Everybody, it seems, wants to see into the future. For marketers, the need is to be able to predict market acceptance for a new product or a new marketing approach, perhaps a price increase or a new application for an existing product.

The need is so great that a whole industry has sprung up to try to satisfy it – market research. Not counting analytics (a specialized sub-set of market research), we’ve identified 25 different categories within market research, all geared to reading the tea leaves and foretelling the future.

The problem with market research

The problem is not so much that the search tools are crude (which they often are), but that we ask the wrong questions and/or misinterpret the answers. There’s a fine art to using market research so that it produces valuable, actionable answers to questions that will generate more net revenue than the cost of the research.

And then there’s combining methodologies to gain insights that wouldn’t be possible with just one research approach. When you see the possibilities and understand the nuances of research analysis, you can often learn things that others miss completely.

We don't recommend research unless ...

We always insist that clients define the objective and the expected use of market research BEFORE we begin to consider the options. Research for its own sake is best left to academics, not to a serious business with customers and decisions that need to be made every day.

But once we understand the goal, we’re the best at designing a cost-effective research approach to assess market potential. We’ve done it in dozens of product categories, using tried-and-true methodologies and inventing new ones when appropriate. And we usually can tease insights out of the results that demonstrate the value of our experience across industries and researchable questions.

Want to assess the market potential for your next new product or marketing move? Let us show you how we add value to that process and look into the future on your behalf. Just let us know what you need, and we’ll respond quickly.