Knowing more about your target customers is becoming increasingly important. As more content gets published, as attention spans shrink, and as consumers change their habits, you need to understand your customers better so that you can engage with them and target them more effectively, providing them with more of what they want.
Market research is an area that is constantly innovating, and here are some of the latest trends that you should keep an eye on in order to get the most from your research over coming years.
Mobile Is Already the Main Focus
You have to focus on mobile these days when it comes to market research. There really is no other choice. Everyone has a cellphone, and everyone has their phone on them most of the day, so this is where market research has to be directed.
As a result, marketing spending on mobile will increase, and you should ensure you set aside a greater portion of your budget for mobile over the coming months and years.
The benefits of mobile for market research are clear. Mobiles allow for location-sensitive research that is more personal for the consumer. As a result, consumers will appreciate the more personalized approach, and it gives you a way to capture information about the consumer’s life in a more passive way.
You will also be able to intercept people while they are in a certain place or carrying out an action, which is getting easier than ever to do, allowing you to gather increasingly accurate information. You can also use mobile surveys to reach more people wherever they are.
You should also pay close attention to your mobile analytics. Producing mobile-friendly websites and content is essential, but make sure you provide the best experience by finding out how much time customers spend on your mobile site and how many buy your products on mobiles. This will all help you to improve your mobile strategy going forward.
Increasing Importance of Big Data
Big data just keeps on getting bigger, and it is going to become increasingly important for marketers over coming years. We now have the ability to gather and store vast amounts of data, and this presents a huge opportunity for marketers.
By collecting huge amounts of information, and using specialist solutions like those provided by Survey Sampling International, you can get a more accurate picture of consumer behavior.
As big data is increasingly used to understand more about what consumers are are doing, it will help you to find out more about what motivates your customers to take action.
More Importance Placed on Video
Video is becoming increasingly popular for consumers, especially younger consumers, and marketers will need to focus on this channel even more. This means placing a new focus on measuring engagement on videos—and especially those watched on mobiles—to get greater insight into how to tap into this effective channel.
Greater Focus on Ongoing Research
Organizations used to rely on carrying out a large and expensive study once a year, but there is going to be a greater shift towards ongoing real-time research in coming years. Market research will become something that is always-on, becoming more agile and providing greater insight.
Use of Social Analytics
Social analytics is becoming more important every year. In addition to traditional analytics, social is important because so many people engage with social media on a daily basis. Such analytics reveal more about consumer behavior, meaning they have to play an important role in market research.
Benefits of These Innovations for Businesses
Business can and should take advantage of all of these areas to improve their market research. This is no time to stick with what you have always been doing up until now and ignoring the trends.
Areas like mobile, big data, social analytics, and the shift towards constant research as opposed to one-off studies are going to direct the course of market research over 2016 and the years to come. And those organizations that make the most of the available solutions are the ones that are going to be able to target consumers more accurately and reap the benefits.
Keep Up with the Market Research Trends
These are not all of the trends that are becoming important over the coming year, but they are the most critical. Organizations both large and small should make sure they keep up with the latest trends to ensure they do not fall behind their competitors and that they make the most of their market research to more accurately target consumers.
