Anil Kaul

Market research plays a critical role in determining the marketing strategies of companies worldwide. It provides useful insights for creating business plans when one is launching a new product or service, fine tuning existing products and services and expanding into new markets. Market research is also effective in determining the target segment, market size, market trends, customer perceptions, pricing strategies, etc. All these equip companies for better customer acquisition and retention.

The scope of market research has become much broader, making it a necessity. Also, the amount spent on it has increased 50 percent over the last few years. Hence, it becomes important to do market research in a cost-effective manner and ensure maximum return.

The best way to do high-quality yet cost-effective and speedy research is to do it online. Although a relatively new trend in India, it’s catching up fast. In fact, quite a few firms are launching online panels to facilitate online surveys in India. Online research cuts down heavily on additional resource costs. It also makes it feasible for companies to field small studies as the cost involved is minimal. This widens scope for SMEs and departments that did not have an option of traditional research owing to limited budgets or small study size.

The use of sophisticated techniques is further instrumental in enabling cost-effective market research. For instance, the usage of Hierarchical Bayes helps reduce the required sample size without affecting the robustness of the sample. Development of certain methodologies like Price Sensitivity Method (PSM), where the price for the product is estimated by asking only a few questions to each respondent, makes undertaking researches easier and low cost. Using standardized software(s) to perform operations and holding focus group discussions also help cut research costs.

Consumer needs are constantly changing and companies need to keep up with these while providing products and services. It becomes necessary for firms to know how customers see their brand. Market research is the only effective way for firms to stay abreast of the consumer space. It helps differentiate products and services and target costumers more effectively with different offers. With market research being used extensively by companies worldwide, cost-effective market research is definitely the need of the hour.

Anil Kaul is Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, AbsoluData Research & Analytics.