For a market intelligence exercise to deliver an acceptable return on investment, we must first define its goals. That means developing an understanding of what questions we need to answer.
Surprisingly, this can be a substantial effort in itself because it requires some introspection on what your business knows to be true in the market versus assumes to be true. Often, we hold a workshop with senior company stakeholders to explore assumptions and define the research framework. The workshop gives all stakeholders some certainty over the intelligence that will be collected in the coming weeks.
If, like 56% of businesses, it’s been more than 12 months since you last conducted market research, or you have never conducted it at all, qualitative research is the best place to start, because it allows us to test some assumptions about your market and learn what you don’t know.
Qualitative research allows us to dive deep into the way in which a product is used or a service is consumed, the problems it solves and the reasons why your market buys from you or your competitors, among many other discoveries.
Generally, it takes the form of 1:1 interviews, online panels or focus groups. By speaking with your existing customers, lost customers or failed prospects and possibly even those that have never been approached, we come to understand what’s compelling about your products or services, what gaps you need to fill to make them more relevant, and how to put competitive barriers in place for your rivals.
Ideally, we’ll follow qualitative market research with a quantitative effort to add extra insights and support our qualitative research findings.
Pairing the insights developed in qualitative research with the relative certainty of quantitative research means we can develop your strategic plan with confidence that we’re making well-founded decisions for your business.
The discoveries made during the research phase will be presented in a workshop and turned into recommendations for action. You should expect the result of the market intelligence study to be changes to your business that have positive effect on net profit in the following 12 months.
Let’s talk about how market intelligence could boost your profitability. Call us on 1300 36 20 27 or submit this form.
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