What are Market Research Tools?
Clarke Ricks
School of Business, Liberty University
BUSI 690: Policy and Strategy in Global Competition
Dr. Hicks
April 11, 2021
What are Market Research Tools?
Market Research (MRX) refers to the process of gathering intelligence about people’s
behaviors to better understand their motivations, opinions, preferences, emotions and
other factors that can define their purchasing process, brand perceptions, or customer/user
experience. The intelligence gathered from market research can be used to improve
customer help centers, brand messaging and marketing, new product innovations and
technology, and so much more
Market research also helps organizations gauge the market feasibility of products,
services, concepts and new innovations. Such research is typically held between an
organization’s Insights, CX, or UX teams and their target audiences — those audiences can
be either current or prospective customers. Many organizations also partner with market
research agencies to gather intelligence about their target audiences.
Effective market research provides tangible, actionable insights that can drive the
success of an organization’s future offerings. In the process, it also enables organizations to
feel more closely connected with their end users or consumers, building customer empathy
and understanding that can guide their business strategy to better serve people’s needs.
Methods for conducting market research include but are not limited to: focus groups, in-
depth-interviews (IDIs), online ethnography, written or video-based surveys, and usability
testing (read more on this below).
If you’re wondering how to extract actionable insights from target audiences through
market research, or how feasible your latest product, feature, service or innovation will be
in a current or new market, the right tools can deliver everything you need
In addition to the methods for conducting market research previously identified, other
processes for extracting insights from people’s experiences include:
Surveys: Gauge a target audience’s opinions, obtain personal background
information they provide, and understand their levels of satisfaction with a product or
service through a survey. Surveys most commonly take the form of pre-written sets of
questions that respondents answer on their own time. Survey questions can also appear
within an online focus group. And finally, survey questions can be sent as prompts for
respondents to provide video or photo-based responses, which market research platforms
like Discuss can provide.
Focus groups: Also known as ‘group interviews,’ focus group research gathers a
small but demographically similar group of people for feedback. This qualitative research
method collects data through interactive and directed discussions, facilitated by a skilled
moderator. Focus groups make use of group interaction to explore and clarify the beliefs,
opinions and views of focus group participants. This interactivity allows researchers to gain
data and insights from multiple members simultaneously, making it a far more cost effective
method for qualitative market research than one-on-one in-depth interviews. To learn
more, read the Discuss guide on moderating online focus groups.
In-depth interviews: An In-Depth Interview, or IDI, is another type of qualitative
research method involving a personal interview with a single respondent. These are
conducted one on one, although there may be hidden observers (as the Discuss
platform supports). These should be conducted by a highly skilled interviewer, as the
purpose of in-depth interviews is to understand the underlying motivations, beliefs,
attitudes, and feelings of respondents on a particular subject or brand.
Observation: This market research technique involves directly observing customers
or another target audience in their natural environment. For example, researchers could
conduct a shop-along in-person or online as their subject visits a retail shop and explains
their buying choices. UX researchers commonly use the observational method through
mobile apps to monitor how users navigate a website to identify any challenges or
opportunities to improve the experience. See an example of this in action as Unilever
utilizes the Discuss mobile screen share app to conduct a mobile shop-along. Ethnography is
another market research method that combines observational, hands-on learning and
interviewing techniques.
Field Trials: Field trials involve experiments or tests to discover whether proposed
products work and how they are perceived. Field trials are most commonly used in the
bioscience, medical and pharmaceutical industries, and are critical in obtaining government
approval for use in the general public, or for securing more research funding to further
develop products.
Why do you need market research tools?
In the past few years, market research tools have become critical in predicting the
behavior of target audiences — especially at a time when consumer behavior has been
transformed dramatically and brand loyalty becomes less reliable.
In a recent McKinsey survey, 40% of consumers across four countries said they have tried
new brands or retailers. Loyalty was particularly vulnerable in the US, where 46% have
switched brands.
Market research tools can provide real-time data and feedback from increasingly
moving targets. Such MRX tools enable innovative agencies and in-house teams to:
Better understand and predict market trends
Gather context of online traffic and other behavior
Gain insight into specific industry topics
For example, Think With Google Research Tools is a suite of market research tools that
collect customer and user behavioral data in a number of ways. “Google Trends” provides
data directly from the Google search engine to enable researchers to track and measure
specific searches. Need to understand if anyone is searching for your current product, or
using search terms that match the description of an upcoming product launch? Google
Trends could be an effective tool to use.
Market research tools with Discuss
Discuss offers a set of market research tools and capabilities that empower CX, UX, and
Insights teams to conduct qualitative research. The core features of our People Experience
Platform include:
Discuss Live: For live, video-based conversations to support qualitative market
research at scale
Discuss Collections: To upload any pre-recorded media, including unmoderated
feedback (known as ‘Discuss Self Captures’)
Discuss Insights: To extract insights from both Discuss Live and Discuss Collections
using our AI-powered insights extraction engine
Discuss Experts: Offering recruitment, moderation, translation, project
management, live support, discussion guide writing and more
Conclusion
Market research tools, when used effectively, drive immeasurable value when
businesses are able to understand people beyond just data points and spreadsheets. By
studying their target audience’s perceptions, opinions, beliefs, attitudes and reactions,
organizations big and small can make better, more informed decisions backed by strong
people intelligence.
