Running a business means a day filled with decisions about how to spend that business’ resources, not just money, but the time and the skills available to you. A good choice turns those resources into success for your business – more sales, a stronger brand and a larger crowd of ever more loyal and happy customers.
If you don’t have enough time or expert skills available in your workforce, you might spend money on buying in these kinds of resources – purchasing advice from experts to help you make better decisions, and maximise your returns, for example. That opens a whole other category of decision making: which expert advice is worth it? Where should you spend your money to get the highest benefit to your business? Today we’re taking a look at the many different ways market research firms can help your business.
Global Expansion
If you’re planning to expand your brand on an international scale, you need international research to match. The right market research company can tell you if there’s a demand in your new target market for your products, who your audience is there, and how you need to adapt your advertising so it’s effectively persuasive for them.
Understanding Customers at Home
You can never have a too detailed understanding of your customers, and if you engage in long term market research at home, you can see how your decisions in other areas of your business affect what they think of you and how they spend their money.
Brand tracking is one such kind of research, that tracks the health of your brand as compared with your key competitors. This helps you to identify areas of opportunity – as weakening competitor brands create space for you to move into – as well as warn you if your actions are damaging or undermining your own brand.
Your Competitors
Market research firms can also give you insight into your competitors’ activities. It’s well worth being able to make informed guesses about what other businesses in your industry might’ve planned, as you can adjust your own projects to minimise the impact on your bottom line. If you have a new product lined up for launch, for example, it’s well worth identifying a launch window when it won’t be fighting for attention with a similar product from another brand!
These are just some of the ways good market research imparts value to your business, helping to boost your revenue, and avoid making mistakes that cost you money in both the long and short term.
