More about marketing research methods

Research on the use of goods/services

To get feedback on the company’s services and products, you need to test them. This method allows you to evaluate the experience that the consumer received from the product. The company learns about all the advantages and disadvantages of its product, convenience and quality of services.

Important! Testing can be done completely online if the product itself belongs to the digital sphere. If we are talking about a product group and an offline service, then only communication with the study participants can be organized online.

It is important for a company to conduct such testing at all stages of creating a product or service – from creation to launch of sales. This will allow you to identify and eliminate problems at an early stage of their occurrence, which significantly saves time and money. Benefits of researching a product by a real consumer:

  • objective and honest user experience will allow to resolve many internal disputes of the company;
  • the ability to analyze user behavior with a product, resource, etc.;
  • get a solution to product/service problems;
  • knowing the shortcomings, you can improve the product, thereby stimulating the demand for it.

Stages of product service testing:

  • Identifying the specific service or product to be tested;
  • Setting the goal and objectives of the study;
  • Formation of clear criteria for each of the tasks – in which cases it will be considered solved, and in which – not;
  • Drawing up a research plan so as not to deviate from the scenario of working with the user;
  • Distribution of roles, selection of a moderator and other participants;
  • Choice of consumers – participants must match the portrait of the client;
  • Carrying out marketing research;
  • Discussion of the product with the participants – obtaining objective information about the pros and cons, the features of using the subject of research;
  • Data analysis – identifying problems, evaluating, making recommendations for product improvement;
  • At the end, we draw conclusions and draw up a strategy to improve the product.

Analysis of the client portrait

For a better understanding of the audience, in order to satisfy its needs as much as possible, a number of characteristics are collected that make it possible to draw up a portrait of the client. A client portrait is an image of a real buyer who needs a company product to solve his problems. By understanding who your real customer is today, you can:

  • assess the volume of your target audience and find ways to attract a new one;
  • personalize the product, as well as methods of promotion and communication with customers;
  • draw up a media plan or redistribute budgets in the existing one;
  • predict the results of planned marketing activities.

Information about consumers to compile their portrait can be taken from various sources. Among them:

  • surveys – conducted in the services that we mentioned, on the company’s pages in social networks, on the website or using email newsletters. This method allows you to determine the attitude of the client to your product;
  • social networks – getting to know clients’ accounts in social networks, obtaining information about their hobbies and interests, as well as tracking their activity in your profile;
  • web analytics data – when you connect Google Analytics, you can track consumer behavior, geo (city, country), what device they use, age, etc.;
  • any other channels your customers interact with.

In the process of working on a client’s portrait, different avatars are created, which are the components of the brand’s audience. They need to be constantly worked on, developing needs, supplementing with new information up to 2 times a year. Effective for marketing will be a portrait in which the client is described in as much detail as possible.

The data that is most often included in the description of the client portrait:

  • gender, age;
  • geo;
  • profession, interests and hobbies;
  • marital status, presence of children;
  • product or service with which he interacted;
  • life goals and values;
  • pain and difficulty;
  • channels of interaction with the company and its product;
  • buying behavior.

Depending on the niche, it is necessary to emphasize or delete. For example, it is more important for pet food manufacturers to know where the client most often buys food, in what packages and for what reasons he prefers one or another brand, as well as whether the pet prefers a dry or wet diet and in which cases he has problems with the digestive tract.