Introduction
Consumer research is fundamental to all the various disciplines of marketing. It helps identify strengths and weaknesses within a product or market, guides and informs promotional campaigns, evaluates the effectiveness of advertising, and much more. It is an essential tool for making informed decisions about increased sales. Consumer research is the main tool of an effective marketer. It is not just the practice of collecting information about people’s feelings toward the product or their expectations for it; it includes all areas of communication, such as advertising and promotion, direct selling and sales promotions, product testing, and field studies.
Major Means Of Conducting Consumer Research
1. Interviewing
A researcher will interview people about their feelings about a specific product, their opinion on a new product or service, or their interaction with an existing service. The researcher will ask them questions to observe how they feel and react to the product.
2. Observing
A researcher will observe people in a social situation in the natural environment, such as shopping centers, sporting events, or operating theaters, where they will be exposed to the studied product or service.
Purposes and Benefits Of Consumer Research
1. Advertising
Advertising is used to stimulate purchases and awareness of a product or service. It is an important tool because it reaches the widest number of people and effectively gets the attention of consumers about new products and services.
2. Market research
It helps to identify weaknesses in a product or service, assess its popularity, and stimulate interest in a product.
3. Sales promotion
It is one of the most effective ways to get consumers to respond quickly to new products or services.
4. Product testing
It is also one of the most effective ways of increasing sales.
5. Direct selling
It helps increase sales by promoting a product or service based on merit rather than being expected to be sold through advertising, media, or a salesperson.
6. Sales Promotion
It is one of the most effective ways to get consumers to respond quickly to new products or services.
Things To Avoid When Collecting and Interpreting Consumer Research Data
1. Select the sample carefully
It is important to choose a representative sample of the population, and it is vital to collect sufficient data from a sample size large enough for generalizing. If a researcher only interviews five people about a new product and all 5 of them say they do not like it, it would be misleading to conclude that most people don’t like the product.
2. Avoid leading questions
An interviewer should not ask leading questions because this will give the consumer a false impression that the product is something other than it is. It could cause the consumer to form a negative opinion of it.
3. Avoid confirmation bias
It occurs when a researcher already has a preconceived idea about how people will respond to research and unconsciously tends to direct the questioning of interviewees so that they provide answers which support their original preconceptions even if these are not necessarily true.
4. Avoid accepting the first answer
It is always important to explore research findings and dig deeper into how people feel about researching the product or service.
5. Avoid allowing personal bias to interfere with interpretation
A very keen person on one particular product or service might unintentionally present information in a manner that is more favorable than it is.
Conclusion
As you can see, Consumer Research is very important for any business to provide maximum satisfaction to the consumers. It’s all about the consumers’ needs, feelings, and expectations. Therefore, if you provide what they expect from your product or service, then the satisfaction will be there, and your company’s success will get a boost upon its way.
