Do you know the old saying, “What gets measured gets managed?” It’s one of those adages that’s so famous because it’s true. There’s no sense in putting time and resources into data collection if you’re not going to do anything with the numbers you gather.
Of course, reaping the rewards of good data collection starts with knowing how to collect marketing insights responsibly. We’ve gathered some best practices for making sure your marketing research doesn’t fade away once your survey is completed.
| Takeaways |
|---|
| 1. Effective marketing research involves not just collecting data, but also utilizing it strategically to drive decisions. |
| 2. Data should be distilled into actionable insights, preventing it from becoming irrelevant over time. |
| 3. Utilizing tools like Google Trends can help in maintaining the relevance of collected data. |
| 4. Market segmentation plays a crucial role in ensuring that marketing efforts are targeted and impactful. |
| 5. Proper archiving and organization of research data are essential to avoid its gradual decline in usefulness. |
1. Don’t Expect Marketing Research To Be A Quick Fix For All Your Business Problems
You’ve probably heard a thousand times that marketing research is a long-term investment that pays off in the form of a better product or service over time.
The truth is, though, if you don’t have the right mindset about what it takes to do marketing research successfully, you might be tempted to squander your hard-earned money on an underperforming project and then give up before seeing any results.
While it may be true that there are no quick fixes in this world (except for maybe those weird glasses that make everything look purple).
If your business is looking for short term gains from its marketing efforts, then perhaps it would be better served by taking out a loan or hiring out some labor instead of investing in research.
Looking to maximize the potential of your survey research? Learn how to make literally millions of dollars with survey research by gaining valuable insights from your data.
2. Use Marketing Research To Inform Your Company-Wide Strategy, Not Just Commercials, And Promotions
Marketing research can be used to better understand your customers and their needs. But it also helps you figure out how others are doing, whether that be your competitors or even the global economy.
This information can help inform company-wide strategy, such as how you market your brand and where to invest resources to get the most return on investment.
Marketing research also provides insight into what employees want from their workplace culture and leadership teams. This information can help inform employee engagement initiatives across departments, driving up productivity as well as morale among team members.
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3. Keep Your Marketing Research Current
When you’re doing marketing research, it’s important to keep your information up-to-date. You don’t want to be in a position where your data is out of date and inaccurate when you need it most. Keeping your data fresh can help avoid this problem.
Keeping track of your marketing research is another way to stay current with the latest trends and developments in the field.
Keeping a record will enable you to quickly retrieve any information that may have been used previously but has since become outdated or irrelevant due to recent changes in technology or society as a whole.
This also allows for a smoother transition between projects as well as easier collaboration between team members who might have different schedules or responsibilities outside of work hours when there isn’t time left over for research on their behalf.
4. Recognize When You’re Too Close To The Forest To See The Trees
At some point in your marketing research, you may find that there are holes in your assumptions or that you’re struggling to see the forest for the trees. That’s when it’s time to bring in an outside perspective.
Know when you need to bring in an outside perspective: If your clients are saying one thing but your data says another, then maybe it’s time for a fresh pair of eyes.
You might have been looking at things from one angle for too long and need someone who can look at them with fresh eyes.
Know when you need to bring in an outside expert: If no one else on your team has ever done this type of research before (or even if they have), then ask around until you find someone who can advise on how best to proceed with what looks like a complicated task.
If possible, meet with this person over Skype so they don’t need travel expenses paid by your company!
Know when you need a consultant: A consultant will be able to recommend tools that might help make this process easier than going at it alone;
However, consultants aren’t cheap and might not offer much value beyond their knowledge base if they don’t have experience working with businesses similar to yours.”
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5. Use Focus Groups To Create New Products Or Services, Not Just Improve Existing Ones
Focus groups are a great way to get feedback on your product or service’s design, but they can also help you generate ideas for new products and services.
If you’re developing a new product, focus groups allow you to identify unmet needs in the market, and if you’re looking for ways to improve an existing one, focus groups can provide insight into what customers like best about it.
In either case, focus group participants will provide valuable information that helps improve your understanding of how customers think about specific features of your business and how those features affect their behaviors and preferences.
6. Make Sure You Have Enough Knowledge Of Your Industry And Customers To Ask The Right Questions
The first thing to understand is that you can’t ask the right questions if you don’t know your industry or customers well enough. If it’s not obvious which questions will help you get the insights you need, then spend some time getting educated before moving on to the next step.
Next, make sure not to ask questions that are too broad or too narrow: if they’re too broad, they won’t give us anything useful; if they’re too narrow, we might miss out on valuable information that could help us improve our product or service.
We also want to avoid asking specific questions (like “What do I want?”) because they can feel like an invitation for people to tell us what they think we want them to say and since nobody ever wants more of anything than what they already have, this usually leads to useless feedback.
Finally, steer clear of personal questions like “How many children do you have?” and technical ones like “Can I see your source code?” because these are either inappropriate or irrelevant for most purposes.
7. Know How Best To Use Each Type Of Marketing Research Method – Surveys, Focus Groups, And So On
First, you need to know the difference between qualitative vs. quantitative research. Qualitative methods involve asking open-ended questions and observing participants in their natural environments;
These are most often used when you’re trying to get an understanding of a person’s feelings or thoughts about something.
Quantitative methods involve asking closed-ended questions and/or using statistical analysis; these are most often used for getting objective data about your audience’s behaviors or attitudes toward certain topics.
Second, you need to understand what primary vs secondary research entails: primary research is original data collected from sources such as surveys, focus groups, and interviews;
Secondary research involves analyzing existing studies that have already been conducted by others (e.g., Census Bureau reports).
Finally – and this may seem obvious at first glance – but it’s important not only that you understand which type of marketing research method will work best for your situation (i.e., which approach is most likely going yield the answers/insights needed).
But also which form(s) of that particular method would deliver those results best (i.e., if there are different ways one could go about conducting a survey).
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8. Learn How To Use Metrics And Data Visualization Tools To Analyze Results More Effectively
As you’ve seen, doing marketing research is not a one-and-done affair. It requires continuous analysis and improvement so that you can make the most of your results. You also need to ensure that your data doesn’t fade into oblivion.
Data visualization tools can help with both of these tasks in several ways:
Visualizing data in an easily understood format makes it easier for people who aren’t experts in statistics or mathematics to understand the findings from your research project.
This is especially important if you have multiple stakeholders (e.g., senior managers, customers) who will be using this information for different purposes and want different types of information from it (e.g., sales forecasts).
Data visualization tools allow such stakeholders to quickly analyze large amounts of data by providing interactive visualizations like charts or graphs.
Rather than having them sift through spreadsheets full of numbers and text tables on their computers or laptops without any context around what they mean or how they relate up again another metric value.
9. The More Detailed Your Goals Are, The Better Your Results Help You Achieve Them
Your research is a tool. It’s meant to help you achieve goals that are important and meaningful to you, your organization or your business. If your goal is vague or unclear, it’s going to be difficult for anyone to use the information in a way that will benefit them.
Here are some examples of good goals:
- Increase sales among millennials in our target market by 15% in the next year.
- Better understand our customers’ motivations for choosing our product over competitors.
10. Find Ways To Capture Insights From Brainstorming Sessions And Share Them Among Team Members
Once you’ve finished the brainstorming session, it’s time to capture what you’ve learned.
If you’re using a tool like Evernote or Google Keep, feel free to make a note of every idea that comes up even if it doesn’t seem particularly valuable at first glance. You may find that some seemingly unrelated comments are related!
If you’re working in a team environment, consider sharing these ideas with others through Slack or Basecamp so everyone can contribute their thoughts on each topic.
If you have access to Trello or Asana (or similar project management software), use those platforms for tracking progress and assigning tasks to team members.
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11. Incorporate Feedback From People Outside Your Organization – Customers, Partners, And Other Stakeholders
Incorporating customer feedback into your marketing process is one of the most important things you can do to improve your organization.
Customer feedback can be used for improving products, services, and marketing campaigns. It’s also great for improving customer retention and satisfaction.
12. Integrate Customer Comments Into The Decision-Making Process Throughout Your Whole Organization-Not Just In Marketing
To make sure that customer comments are integrated into the decision-making process throughout your whole organization, you need to:
Create a customer comments dashboard that gives real-time access to all of them and uses filters so they can be organized in different ways.
Set up a regular meeting or process where everyone who touches customer interactions regularly (not just marketing) meets with the customer experience team to discuss what’s happening with customers and how it can be improved.
They should also bring along their ideas for improvement as well as any information from those customer conversations that may have helped them do their jobs better.
Make sure this meeting includes the people who are responsible for taking action based on what’s discussed in it.
For example, if there’s been an uptick in refund requests due to fulfillment issues, someone needs to look into why this is happening and how it can be addressed appropriately.
13. Take An Iterative Approach To Market Research Rather Than Trying To Do It All At Once At The End Of A Project
As you’re going through the process of collecting your data and turning it into insights, keep in mind that there are many ways to analyze the same data.
Also, as new ideas about your market come to light, it’s important that you can go back and revisit your research at any time during a project.
To maintain flexibility throughout this process, we recommend taking an iterative approach rather than trying to do all of your analysis at once at the end of a project.
This allows you to take advantage of new insights or ideas as they occur while still giving yourself enough time for careful consideration before making decisions based on those insights.
14. Let Your Data Breathe; Go Back And Review It After A Few Days For New Insights
It’s hard not to get emotionally attached to your data. After all, you’ve spent so much time and energy gathering it.
The best thing you can do for yourself is to give yourself some distance from the data take a break, then come back and review it after a few days for new insights. You might find the same insights differently or discover entirely new ones!
Conclusion
We hope these tips will help you get the most out of your marketing research. If we had to pick one overall theme, it would be this:
Successful marketing research means more than just collecting data and putting it into a report. It’s about knowing how to extract insights from the information and use them to guide your business strategy.
Further Reading
5 Tips to Protect Your Story from Fading into Oblivion Short Description: Learn valuable tips to ensure that your story remains relevant and memorable, standing the test of time.
Fade into Oblivion Short Description: Explore this musical album that captures the essence of fading away, taking you on a journey through emotions.
Fading Landscapes: The Culture and Agriculture of the Canyons and Mesas Short Description: Discover insights into the evolving landscapes and cultures of canyons and mesas, highlighting the delicate balance between nature and human impact.
FAQs
How can I prevent my story from fading into oblivion?
Preserve your story’s legacy by following tips like crafting a compelling narrative, sharing it across platforms, engaging with your audience, and archiving it properly.
What does the album “Fade into Oblivion” offer?
“Fade into Oblivion” is a musical journey that immerses listeners in an emotional exploration, capturing the experience of fading away through its melodies and lyrics.
What is “Fading Landscapes: The Culture and Agriculture of the Canyons and Mesas” about?
This article delves into the intricate relationship between culture and agriculture in canyons and mesas, shedding light on how changing landscapes impact societies and ecosystems.
How do I ensure my marketing research data remains relevant over time?
To maintain the value of your marketing research data, consider distilling it into actionable insights, leveraging tools like Google Trends, and understanding the importance of market segmentation.
How can I save time while running marketing research?
Discover time-saving strategies such as streamlining data gathering, analysis processes, and utilizing automation tools to optimize your marketing research efforts.
Costantine Edward is a digital marketing expert, freelance writer, and entrepreneur who helps people attain financial freedom. I’ve been working in marketing since I was 18 years old and have managed to build a successful career doing what I love.