What are the four 4 common types of market research techniques?

Market research is at the nucleus of each enormous marketing strategy. It’s the simple way to actually comprehend your industry, customers, and competitors on a cherished level. In general, every market research execution can be divided into one of four overarching types of market research. 

To create it easier to purify your marketing research efforts, we’re breaking down the four types of market research to be assured you have all the compulsory data and information to boost-up your marketing strategies and make them triumphant. 

Different Types Of Market Research

There are four main categories of market research that you’ll probably come across. Each one of these can assist you extract data and information about your market in dissimilar ways. 

1. Primary Research 

Primary research refers to most essential data or information. Initial statistics or information is all the statistics and information you’ve composed on your own, you’re not citing any former source’s work. 

Also Read- 5 Reason Why Market Research Is Crucial for Your Business

This type of market research can help strengthen your marketing strategy with data and information that comes directly from your customers. It’s debatably the main valuable kind of market research because it’s particular to your customer base. This allows you to get candid details on business strengths and weaknesses to realize the overall customer experience. You can transmit your investigation or poll on a social media channel or add it to an email newsletter you send to subscribers. A larger response like this will assist you establish what your customer base is thinking, and you can identify shared pain points or praise they may have. 

2. Secondary Research 

Secondary research refers to second-party or third-party data or information. Second- and third-party data is collected from what already exists within the market. The research is not done by you, but by other businesses or organizations. 

This type of market research can help you get a better understanding of your industry as a whole. You’ll be able to identify how competitors operate, important industry statistics, and other valuable insights that you can use to help create a more informed marketing strategy overall. Secondary research is the best way to get a feel for the data and information that already exists within your industry and among your competitors. Identifying that data and information not only gives you an improved initiative of what you’re up against from a marketing point of view but also where you might be able to improve. 

3. Qualitative Research 

Qualitative research refers to the assortment of data that can’t be measured.  Qualitative research can be primary or secondary. You can employ primary market research methods such as interviews, polls, and surveys to find out how customers think about your product or service. The aim is to appreciate how they believe. You can ask open-ended questions 

Also Read- Things Young Entrepreneurs Should Know Before Starting Up

This kind of market research gives us insight into what customers are thinking; it’s the only way to discover why a customer decides to rely your—or another—brand. When you conduct customer research, you can ask customers precise questions about your product or service. The replies to these questions will assist you form enhanced marketing strategies that take all their feelings and thoughts about your product or service into consideration. An immense way to utilize qualitative research is to do it during a product launch. The aim is to get as much customer feedback about your novel product as possible. Qualitative research can aid you estimate whether it has met customer prospects or not. 

4. Quantitative Research 

Quantitative research refers to collecting numbers for statistical analysis. Like qualitative research, quantitative research can be primary or secondary in nature. This type of market research is all about having the figures to back up your marketing strategy. The stats aren’t interpretations; in fact they’re observed confirmation. 

This information can act as a yardstick for where to spend more time and money in your marketing efforts. Once you know where you stand in a market among certain dimensions like your page views or subscribers, you can adjust your marketing strategy accordingly to reflect your findings. Unlike several of the other types of market research featured in this piece of writing, quantitative research has an extremely distinct advantage in that you’re able to use analytics platforms to track your development. 

When you have questions about your customers or competitors, market research is a great way to find answers. But there are a number of paths you can go down, and each one will give you a different piece of the puzzle.

Below are seven frequently used types of market research. Which one should you use? That depends on the information you need and your specific business goals.

1. Customer decision journey

Jeevan Balani at Accela Coach says that by surveying consumers for a particular category of products or for a specific brand, you can determine several things about their decision journey: 

• Their motivation for purchasing your product or service 
• How they decide between competing products or brands 
• Their unmet needs with existing products on the market 

“These insights can inform a company on what channels to use to market to their consumers, what new features to build into their products, and how they can differentiate themselves from competitors,” Balani says.

Pro Tip

Jotform lets you create free online surveys to conduct market research with ease.

2. Pricing

Whether you’re deciding on a price for a new product or optimizing the price for an existing product, pricing research helps determine the price elasticity of a product based on a given customer segment and set of features. 

Balani explains that you can get to know which features and capabilities a customer is willing to pay a premium for and which types of customers are more price sensitive. “You can then create different pricing plans based on who a customer is (e.g., student or professional), and what features you’re including (e.g., unlimited use vs limited use).”

3. Competitive analysis

Reviewing publicly available information about a competitor (e.g., their website, third-party review sites) can tell you a lot. “Combining this info with interviews of their previous customers can give you great insight into how your company’s products and services compare,” says Balani.

For example, Balani notes that in a B2B environment, you can benchmark the effectiveness of your sales team and customer service staff, and track how your net promoter score (NPS) compares to the competition. “This can be used to prioritize strategic initiatives to close the gaps between you and your competition, and double down on areas where your company is stronger.”

4. Brand awareness

Brand awareness is the level of familiarity consumers have with your brand or product(s). According to Brian Cairns, three types of brand awareness are typically measured through market research, each indicating a different degree of purchase intent:

• Aided brand awareness. Have you heard of brand X? This is a general guide and is the least predictive of purchase.
• Unaided brand awareness. What make is this car? This is a more specific measure of a customer’s consideration set, the subset of brands they evaluate when making a purchase decision.
• Top of mind. What is the first brand you think of when considering kitchenware? This is the most specific and best predictor of purchase.

5. Marketing message testing

To ensure your marketing message and method of delivery will be effective, Cairns suggests exposing someone in your target market to your marketing communications within the context of other “dummy” messages — to represent the marketing noise most people deal with every day. 

“To test, step one is asking the person to recall your message,” Cairns says. “Step two, assuming they were able to recall it, is asking to what degree the message motivated them to take action.”

6. Market segmentation

Nick Galov at Review42 says that researching market segmentation is important, as it provides valuable data on customer demographics, needs, values, attitudes, and behaviors. As you better define target groups, you’re able to further develop your marketing strategy. “You can then tailor your message and positioning for the different segments you’ve identified.”

7. Product development

Jaykishan Panchal at E2M Solutions says product development research is used when introducing new products, concepts, or brands, or adding a new product line to an existing product suite. It can also be useful for modifying existing products or exploring new product verticals. 

This research will help you answer several questions:

• What do customers need?
• Which customer needs aren’t currently being met?
• How do we improve the existing product or introduce a new product?
• What type of customer will be interested in a new or modified product?
• Are people aware of the products currently available in the market?
• Are people satisfied with existing products?

Looking for more help in your market research journey? Check out our lengthy guide on performing market research.

This article is originally published on Oct 14, 2019, and updated on Sep 05, 2022.

What are the 4 main purposes of market research?

What are the common types of marketing research?

What is market research techniques?

What are the 4 steps in the marketing research process?