No two markets are the same, but the majority have at least one thing in common – the pace of change – it’s unrelenting. Agile companies understand this and use insight to react to changes in markets and even anticipate them before they happen. However, understanding markets is challenging, time-consuming and being truly objective isn’t always easy.
Our research can help you understand markets (and the dynamics that are affecting them) in a variety of ways:
- By identifying unmet needs and providing focus for your innovation processes.
- By segmenting the market into distinct groups and identifying those segments which hold the greatest opportunity – and those that don’t offer any.
- By understanding the competitive landscape, how you and other organisations are regarded and what customers are looking for from companies.
- By evaluating the messages that customers are most likely to respond to and understanding the most effective way of conveying these messages to potential customers – does digital really work?
- By analysing the values and perceptions enjoyed by your brand and understanding how these align to the expectations of the market.
- By quantifying the market size and likely growth rates.
While these are typical of the insights we provide to our clients who want to better understand their markets (existing or new), we have no set-in-stone approach. We always develop bespoke research programmes that deliver against specific objectives. We are methodology agnostic and are just as happy delivering market understanding through original research – using qualitative and quantitative techniques – as we are using secondary data. Sometimes a combination of the two is better. There’s no point reinventing the wheel.
We also understand that market research doesn’t always have to be externally facing or expensive to deliver real insight.
All too often companies fail to secure full value from the intelligence they have within the organisation. For example, it’s very easy to forget the insight that customer facing employees hold. Their opinions are incredibly valuable, so we run workshops using specific facilitation techniques to unlock the insight they hold. They might not provide all the answers but this approach can have a significant impact shaping the project and because employees are involved they’re more likely to help implement any strategic changes that are needed.
You might also have a wealth of data from previous efforts that you haven’t necessarily used to best effect. We love data and can often glean new insight by looking at old alongside new, or just re-visiting previous research with a fresh pair of eyes.
B2C and B2B market intelligence services don’t need to be complicated. Real game changing insight can be surprisingly close to home and cost-effective to collect.