5 PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF MARKET RESEARCH
Market research is not a new business. But why doing market research is always a big question to many people, especially for startup owners or owners of SMEs in practical business cases. In that past, if it was only considered “a silent arm” supporting marketing and decision making, nowadays, with rapid technological and data development, market research is gradually becoming a trend any enterprise should pay attention to. For new members starting to discover Market Research, welcome to join AIM Academy to go through 5 practical applications of market research as well as popular terms and methodologies.
- NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
“A market without demand” is the top reason in the list of 20 mistakes that lead to failure of startups. (CB Insights, 2018). In fact, not only startups but many companies are also mobilizing up all their resources in bringing products, services into the market, before asking themselves: Whether consumers need it or not? Have you determined a right segment to launch your product? Will your product design satisfy target customers?
It’s not that consumers buy a product, but more like they buy a solution for their own needs. Your brand has responsibility to convince consumers that your products are “great solutions, with customized design for their own problems, because you know them very well lie you know yourself”. In order to do that, making a new product concept has to rely on target customer’s insights, listen to their feedback on sample products before actually launching it to the market. That is the main role of market research in the process of developing a new product.
New product develoment process
Market research is always an important step in the product development phase, especially before concept design. Afterwards, there needs a pilot test before official lauching products to consumers.
- RETAIL MEASUREMENT & AUDIT
According to Nielsen report, traditional trading is still the dominating distribution channel in Vietnam, accounting for 85% of FMCG revenue. However, manufacturers still wonder about their performance in retail channel. How many percentages do their branded products account for in retail channel? Do retailers well support sales of our brands? To solve these puzzles, enterprises must use a retail measurement and audit service – one important application of market research.
Some definitions in this type of market research enterprises have to keep in mind:
Selling Distribution perfomance
Percentage of number of retail stores that sell a brand’s products on total retail channel. This indicator has 2 types: Numeric (counted by the number of stores selling enterprise’ products) and Weighted (measured by revenue proportion of those stores contributing to the brand).
Time frame
In addition to knowing which market and products are being measured, clearly knowing time frame for measurement is another significant indicator in retail audit, because each trend needs a corresponding time frame. For instance, to measure a long-term trend in the marekt can use a year time frame (calender years), short-term trends can be measured by week or month, new product launch can be measured in 3 stages (Pre-Launch, Launch and Post-Launch).
Types of Prices
Retail measurement and audit report can be recognized in a variety of prices: Price of a product package including many separate products (Price per pack) or price per production/per one product (Price per volume).
- CONSUMER PANEL
Parallel with retail audit, enterprises have to measure consumer purchase behavior so as to control distribution situation and marketing activities. Conducting Consumer Panel to research consumer purchase behavior helps enterprises understand who their customers are, what types of products they are buying, at what prices, by which channels and in what quantity.
This research is carried out by surveying a number of consumers or households representing a bigger group of target consumers, by instructing them to record their shopping diary.
Some familiar indicators in Consumer Panel research:
Penetration: Number of shoppers or product users in 100 people.
Average Volume Per Buyer: The average number of products a consumer will buy
Frequency: Number of times a consumer buys the product during a specific period
Average Volume per Trip: Number of products a consumer buys in a shopping
- BRAND HEALTH CHECK
Brand Health Check is a type of market research that helps enterprises identify where their brand is positioned in a competitive market, their strengths and weaknesses, responses of consumers towards their brand, hence make adjustments for marketing decisions.
Brand Health Check contains some following basic indicators:
Brand Awareness Ratio
Trial ratio
Share of Usage
Coverage of the brand in the distribution channel
Conversion Rate
Some popular tools to measure a brand health are: Social Listening (listening to users review and feedback on social networks), Focus Group Discussion, Surveys etc.
- MEASURING THE EFFICIENCY OF DIGITAL ACTIVITIES
Digital research is a new sector yet playing an important role in market research. Nowadays, as enterprises concentrate much resources on implementing digital activities, measuring the efficiency of those becomes a great concern of marketers and business owners.
At present, two most familiar digital measuring tools are:
Brand Lift Insights: to measure the efficiency of a digital advertising campaign toward customers’ brand awareness, providing enterprises a premise to optimize their advertisements.
Social Listening: Listen to customers’ feedback on social network sites about advertising campaigns or about the brand, hence to evaluate and make proper decisions or adjustments.
So, market research plays a prominent role in promoting businesses. Capturing that mindset and how to use market research tools helps enterprises optimize costs and minimize risks in their business activities. To explore marketing perspectives from “talking numbers”, market research methods and efficiency measuring indicators, you can check out the course about Market Research at AIM Academy to join with experts from Group M, Nielsen, Kantar Vietnam and Lazada.
Contact: HOSHA Joint Stock Company Market Research services
Email: hosha@hosha.vn
Website: www.hosha.vn
Hotline: 0906358114
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