Six Essential Tools for Global Market Research

How do you apply and maximize the growth of technology in global market research?

In today’s day and age, even small businesses can reach consumers from across the globe because of technological innovations and the proliferation of the internet. There has been a lot of recorded business ventures that managed to flourish successfully in a global market.

However, it just doesn’t happen overnight. Expanding your business on an international level would also mean conducting global market research in order to create a solid marketing strategy. This means weathering the most common challenges accompanied by investing in global market research. To combat this, you have to look for and utilize tools that will help you pull off a global study to begin your international business journey.

Here are Six Fundamental Tools to Assist Your Global Market Research                                                                                                

Web-enabled In-depth interviews and focus group discussions

IDIs and FGDs have proven to be among the most commonly used market research tools for insights generation. However, it would be too costly to gather respondents from different areas of the globe in one specific conference room just to conduct a focus group discussion or an in-depth interview. In this case, it is vital to have an audio or web-enabled market research solutions provider with significant experience in connecting respondents to market researchers in different countries, including even hard-to-reach or remote locations.

Global market research online community platform

A multi-language online community platform would be helpful in gathering insights when it comes to asynchronous international market research studies. It can be customized depending on the native language of the participants, the content that will be shared, and the activities to be customized in cases of cultural or preferential limitations of the target respondent base.

Mobile qualitative tools

The ubiquity of mobile enables researchers to conduct market research in almost any country. Mobile can also be used to run a single country or multi-country international market research simultaneously. A mobile market research app should allow for audio and video recordings to be made in any language then transcribed into the language of choice of the project sponsor. It should also allow for discussion questions to be entered in any language and for respondent answers to be provided back in the language that matches the language of the questions posed.

Translation services

Conducting market research on a global scale means working with multi-national respondents. Which means there would be times where you won’t be able to rely on the English language alone. It is, therefore, an absolute necessity to have translation capabilities especially if the target countries for market research are unfamiliar territories. translation services for market research are extremely helpful in gathering accurate insights in both the local and global context. Market research materials such as discussion guides, screeners, and stimuli can be translated into more language-appropriate materials that should better resonate with respondents.

Global respondent recruitment services

Recruiting for market research with foreign respondents can be specifically challenging. A lot of cultural factors are at play and participation is not easily determined. International market researchers should perform thorough research in terms of the infrastructural capabilities of a particular market, selecting the right respondents, and determining their willingness to participate in a given context. A lot of consideration should be put into cultural practices because such nuances can be lost in inexperienced participants and would require a recruiter with a diverse experience dealing with cultural differences.

Multi-language transcription services

Researchers can have their recordings of IDIs or focus groups translated and transcribed in their preferred language. Verbatim transcriptions would also be helpful in getting accurate and reviewable insights. While transcription rates vary, it is critical to choose a quality-driven transcription company and to not base a transcription decision on the rates alone. While cost can be a factor, accurate findings from a study are critical and can make the difference in product success or failure. A wise researcher ensures that their transcription company of choice is one with a reputation for excellence and not one that promotes themselves on the size of their transcription network or on price alone.