Market research is a good way to know what your customers need.
Market Research and Survey Programming
With many new businesses emerging left and right, there is a big possibility that competition have similar ideas to yours. To add, large and established companies are also churning out new innovations and constantly modifying their products. It’s a challenge to catch the attention of new customers to try out what you offer.
“Whoever gets closer to the customer wins.”
This Bernadette Jiwa quote properly encapsulates one of the best strategies to emerge victorious in the competitive world of entrepreneurs. Since businesses continue to exist because of customers, it’s only logical that their voice and needs come first. After all, they create products and services in the name of customer service.
To streamline the collection of the common voice of customers, it’s essential for businesses to conduct market research. This is a data-gathering method that integrates economic trends and the status quo of consumer behavior. Market research is also important not only to hear the voice of your target market. It also reduces risks of spending time, money, manpower, and other resources on misguided decisions. Overall, it helps you to have a proper grasp on how you can create, improve, or innovate business ideas.
Market research can be done using different methods–surveys, questionnaires, focus groups, and in-depth interviews. Overall, these methods have a common end goal to look at the demand, target market size, economic/employment status, residence/location, pricing, competition, and market saturation.
Big Companies that Used Market Research to their Advantage
Big companies partly owe their success to market research. According to Survey Police, here are some titans that used this strategy to stay on top.
- Lego
Only 9% of Lego users are girls. This piece of data made the toy company gear their efforts towards enticing females, and spread out their reach beyond males. They employed researchers for a four-year study with 3,500 girls together with their mothers to study their playing habits, and asked them comprehensive questions as to how Lego could be more interesting for them.
After the study, Lego released a new line of toys for girls with more vibrant colors, a different packaging, and figurines which are slightly bigger to accommodate toy accessories like purses and hairbrushes that they can hold. Because of market research, the company was able to have female users welcome them into their set of toys.
- Apple
We’re now at iPhone 13 and Apple is not showing any signs of slowing down as the biggest name in tech in the past few years. Are they the most innovative? Many will argue with that, but the tech giant uses market research to ensure they have an accurate picture of what their customers want from their future devices. The team then proceeds to use the data to turn this into reality.
Apple established the ‘Apple Customer Pulse,’ a research group that uses online surveys to gather data in an easier and faster way. This system reduces effort in both their part and the customers’. Because of its ease, it also appeals to the public, who also find it fulfilling to hear their voices heard in future releases.
- McDonalds
Young and old, rich and poor, it seems like everybody knows McDonalds. But instead of relying on their reputation, one of the largest fast food chains in the world continues to use market research to keep their position in the game. In a nutshell, their research is narrowed into four different questions:
- Which products are well received?
- What prices are consumers willing to pay?
- What TV programs, newspapers and advertising consumers read and view?
- Which restaurants are most visited?
McDonalds also was able to successfully court the younger generation in the past two years by collaborating with big names. Tapping global stars like BTS and Travis Scott, they formulated exclusive meals on brand with them. They knew that this calls not only for a quality product, but also social media engagement. Thus, they ensure their products are worth the retweets and positive reactions in every platform. In the end, their market research team did a stellar job!
Accurate data analysis can help guide a business in its next moves.
Survey Programming
First, what is a survey, or specifically, an online survey? An online survey is basically a questionnaire that varies in length and format, that a targeted audience has to fill out the form over the internet. The data gathered will be stored in a database to be analyzed by dedicated people or experts in order to gain a general picture of the majority’s feedback.
On the other hand, survey programming is the process of using survey software to ensure that meaningful insights, reports, and analytics can be derived from online surveys. Through this method, survey programming companies are established to support organizations and assist them in different areas. They help through the whole creation of the data collection process, including planning over questionnaire design, translation, programming skip/branch logic, and processing of information. Using dedicated tools, they also acquire real-time automated reports and ensure they run smoothly in desktop and mobile applications. Thus, these companies play a big role in integrating important data that businesses can use through online surveys.
Benefits of Survey Programming
Many businesses seek the aid of survey results. Through the years, they have used survey programming to guide them in making informed decisions. Here are some benefits of outsourcing survey programming:
- It makes you more productive.
Users can formulate surveys in a short period of time using survey logic tactics, and also reduces the time you need to formulate questions. Moreover, because of the modern innovations of survey programming, you can reuse questions. You can also get questions from a similar survey, or use other surveys from a question pool or library. The time you would use in creating traditional surveys can then be diverted to other concerns you need to address, thanks to survey programming. Working with an outsourcing vendor to program your surveys can help you execute your surveys quickly and efficiently.
- Survey programs increase efficiency.
A survey program has been designed, worked on, and tweaked many times in order to distribute and analyze data smartly. Compared to doing traditional surveys and other forms of customer data collection, these modern software reduces the time to perform market research. In short, less time is spent, but you get more accurate information and data (and less number of questions). Working with an outsourcing vendor to program your surveys saves you even more time.
- More concise questionnaires.
If used to its full potential, survey programs are more concise because of the logic it utilizes. It allows for presenting succeeding questions based on a respondent’s previous answers, which means that the creators don’t have to make a lot of different questions for different scenarios. On the respondents’ end, this also improves their user experience because it becomes less confusing and laborious for them.
- It keeps data gathering simple.
Because of its brevity and conciseness and the streamlined data collection process, survey programming is simple but sophisticated. It allows you to work more independently with minimal human intervention and give you the results in quantifiable analytics-based reports. Also, it is more objective than word-of-mouth testimonials which can be open to interpretations.
- It has a bigger reach.
For large companies, it is important to have data that is globally represented, which means that a bigger and more complicated system should be utilized. Survey programming allows you to release surveys for respondents who speak different languages. Moreover, you can consolidate data for a more accurate picture of your target market.
The Downsides of Survey Programming
The biggest downsides of survey programming are the same with many other ventures–time and money.
- It takes time
There are so many probabilities of how your participants may respond. Thus, time and effort should be dedicated to creating accurate logic flows that would not disorient them. Aside from the user experience, this area should be worth paying attention to, so as to also deliver accurate results. However, the more meticulous your survey will be, the more time needed to also do it. This means sacrificing some business processes, especially if your plate is already full. When you work with an outsourcing vendor to help you program your surveys, you can delegate the programming to qualified professionals who will use your instructions to program the logics.
- It requires spending, which affects manpower.
Creating a survey that is effective and valid also means shelling out funds. Since the process in creating survey programs and market research in general are tedious, costs and manpower can also affect your project management. From survey creation to data analysis, human intelligence is needed. Therefore, in case you want your in-house team to do this extra work, it can also use up their productivity that could have been dedicated for facing customers and making sales. This is where engaging an outsourcing vendor like Process Ninjas can help you. Teams like us reduce both financial and time costs for your team by taking some of the survey programming tasks off of your plate.
Outsourced survey programming can ease your in-house team of the burden of market research.
Outsourced Survey Programming
Considering the downsides mentioned above, outsourcing survey programming is a good solution to counter them. Just like in other outsourced services (virtual assistants, content moderation, etc.), there are several benefits in outsourcing survey programming.
- It solves the dilemma of time shortage.
It’s a no-brainer that outsourcing means freeing up your team of the responsibilities of market research, and survey programming. Since a third-party team will now handle the selection, formulation of questions, creation of logic codes, carrying out the survey, and conducting data analysis, you and the rest of your in-house team can focus on other areas to make the business grow.
- An outsourced team can save you money.
It may seem counterproductive to hire someone else outside of your team to create and perform your surveys online. But, leaving things up to professionals and their software can produce more accurate results, and lesser chances of doing another survey in case it fails. A do-it-yourself survey may be easier to create but the accuracy of a survey program from a dedicated team will benefit you in the long run, making it worth the money.
- It keeps biases minimal.
Truthfully, it would be hard to accept that some of your business decisions will not always translate to success and garner negative feedback despite your hard work. An outsourced team can have a more objective point of view in creating the questions, doing the logic flows, and giving out reports post-data analysis.
- An outsourced survey programming team prevents overflow but promotes growth.
You will not only benefit from an outsourced market research team in terms of time and money. Tapping them can also help them improve in their niche and grow professionally. At the same time, you are not left with the pressure of hiring new employees that will have to be under your wing even if the survey programming period is over. It’s a win-win situation for you as the business owner, and the outsourced survey programming team.
Process Ninjas Survey Programming
Process Ninjas offers comprehensive survey programming for your business’ market research, including a streamlined recruitment process for your prequalifying survey. We can work with your team screen global panelists, or participants, that may be potential respondents for your specific needs. Afterwards, we can narrow them down via phone interview.
Using survey programming, we also take care and streamline the prequalifying selection process so you get the most accurate sample that best represents your target market. We take care of this tedious work and ensure you have appropriate respondents. In turn, it allows you to save time and focus on your long-term goals and in-house team. Thus, our collaboration will ease you from the burden of the selection process for your respondents. What you get in the end are accurate survey results that would benefit your business best, without sacrificing other areas of your business and ensure they are up and running.
For more information, visit www.processninjas.com.