By Alba Damián
If what you need is to know more about your client or to ensure the success of a new product or service, you can opt for online market research. Its advantages are many: it is no longer necessary to hire personnel to apply questionnaires and process information, project times are shortened, and its cost is significantly lower.
How does it work? Through companies that provide this service through websites. And that for a specific fee or an annual fee allow access to a series of tools to prepare surveys, send them to a database (with emails), and obtain an analysis of the responses obtained.
This system is ideal for small and medium-sized businesses, which generally have low marketing budgets, and for traditional market research.
This type of analysis is generally commissioned by a study or consultant, but you can also do it yourself with the following techniques:
- In-depth expert interviews to learn about the most important aspects of the industry.
- Focus groups to know the perception of potential customers regarding a new product or service.
- Surveys that reveal the purchasing disposition of potential customers.
- Generate research hypotheses that can be tested quantitatively.
- Generate useful information for the preparation of surveys.
- Evaluate new products.
- Generate innovative ideas regarding existing products.
- Interpret previously obtained quantitative results.
- Know and understand different emotional reactions towards brands.
It is important that you highlight the objectives of the research or survey, because the results should answer each of the questions that were initially posted in the market survey and will be the basis for more accurate decision-making.
The objectives, methodology, and results of the market survey can be presented as an annex to the business plan.
Do It Yourself
1. Design. Keep in mind that before preparing the survey you need to define the objective of the research, what information you need to obtain, and who is the target audience. For this, the predesigned probes offered by the portals are very useful.2. Send. Surveys reach consumers via email and their responses are received on the same site and in real-time.
3. Analyze. As these are mainly quantitative studies, these pages allow the respondents’ responses to be displayed in graphs. With this statistical information, you will be able to make a more detailed analysis of your current clients or your potential market.
