What are the most common mistakes companies make when conducting market research?

Before beginning with your research, it is essential to clearly define what are you actually trying to understand from the market. Specifics will help you to be direct with your approaches and also automatically state your target audience, the best way to reach out to them and once you have the identification, the best set of questions to fill the blanks.

A key aspect here is understanding how you will use the data from the research to drive important business decisions and objectives (as opposed to just having research objectives).

Objective is fundamental. If you don't get this right, you won't get anything right because of the Domino effect. You plan your means and resources accordingly, you'll plan your marketing accordingly and you'll plan your business accordingly.

Outro ponto importante é ter objetivos claros n?o somente dos projetos, mas também da vis?o do negócio, ir alinhado com estratégias de curto, médio e longo prazo. Definir onde cada projeto se encaixa é primordial para que os projetos estejam alinhados com a expectativa do negócio.

If you have a small budget, start by accessing existing quantitative data from existing industry reports and via the paid databases. Don't forget that your own customer-facing employees have a wealth of anecdotal information that can be grouped as a qualitative assessment, before going down the path of focus groups etc.

Your target audience and the purpose of your research should be the main pointers while selecting methods or channels of your research. Once this is clear, you can evaluate the various options available according to the budget.

Quantitative or qualitative, both methods carry their own pro and con. What you need to do is to see If your organization getting into a product launch or for things that need a qualitative approach or You are heading to the feature launch or maybe testing where qualitative is needed. Choose based on your objectives.

There's a fairly simple rule to help you choose the right method: Do you want to know why people are doing things, or what people are doing? Why = Qual and What = Quant. The reason I say this is fairly simple, is that most research situations aren't going to present you with a list of questions that are either why, or what. The chances are that you and your stakeholders are going to have a range of question types, so you'll have to assess the priority questions, and choose the best fit. The biggest issue you'll face, is if you try to collect qual data with a quant methodology and vice versa. As long as you're intentional in the methodology you choose, and the questions you formulate, you'll stay on track.

Independente de ser qualitativo eou quantitativo, preciso definir os objetivos da estratégia que a empresa quer com a pesquisa, o que eu quero com essas informa??es? Qual público quero entender? Qual a jornada desse consumidor? Quais comportamentos ele tem e por qual motivo? Se o consumidor tem o hábito de consumir um produto X ele está indo pelo sabor, pre?o ou pela marca? N?o é sobre as respostas certas, sempre é sobre as perguntas certas. N?o adianta realizar uma pesquisa qualitativa e quantitativa, se eu n?o tenho claro o que eu quero com essa pesquisa.

It is also important to be aware of your own biases and avoid making assumptions. We all have biases, and it is important to be mindful of them so that they don't influence the way we write our survey or interview questions. One way to do this is to ask a colleague or friend to review your questions and give you feedback.

The best way to avoid this mistake is to ask agree/disagree type questions. And allow them a range from strongly agree to strongly disagree. I have seen this working for product features a lot. so you can give it a try and use creativity around framing questions that give enough freedom to the customer.

Market research deserves the same attention and rigour usually reserved for academic research. It's also useful to have a peer, colleague or friend review the data and insights, and then provide an opinion on how valid your data is.

Inductive/ Deductive reasoning. Consistency and patters of the answers provided will authenticate the accuracy of the data a lot. Validating the data is crucial. There are several tools that not only provide reports based on the data provided but also do inductive/ deductive reasoning.

I don't think this is a huge mistake people make, this is more of an opportunity when you have a large quantitative data set, or a qual project that was designed to expand your understanding of pre-determined segments. There are mistakes people can make with segmenting data that would mean they're better off looking at the total sample. If you're segmenting your quant data you need to ensure that each segment is large enough to analyse and compare to the others, clean and exclusive, that there are segments that include all your respondents. If you're expanding your understanding of pre-determined segments in qual then you need to ensure that you built those segments based on real data, or actual evidence.

If you collect granular data that'll be needed to draw insights then segmentation is crucial. Regular data classification is part of the data analysis process but when data is going to be used for crucial insights profiling is important. To ease your work you can use a question that decides on segments while filling up the survey.

Communication is key. It's true. R&D has a purpose. It serves a crucial need of business which is growth. If you don't communicate the findings then there won't be any incremental innovation. And with this competitive landscape, incremental innovation is the life blood.

Muitas empresas acham que pesquisas de mercado s?o gastos ao invés de investimento, e o crescimento do negócio só acontece se a empresa fazer o que da certo no mercado e n?o o que ela acha que vai dar certo. Investir em pesquisas é estratégico, mas só irá gerar resultados se o cabe?a do negócio enxergar isso como algo primordial e implementar mudan?as de acordo com os resultados das pesquisas. Só é caro aquilo que n?o se utiliza.

Many companies, while conducting market research, treat it as a mere checkbox, rather than a compass. A prevalent mistake is the 'one-size-fits-all' approach, ignoring cultural or regional nuances. Often, companies are so fixated on numbers that they miss out on human stories behind them. It's not just about collecting data; it's about comprehending its narrative.

Companies should note that systematic research requires allocating enough time and resources or the findings may be misleading.

having too many people involved in the design or review process. too many cooks in the kitchen often derail the original objectives or cause budget and scope creep. get stakeholder input on objectives and outcome before starting the project. and then have a small working and approval group for design. limit reviews to one or two rounds.

Budget allocation: As market research is a vital component. It is very important to allocate sufficient budget to complete this work. Hiring an external expert will be useful to avoid bias and validate our own research.