What is Consumer Research and why it is Important
Your consumers are the key to your business’s success. If you wish to sustain and progress in a market that is full of stiff competition, in that case, you need to make sure that you have all the required information about your targeted consumers at your disposal. This is where the concept of consumer research comes into the picture. It is a mechanism that is used for identifying the attitudes, preferences, buying behavior, motivations, and various other parameters related to your consumers. There are different types of methods that are used to collect this information. Here, the consumers are segregated according to their buying habits, age group, gender, and different other aspects.
It needs to be mentioned in this regard that unless you have done proper consumer research, you won’t be able to achieve your marketing objectives. it is only by conducting thorough research, you will be able to get a clear and comprehensive idea about your consumer’s buying habits, their expectations, and various other aspects.
Consumer segment – what is it?
As mentioned, consumers are segregated into different segments while carrying out research. A consumer segment is nothing but a group of people who have certain common traits that are relevant to your marketing mechanisms; such as their location, age, spending habits, gender, and interests. The main reason why consumer segmentation is done is that it helps you to get a better understanding of these various aspects related to different groups of consumers. This also allows you to design your marketing strategies accordingly and hit your targeted audience.
When it comes to carrying out research, different segments require different mechanisms in terms of communication channels, messaging, and even pricing options. Besides, another major benefit of consumer segmentation is the fact that it allows a business to identify its most profitable consumers and established a better and sound consumer relationship.
What are the various methods used in consumer research?
There are multiple different types of methods that go into the process of consumer research. It needs to be mentioned in this regard, that all these different processes have been designed to extract specific and relevant information. They are as follows.
- Interviews: This is one of the most popular and convenient options available to you, to conduct a customer research program. Besides, what makes interviews so special is the fact that it allows you to communicate with the consumer for a considerable length of time. This can help you get hold of very important information related to the buying habits and other important aspects related to your consumers.
- Analytics: In this method, instead of emphasizing what the consumer has to say, more focus is given on what the consumer does. This is a kind of observational research, which has been designed for measuring the actual consumer behavior, with tangible results. When it comes to analytics, there are different types of tools that are used. Some of them are as follows.
- Heat Maps
- Scroll mapping
- Click tracking
- Recorded sessions.
It has been proven that analytics offer more comprehensive and in-depth information about consumer’s buying pattern and their dynamic behavior.
- Review Mining: This is another very popular mechanism that is used in consumer research. In this process, the reviews of the competitors are gathered to get hold of qualitative data which is then used to improve the brand or product of a business.
Apart from these, different other techniques are used in the process of customer research. As mentioned, in today’s world of cutthroat competition, to survive, it is very important to get a strong grip over your consumer’s behavior. This can only be achieved with the help of a well-designed research program, that would give you an insight into some of the important and relevant information related to your consumer.
