Customer research company insights into tools for effective market research

Customer research company, CARD Group Research & Insight focuses on understanding consumers.  As consumer research is key to successfully marketing a product or service, it’s vital to employ an experienced customer research company with expertise in your industry.

Understanding both conscious and subconscious customer needs, preferences, attitudes, motivations and buying behaviour, means that companies are better placed to develop more successful marketing strategies for their brands, products and services.

How do behavioural economics improve the consumer experience?

As customer understanding grows, marketing management teams can target key consumer segments more effectively.  The marketing team will be able to develop new products and new services as solutions to meet the needs of those customers, refresh existing products and services, and develop the brand to satisfy those needs.

Using behavioural economics within a market research project, the business or organisation will gain competitive intelligence, will more easily identify changes in purchasing intent and behaviour, and generally, increase chances of success as more information becomes available to inform decisions regarding strategy.

In recent years, the COM-B model of behaviour has become more popular. The COM-B model identifies three factors that need to be present for an effective behaviour change: capability, opportunity and motivation. 

Quantitative research

Mathematical analysis and data are used to draw conclusions about companies and their markets.

Quantitative research data helps to analyse interest in your brand, product or service.

Quantitative research tools

Quantitative tools often used include:

• Surveys
• Polls
• Questionnaires
• Analytics

Quantitative research characteristics

Some characteristics of quantitative research are:

• Previous customer research: Factors relating to the market research topic are studied before initiating a quantitative research survey.
• Large sample size: The sample needs to be large enough so that it represents the target market.
• Close-ended questions:  This type of question is normally used.
• Data presentation: Quantitative data is usually presented in table, chart or graph format.

Quantitative research is useful for the following types of questions:

• Who are your best customers? What are their ages, gender, locations etc?
• What level of brand awareness is in the market?
• How many people are interested in purchasing your product or service?
• What are prospective customer buying habits?
• Are the needs of your target market changing?
• Is there a market for your products and services?

Qualitative research

Qualitative tools include:

• Focus groups
• One-to-one Interviews – door-to-door, telephone and online
• Diary studies
• Ethnographic research
• Observation

Qualitative research characteristics

Qualitative research analyses consumer attitudes and perceptions towards a brand, product or service.  It also looks at what motivates consumers.

Customer research objectives

Customer research objectives may include:

• Brand awareness levels
• Customer perception of your brand
• Buyer behaviour
• Customer satisfaction
• Customer experiences

From experience, and for optimum results, our solutions are often designed using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research services.

If you would like to learn more, please do get in touch.