Let’s face it, your competition is constantly growing. To rise above them, you need to stay on top of all major industry trends. Most importantly, you need to understand the needs of your market and your target audience.
This is where a market research comes to shine.
But, if you think that coming up with a few questions and targeting your participants randomly is enough to collect your data, you’re wrong. To make your market research effective, you need to have a strategic and goal-oriented plan to back you.
Here is how to craft one.
Set Clear Goals
The mere structure, hypothesis, and end results of your market research vary. They depend on your needs and expectations. For example, when assessing people’s awareness of your brand, you won’t ask the same questions you ask when doing competitor research.
So, the first step you need to take is to detect your major problems and set realistic objectives:
- What issues do you want to resolve?
- What results do you want to achieve?
- And what type of feedback do you really need to collect to improve your products, brand awareness, or customer retention?
If you find it difficult to identify these critical points, you should conduct a brief, preliminary market research. You can share a short survey on Facebook or Twitter to test your hypothesis before you start working on a full research.
Conduct both Primary and Secondary Research
To make sure the data you collect is as accurate as possible, you should conduct both primary and secondary research.
Secondary research is all about analyzing case studies, reports, and statistics that have been already published. With the data you collect this way, you can see who your major competitors are, identify your target demographic, establish logical benchmarks and, most importantly, understand the demands of your industry.
Primary research is the one you do on your own and it includes stuff like interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and focus groups. Apart from helping you gather the information about your niche, customers, and competitors, primary research tells you what your target audience thinks of you and what they want you to change in the future.
This leads us to another immensely important segment of your market research plan and that’s asking the right questions.
Craft To-The-Point Survey Questions
Now that you have your hypothesis, you need to come up with a list of survey questions. No matter how interesting this may seem to you right now, this is actually one of the most difficult stages of your research plan.
Knowing how to pose a question is as important as knowing what to ask. Formulating a confusing question may lead to misleading answers. And, such answers may result in a series of poor business decisions.
Your questions need to be short, straightforward, specific, and relevant to the participants. Also, instead of choosing only close-ended questions, you should combine them with open-ended ones, as they provide you with a better insight and more honest answers.
Calculate your Research Sample Size
Before you start distributing your survey, you first need to determine your survey sample size. Namely, a sample size is the number of completed responses to your survey. Logically, the larger the sample size, the more reliable the results are.
Now, to calculate your sample size, there are a few terms you need to be familiar with:
- Population size represents the total number of people in your target group. For example, if you’re surveying your employees, the population size equals the number of your employees.
- The margin of error is the percentage of your research results that are different from the actual population value. Of course, a large margin of error tells you that your results aren’t valid.
- Confidence level score is also expressed as a percentage. If it’s 0%, this means that the questions are answered randomly. On the other hand, if it’s 100%, this means that the results are valid and that would be the same if you repeated the survey.
Now that you know these elements, you can calculate your sample size using this formula:
Sample Size = (Distribution of 50%) / ((Margin of Error% / Confidence Level Score)
If you’re not that good at math, you can always use one of those online sample size calculators.
Choose the Right Survey Distribution Method
Creating an awesome research means nothing if you don’t know how to get it in front of your target audience. So, you should carefully consider your target audience to choose the best channel to connect with them. For example, social networks are great for reaching out to Millennials. However, they won’t be that effective if you want to survey older demographic groups.
There are numerous effective survey distribution methods you may use. And, to target wider, diverse groups, you could even combine them.
Paid surveys + social media are a win-win scenario for both you and your target audience
Today, many people take micro jobs to earn some side money. And, one of the most effective ways to do so is to take paid surveys online. Knowing that they will get paid only if their answers make sense, they will answer the questions honestly. For you, this is a great opportunity to collect some unbiased feedback. So, all you have to do is post your survey on one of the numerous survey platforms and then promote it widely on social networks to hook people’s attention.
Here is what you need to have in mind:
- Share a direct link to your survey.
- Team up with an influencer in your niche to help you spread the word about your survey.
- Make your survey about your target audience, not you. Highlight that this is a great opportunity for them to tell you what they think of you and, at the same time, get paid for providing feedback.
Post surveys on your site
You can also add a survey to your site. Most of your website traffic consists of visitors that are already familiar with your brand and interested in what you have to offer. Your goal as a marketer is to go beyond your Google Analytics data and find out more about them.
You can use some standard surveys on specific pages to collect your visitors’ insights. Additionally, you can use a survey as a sign-up form or have a pop-up on your homepage that invites your visitors to take a survey. You can also display it as a follow-up page for people that converted (signed up for your mailing list, downloaded a piece of content, or bought a product).
Send email surveys
Email marketing still helps you drive traffic to your site and hook people’s attention. As such, it may serve as an awesome research distribution method. Most importantly, it allows you to choose how targeted or broad your audience will be.
Now, email surveys are usually distributed in two forms- batch sends and transactional sends. The idea behind batch sends is simple- you craft your email list and send your survey to these contacts at once. This is a great way to survey a large number of people fast.
Transactional sends, however, are sent once an individual completes a certain action. In this case, you’re asking them how satisfied they are with that particular service. These surveys are highly targeted and more relevant to the people taking them.
No matter which option you choose, here are a few tips on how to craft a perfect email survey:
- Make your subject line short, informative, and catchy.
- Don’t make your email promotional. Focus on the respondent and the survey.
- Highlight the importance of the survey and keep your message concise.
- Make it visually appealing and make your CTA easy-to-spot.
Review and Publish your New Market Research Data
Before you publish the results of your research, you need to review them once again. There are a few steps you need to take:
- Analyze your research data once again. You need to detect and weed out all low-quality, subjective, and irrelevant responses that may compromise the results of your research.
- Do some data segmentation. If you surveyed different groups of people, you should filter your answers by population to see who your audience actually is. You could also divide your results according to the learning objectives.
- Publish your results. You can write a huge case study, write a whitepaper, present it visually through an infographic, or even dedicate an episode of your podcast to it. Don’t forget to promote it widely via social media marketing, email marketing, and guest blogging.
Start Making Data-Oriented Decisions
Your market research helps you identify the major problems your business is facing and arms you with a bunch of significant data. Still, it cannot fix those problems for you. This is something you need to do on your own. So, use the information you collected to set realistic objectives, make informed decisions, and overcome the obstacles you’ve been coming across.
Finally, keep your stats up to date and keep track of the industry trends and fluctuations to stay relevant.
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