It's no secret that the business landscape has become more competitive than ever. It's a "dog eat dog" world where companies are willing to do anything to succeed, often at the expense of others.
When a product or service is similar to another one, enterprises must invest a lot of time, money, and people to fight rivals, and while competition is healthy for business, rivalry can be intimidating. Establishing a competitive edge requires turning the tables of the market in your favor.
Traditionally, businesses have used market research to determine what type of customers will buy their products or services. And while there's nothing wrong with this approach, it's best to use market intelligence to streamline your efforts.
The data and information you gather offer continuous insight into market trends like competitors' and customers' values and preferences. The first things that come to mind when you think of traditional market research are polls, surveys, and focus groups. Market intelligence is a better solution because it includes data from sources such as social media platforms, websites, search engines, and mobile apps.
Technology has had a considerable impact on market research, bringing about a new wave of faster and easier-to-use tools that help uncover what customers really think. As you do your best to be the forerunner in today's dynamic landscape, the conventional methods of managing market research have progressed to keep pace with the demands of the digital age.
What Are the Biggest Limitations of Traditional Market Research?
It's paramount to understand and treat customers more effectively than your competitors. You can maintain close contact with the target market via market research but take note of the fact that it's not free of limitations. Traditional market research methods have turned out to be indispensable in developing a deep and meaningful understanding of consumers, which emerges from analyzing data and information gathered through qualitative research.
Nevertheless, their limitations have restricted the ability to seize a real-time, comprehensive, and nuanced understanding of consumer behavior and, above all, market dynamics. Savanta agency in the USA highlights limitations like limited sampling size, time-consuming and costly surveys and interviews, the potential for response bias, and lack of context and in-the-moment feedback.
Until now, market research has failed to adapt to the ever-evolving technological advancements and changes in consumer behavior. But all that has changed. To be more precise, market research has borne considerable transformation in the past couple of years, largely driven by the emergence of technology.
Technology transforms and expands what market research can do, helping brands better understand what their customers truly think in a more effective and cost-efficient way. Companies can generate actionable insights on the spot, therefore improving their decision-making capabilities and seizing new opportunities.
By Leveraging The Latest Technology, Brands Can Stay Ahead of The Curve
In what follows, we'll present the most important technological trends in market research.
Eye-Tracking
Eye tracking systems comprise one or more cameras and light sources, not to mention computing capabilities. They have emerged as a powerful tool to help market research professionals grasp how to optimize brand performance. Eye tracking can be used to identify usability issues in mobile apps or to gauge the effectiveness of advertising campaigns by assessing how long customers look at an ad and what elements they concentrate on. In eCommerce, eye tracking shows how users focus on product images, descriptions, and prices. Try and see what difference it can make to your business.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is used in tandem with traditional market research methods, with favorable outcomes in terms of influencing marketing strategies. AI uses advanced algorithms and machine learning to process large amounts of information in a fraction of a second, making it possible for researchers to gather insights from bigger sample sizes. A main good perk of AI is the elimination of human bias, supplying logic. Simply put, it increases the accuracy and objectivity of decisions. For researchers, it's a qualitative approach that speaks volumes.
Microdata
Microdata is unit-level data obtained from sample surveys or censuses, to name a few. To put it simply, it's information at the level of individual respondents, the understanding of which can prove to be crucial in terms of making targeted business decisions. Microdata matters more than big data because it's about individual consumer activity. If an enterprise focuses on big data exclusively, it risks missing out on key indicators while trying to predict customer trends and improve its return on the investment. Summarizing the results to an aggregate level may lead to information loss, though.
IoT & Wearables
Organizations can use IoT devices and other new technologies (AI, machine learning, and social media) to collect market data and evaluate market trends and performance indicators. Features like machine-to-machine communication, automation, and big data can help marketing managers identify key opportunities and accurately segment the marketplace. Acquiring information with IoT devices for market research allows for opportunities to acquire the desired audience, boosting the conversion rate, building brand awareness, and making swift decisions and choices. Wearables, largely viewed as consumer products, have applications in market research. GPS tracking, for instance, can show participant movements, allowing for interesting insights to be uncovered.
Social Targeting
Last but certainly not least, there's social targeting, which involves collecting data and insights about the target market through the social media channels they use. Over 4.4 billion monthly active social media users are expected by 2025, according to Statista, so it's necessary to take advantage of the precise targeting of niche audiences to drive leads and sales. Social networking sites offer invaluable insights that can increase the odds of success, such as an accurate and deep understanding of how your messages come across. Gather quantitative data – likes and shares – and qualitative data – posts and comments – to understand your customers better.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that, beyond the digitization of systematic methods and processes, technology is actively transforming market research. Great attention must be paid to the related competencies that companies must fully exploit to take advantage of the potential of digital technologies. There’s a stringent need to align marketing and information technology as far as knowledge and capabilities are concerned.
