An organization or a product owner that wants to know more about its customers usually initiates customer market research. It is a reliable way to know more about those who buy your products.

At the heart of every consumer research, a buyer persona is situated. It is a portrait of your ideal customer, the one who has the required qualities, tastes, and preferences and is willing to buy your product. 

What Is Consumer Research?

Consumer market research aims to study your target audience and your target consumer. Each target audience may have different market behaviour and motivation, which influence the decision to buy a product.

Research that deals with the customer market is usually highly structured. It examines customer groups, which can be divided into customer segments. The latter is the sum of consumers with specific qualities, among which a single buying persona can be found.

This kind of economic division is of great value to every successful business, as it allows you to study your customers (or partners), facilitate marketing processes, improve brand positioning and develop new products. There are multiple reasons to start consumer research and we picked the top 5 for you down below.

Why Is Consumer Research Important?

Firstly, consumer research helps to grow your business. Since you know the things consumers would pay for, all that is left is to develop and produce these things.

Secondly, research helps you to hear the voices of your customers. The contemporary economy is client-centred, so no one can afford to ignore it, besides this is a reliable way to grind competitive advantages.

Thirdly, you will learn more about your buyer personas in more detail: age, gender, social background, and a lot more. When you have a good understanding of your buyers it is easier to please them with your products.

Fourthly, your buyer personas are an infinite source of new and productive content for your marketing campaigns. They would tell you what kind of thing they want to see, read, hear, and in what way.

Last but not least, if the delivery of marketing messages to your customers is smoother and more fluent, then the conversion rate and advertising productivity will rise. 

Let’s Understand What Is a Customer Segment

When the research reasons are found and the purposes are visible, it is time to think about what exactly you want to research. The most important thing you should consider is the customer segment – a group of people who share similar features. The latter may include but are not limited to age, gender, market behaviour, consumption patterns, tastes, interests, habits, and level of income.

Your product or service may have multiple customer segments. If they are not well defined, then the productivity of your marketing would be rather weak and amorphous. The comprehension of your marketing segments helps to create the right and well-tailored messages for your target audience. 

For example, you may have two target audiences with the level of income as the main difference. That means you should think about different pricing strategies, communication channels, and even product ranges. 

Consumer Research Methods

Now it’s time to think about the method of consumer market research. You may choose from the most popular methods (interview, survey, review mining, analytics) or search for something more specific. For example, during interviews, you may ask customers about their experiences with your product. Though, interviews may be time-consuming. 

A survey is another great way to know what is inside the consumer’s head. Within this method, you need to define goals, which would be reflected in the questionnaire. Then, you should conduct a survey, analyze the results and write a report.

If you have no time and funds to conduct your own research you may turn to review mining. In this particular case, you have to deal with the data and information gathered by someone else (competitors, bloggers, newspapers, open sources). You simply grab the needed data and analyze it according to your purposes. 

Finally, when you want to analyze customers’ behaviour without asking their opinion, you get down to the digits and make analytics. It may be more productive as sometimes customers do not know what they want. Hence, maybe you should study behaviour, sales, or competitors on your own.