How does market research benefit a business?

Market research helps companies perform better, plan future strategies and navigate their ever-changing markets. Let’s talk about some of the benefits of market research and why you should seriously look into how it can improve your business’ performance.

So, what actually is market research? Market research is gathering information on your target markets and consumer demands. To be able to target your audiences correctly and remain competitive, you need to comprehensively understand everything about your audiences, such as who they are. Understanding your consumer segments and researching how to target them is a vital part of business strategy.

1. Reduced investment risk
   • Companies that know where they should be spending their budget to maximise their ROI are less likely to waste money. By investing a small portion of your marketing budget into market research, you will see the benefits unfold in other areas.
2. Help strengthen your businesses position
   • Market research will allow you to pinpoint exactly what your target audience wants, and needs are, giving you a valuable competitive advantage
3. Highlights opportunities and threats
   • Primary and secondary data are undeniably useful and can be used together to identify any threats. This research can then be combined with further qualitative research to identify any opportunities within the market which could be capitalised upon.
4. Presents you and your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses
   • Market research software will use your and your competitors’ past data to highlight any strengths or weaknesses. By doing this, you can benchmark how your competitors are performing for further insights. The benefit of using software such as BOSCO™, which learns from past data, is that it generates completely unbiased reporting and league tables that you can use to a competitive advantage.
5. Identify upcoming trends
   • To be competitive, you usually must be the first to identify and act on new trends in your market. Consumers are always looking to jump on the next big thing, so by conducting thorough market research and staying ahead of the game, you will give yourself some significant competitive advantage.
6. Aids with strategic planning
   • With a strong foundation behind your business’s future, you can ensure that your company will have the best chance at success. Market research will help you make plans on how to stay ahead of the competition in all areas of business.
7. Forecast your revenue
   • Software, such as BOSCO™, that has machine learning algorithms can help you predict what your revenue projections will be. A well-targeted company will focus on the consumer segment which would be most interested in making a purchase, which may not necessarily be the biggest market. However, forecasting software can predict how your company will perform with predictive analytics.
8. Shifts the focus to consumer needs
   • Consumers are the main focus of any business to drive profits and sales. The same should go for market research. Researching what your consumer demands are is a vital part of market research as it highlights areas that otherwise may not have been considered. Consumer market research can be in the form of questionnaires, surveys, reviews and even comments on social channel posts. However, consumer market research can have a significant impact on customer satisfaction.

The benefits of market research are clear, however, there are more reasons as to why you should adopt market research into your processes, such as:

• Market research can give an insight into what competitors think of your company’s positioning within the market. This will give you an idea of your market positioning and share and allow you to evaluate how to grow accordingly.

• Market research will also allow you to gain a true understanding of who your target audience really is. Here, you can highlight which consumers would buy from your business and which ones wouldn’t, opening the door to a new question of ‘why?’.

• Understanding how consumers truly feel about your products will allow you to establish whether you are meeting your customer’s needs. Consumer market research can notify you of opinions about your company which you may not have previously been aware of.

• Similarly, consumer market research can provide your company will valuable insight into the demand for new products and innovation. You can also use past product data to establish how well they performed upon launch, to give you clues on how well the new product will operate.

• Finally, market research can help you with your product packaging, sales/deals, and any other form of promotion. Product packaging can portray a strong marketing message; however, market research can give you a clear indication of how well that message will be received.

Marketing research can considerably develop your marketing strategy and future actions, which is incredibly important for the success of a business. Making good, forward-thinking decisions at the right time can drastically improve your businesses performance. In today’s markets, competition is very high, so by using AI software, such as BOSCO™, you can hone your competitive advantage, and stay ahead of the crowd.

If you have any questions for our team of market research professionals, or would like to find our how BOSCO™ can work for you. Book a demo with our team.