More than 90% of companies launching new products fail. It’s a frightening statistic, especially when you consider the amount of time, money, and resources that go into launching new products or services. Working with a market research firm helps mitigate this possibility.
As teams equipped in understanding different customer and market dynamics, as well as understanding how best to collect necessary information, these groups support organizations big and small in producing successful products and services. And, in doing so, make sure that those failures are less likely to happen.
Let’s look at the seven things you can expect when working with a market research firm.
- Outside Experience & Expertise
One of the things that initially sets market research firms apart is that they feature talented professionals adept at a wide variety of research methods. Most agencies will have individuals who can help with qualitative research like fielding one-to-one interviews, focus groups, or broader community research. At the same time, they will also have individuals experienced at quantitative research like surveys and statistical analysis.
Additionally, you can rely on these teams to advise you on the best research methods for your goals. By listening to your specific challenges and objectives, research firms can point you towards the best methodologies as well as explain why they suggest those approaches. This will leave you confident that you are using your resources wisely to collect the right kind of information.
- Independent, Objective Parties
When businesses perform their own internal research, they run the risk of inserting their own biases into the work. While unintentional, it may yield results that are inaccurate or not as applicable as they could be.
A major advantage of using a 3rd party team to do your research is that they are wholly independent. This means that they can offer unbiased advice as to how best to proceed with research, and will craft interview or survey questions that correctly capture objective data. Additionally, at the tail end of the project, they will analyze the data with a completely fresh lens. This ensures objective findings and recommendations so that you make the right decisions.
- Access To Different Research Tools
Like much of the world, market research has gone digital. Many different types of studies, from surveys to interviews to focus groups, are performed online. This means leveraging unique software solutions to execute any given study.
The average organization does not have access to these tools. Not only would it not make sense to absorb these platforms’ costs but it would take too long for internal personnel to build the skills to use them.
However, because market research firms do studies as their core service, they typically carry licenses to a wide variety of software research platforms. This means that you can quickly execute on the kind of study you want while having a partner that can make the right tools readily available.
- Time & Cost Savings
While it may sound unusual, it’s actually more cost and time effective to bring in a market research firm. This is because these teams are highly skilled and therefore more efficient at executing any type of research work.
If a business were to try and run their own research study, there would be items to work through. To begin with, they would need to decide internally what type of methodology they would use. They would then need to develop surveys or discussion guides, likely going through a great number of iterations because of their limited experience. When it comes time to field the study, they would need to research the platform they want to use and then learn how to use it. Lastly, once the data is collected, they would need to spend time understanding how to properly analyze raw research data. This represents an incredible amount of time.
In contrast, much of this is removed when you engage with a market research firm. While they will work with you to develop and field the studies, much of this overhead work is assumed directly by them. This ensures you have the right people doing research work to free up your team to execute on their core competencies and responsibilities.
- Bringing Additional Opportunities To Your Attention
Most organizations come to a market research project with one core goal or research question in mind. Additionally, they typically think they can answer just this one single goal or question. This is far too limited.
When working with a market research agency, you’ll likely be able to address not just your primary research goal but also several secondary objectives as well. This is because market research firms are able to listen to your broader business challenges, pinpoint how to address your core goal, and then also develop approaches that answer additional goals within the same study.
As a result of this, you get far more value out of your research budget.
- Deeper Insights Analysis
Most businesses don’t spend their entire days looking at survey data or interview quotes. It means they haven’t built the skills in-house to understand how to dive into data and pull out critical business insights. They’ll likely see the major, obvious data but not the deeper nuances.
When working with a market research firm, you’ll have a team at your disposal that can do just that. By looking for unique trends not just at a high-level but also across unique respondent groups, research teams will produce far more findings. This can build peace of mind that you’re not missing any key findings within your data.
In sum, organizations can choose to go-it-alone when it comes to tackling market research projects. However, if they do so, they should recognize the major downsides of doing so. They will spend much more time and resources than they want, they won’t use the best tool for the job, they may not select the best methodology for their core business objectives, and they will leave key data findings on the table. Hiring a research firm overcomes all of these downsides head on, letting businesses build confidence that they are launching the right products and services that will help them grow their business.
