Whether wielded by a marketing agency or a brand’s internal marketing team, primary research can become a powerful tool that helps brands and their clients make intelligent decisions for the future. To illustrate the potential for primary research insights to impel informed decisions at all levels of an organization, consider the following four benefits primary research can provide:
Surveying the Field
The most immediate, and one of the most critical benefits of primary research, is that it paints a picture of your market and your industry as a whole. Individual experience can lead one to have preconceived notions about what they observe when regarding the state of their industry. Weighing casually observed evidence from a case-by-case standpoint can also overlook larger phenomenon that define an industry only at a 1,000-mile-high perspective.
Primary research helps you concretely define trends, statistics and general activities within your industry to let you know exactly where you stand as part of the whole. That way, you can go beyond saying “truck-like SUVs are being largely replaced in favor of crossovers” to exactly how large of an effect the phenomenon is and how deep it goes.
Knowing What the Competition Is Up To
Staying financially viable in this day and age of instant gratification means keeping abreast of your competitors. Even if you think you occupy a wholly unique niche, lacking in some standard service or being usurped by the advent of a similar competitor can quickly unseat your established market and threaten your performance.
Primary research can chart patterns among your competitors to help you define where you fit in the spectrum of available options and how you could potentially differentiate yourself further.
Giving Your Market What They Want
A brand cannot deliver on customer expectations if they do not have a clear understanding of what those expectations are. Primary research can capture the voice of the customer to identify what services they value most, what their pet peeves are and what drives their buying decisions. A marketing agency that has such information on tap can inform product planning, marketing strategies and PR appeals based on what customers and consumers are saying the loudest.
Preparing for the Future
In this constantly evolving economy, trends come and go in the blink of an eye. Brands hoping to scale could get blindsided by these new developments if they do not perform the primary research needed to understand what disruptions could be coming their way. Such information can be used to plan ahead for future programs or develop mitigation strategies that allow the brand to weather the changes and remain successful.
Contact us today to get more see how we can help you with your research.
