Marketing and market research are crucial aspects of every business, regardless of size. You must have planned to start market research at some point in your entrepreneurial journey. But have you planned according to the latest trends in market research?
As business models evolve, researchers and marketers are finding new ways to conduct market research using technology. These innovative shifts will greatly impact how businesses conduct market research in the coming decade.
Let us look at five market research trends that will change how you look at market research.
1. Mobile-first online surveys.
Online surveys are loved by marketers, entrepreneurs and researchers alike. In fact, they are the most popular type of market research survey of all.
Online market research surveys are cost-effective and relatively easy to set up. That is probably, the reason why they are so popular among everyone.
Research reveals that mobile phones were responsible for around 68% of web traffic globally in 2020. As more internet users prefer smartphones for staying online, the prevalence of mobile surveys will pick pace.
Mobile-first market research survey platforms that focus on conversational surveys, like TypeForm, SurveySparrow, Pollfish, etc., promise higher response rates. Keeping in mind that most of us use smartphones for literally everything, it is no surprise.
Hence, a mobile-first survey design is a sure-shot way to get better response rates. Many companies use contextual, in-app surveys to gain insights from their existing app users. If you are planning on building a survey, here are a few tips:
- Plan your survey around mobile screens — keep your questions short and simple.
- Make your surveys visually attractive with minimal prerequisites or requirements.
- Pay attention to building a user-friendly survey navigation and questions flow.
- Highlight incentives throughout the survey to increase completion rates.
A market research tool like TypeForm offers excellent examples of creating mobile-first market surveys if you need inspiration.
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2. More market research will happen in-house.
The pandemic has led almost every business owner to rethink marketing spending. This has largely impacted how market research is conducted.
According to a report by SurveyMonkey, more companies are now shifting from outsourcing their market research needs to building in-house teams.
Enlisting third-party vendors for insights speeds up the research process but severely impacts the quality of insights. In fact, according to a report by Qualtrics, data quality is a major challenge, with 77% of firms getting just ‘above average or ‘moderately better than average insights.
In this day and age, where spending is a concern, wasting money on just above-average insights will not make a cut. Companies want to be more involved in the process, take ownership, do not want to rely on data just handed over, and are slowly shifting to building internal teams.
Read More: Why are brands moving audience research in-house?
3. Faster, more cost-effective market research.
In times like these, when Elon Musk takes over Twitter and fires everyone overnight, moving slowly can be a disaster recipe for any startup.
In fact, a report by McKinsey reveals that businesses are moving 20-25x faster in the post-pandemic world. Most focus on making changes that save costs and improve the bottom line.
When you have to move fast, you cannot be patient and wait weeks for respondents to fill out your market research survey. Instead, you need to be agile and gather insights in real time.
Traditional market research methods fail at that, and that is where technology kicks in.
Almost 67% of businesses are eager to try new and innovative market research techniques and solutions post-pandemic. Most are interested in gathering consumer feedback to improve their proposition, offer and make changes to their product for success.
With budget cuts being a reality and pressure to stay relevant, tools that promise automated research are picking pace.
Industry research reveals that 60% of market researchers say automation has helped them deliver results faster and lower costs. This trend of moving in favor of conducting real-time research using automated tools will grow.
4. Use of social media listening for real-time insights.
Ever seen anyone who is not on social in 2022?
Except for a few, almost everyone is on social media. When the whole world is on social, it becomes a hotpot for gathering insights, just like the real world.
All of the people on social media love to post about themselves. There are conversations, opinions, interactions, posts, likes, engagement, etc., all of which offer deep insights into your customers’ needs and wants. 80% of social media users post about themselves.
Essentially, social media is like the ‘voice of customer’. You can learn a lot about their preferences, attitudes, and interests by looking at their social media feed.
Combined with the need for real-time insights, companies have started looking for social media research methods to find more about their audience.
Businesses use tactics like social media listening to capture customer sentiment in real time. For example, an airline tracking all the positive and negative banter about their service on Twitter.
Social media listening will only pick pace with increasing social media users. But one should keep in mind that social media for market research surveys can offer skewed results. Primarily due to the herd mentality, as you have seen with TikTok trends.
A better approach will be to start recording the voice of customers by concluding different mediums like customer reviews on online portals and social media posts.
5. User-generated Content (UGC) as a data source.
Data privacy is a serious concern globally, leading to hurdles in accumulating data through online surveys. Even users who actively opted-in for market research surveys sometimes hold back their responses.
According to several market research professionals, accessing valuable information is getting harder and harder. Top it up with the crackdown on online activity tracking tools, third-party cookie tracking, and you have a nightmare for analysts who rely on such sources for market research.
As things get more complex, companies are focusing more and more on trying non-intrusive ways to gather real insights. One such way is to encourage users to share content about the company, known as user-generated content.
User-generated content inherently solves the data privacy issue. It is shared voluntarily by the user, so you can use it as you want.
AI-based tools can analyze UGC to conduct sentiment analysis for a brand, understand the pain points, take note of brand perception, and more. A tool like GapScout can help you leverage UGC, such as online reviews, to get closer to your customer.
AI/ML will Revolutionize Market Research. Start Unleashing the Power of AI with GapScout.
All the market research trends point towards using artificial intelligence for market research. Not only will it save time and money, but it can potentially improve the quality of data.
In fact, 31% of the researchers and brands feel that an automated data quality solution can solve several business challenges. AI tech has the potential to change this for the market research process. No doubt, it will improve market research effectiveness and efficiency.
GapScout is a robust market research tool powered by AI that can automate your market research and analyze insights based on real-time reviews. Start using GapScout for market research and leverage the benefits of being an early-mover when it comes to automated market research today.
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