16 Jun How market research shapes brand strategy
The best brands have not come about purely as a result of creative marketing and advertising, but by speaking to potential customers directly. Most successful businesses will include a substantial amount of market research in their marketing strategy to ensure they are getting the right messages out.
What is market research?
Market or brand research is the collection of data about your business or brand, your target market and your competitors. This is then analysed before decisions are taken, based on what it shows.
What is it used for?
Identifying customer needs is key to good market research. This relates to choice, quality, price and convenience. When a business is able to identify its customers’ needs, it can make better business decisions, which are more likely to work and reduce its level of risk.
Another purpose of carrying out market research is to identify any gaps in your market.
The data collected should be part of any brand strategy, along with creative ideas about what the brand looks like and stands for.
How is it done?
Many businesses choose to use a brand strategy agency to help them with market research and creating an overall strategy. Expert firms such as reallyhelpfulmarketing.co.uk/specialist-services/brand-strategy-agency/ have experience of helping many different businesses.
One way of carrying out market research is through surveys. These days, they are predominantly online and have in-depth questions about people’s feelings, rather than simple yes or no questions. Successful brands have learnt that it’s important to use surveys at various stages for maximum impact – initially testing concepts and refining ideas before making final decisions.
It’s also important to gauge audience perceptions of competitors, so that you can include maps of your competitive landscape in your strategy.
You can also carry out focus groups and in-person interviews, where people can even try out products and let you know their opinion.
Benefits
Good market research helps a business anticipate customer needs and reactions, to launch a new service or product and improve brand perception by making it customer-centric.