Game Changing Market Research Methodologies

When you first think of market research methods, the image of surveys and focus groups may come to mind. However, market research has evolved, to the point that you may be unaware what methodologies are being used today. While methods have grown more complex, they’ve also gotten a lot more interesting. Here are some examples of how much the game has changed.

Analyzing Data

Nowadays, collecting information about a consumer’s habit has become much easier than it once was, especially because the Internet facilitates a lot of info gathering. For example, Google actually informs webmasters about aspects like the language in which web visitors speak, the pages that have been visited, and other inferred preferences of consumers. This method is constantly used to refine a website for its visitors, and it represents a shift towards data analysis from a previous high focus on just data collection.

Observational Research

If you wanted to know the effect of a product, would you rather directly ask those affected questions about their responses to it, or would you rather observe how they respond to the product? Observing would be the more effective route, as it conveys subconscious information, whereas verbal answers to questions are often culturally informed and therefore non-objective. Observational research is increasingly being used to help predict future consumption tendencies.

Biometric Research

As just discussed, people often react to advertisements in ways they may not be able to adequately put into words. Many market research labs now make use of biometrics, or the measuring of a person’s physical responses to stimuli, to learn about their unconscious and subconscious responses to advertising and products. Physical responses like heart rate, brain wave changes, respiration, eye movements, and skin and muscle activity all fall within the biometrics spectrum and are used to analyze what makes a person emotionally and intuitively attached or repelled to what they see or experience.

 Virtual Shopping

This process uses a store simulation to test marketing aspects like product placement, store layouts, and packaging. The method places consumers in a situation that looks and feels real, allowing for researchers to collect a variety of information about the experience.

 There are methodologies out there that have brought the market research industry to a whole new level. We are rapidly evolving from primitive market research tools to new methodologies that will provide more realistic and real-time results!