional expenditure.
The market research tools available in 2023 can provide invaluable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and trends. By utilizing the latest technology, marketers can gain a better understanding of their target audiences, thus allowing for more effective marketing campaigns and strategies. With the right tools, businesses can capitalize on their research and gain a competitive edge over their rivals.
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