How to Solve the 5 Biggest Problems in Market Research

In business, sales are driven by products that “click” or resonate with your customers. However, these winning products or services don’t just appear out of the blue. Before product development or marketing decisions are made, brands have to get a pulse on what their customers want out of a product — and the best way to do this is by conducting market research. 

Market research is the organized process of gathering information about specific target markets or customers. By collecting feedback from your respondents through different research methods, you can gather actionable insights that could be used to inform decision-making within a company. This consumer-centric approach bridges the gap between a business and its customers to help boost sales and drive growth.

Although market research brings many benefits, it’s not as straightforward as it seems. Insight professionals such as yourself could encounter several market research problems in the field that could impact your data. Fortunately, leveraging innovative ResTech services can help you address these problems to create a seamless insight-gathering experience.

Common Problems in Market Research

1. Sifting Through Large Datasets

One of the most significant modern-day challenges you may face is the sheer amount of data available. In fact, 328.77 million terabytes of data is created daily in 2023. For this reason, manually extracting relevant data may feel like you’re looking for a needle in a haystack, taking up a lot of time you could use for more valuable tasks. 

How do you address this?

To manage and extract insights from an overwhelming amount of data, efficient data processing is essential. This can be effectively done with the help of an AI-powered report generation tool. By typing in a prompt, the AI report writing tool can process and generate reports from a large dataset in moments. 

With this tool, you are able to:

• Generate first drafts that include key concepts for your report
• Answer questions from one or multiple recordings
• Provide summaries for all the research questions in your discussion guide
• Tailor content based on your audience

2. Ensuring Data Quality

Even with a well-constructed research design, data quality issues may still occur without proper measures in place. Quantitative methods such as online surveys are prone to respondent fraud or bots that could embody real respondents. 

Meanwhile, the ambiguous nature of IDIs or focus group qualitative research can run the risk of bias. These issues can negatively impact the trustworthiness of your data. 

How do you address this?

The most effective way to help mitigate this market research problem is by recruiting qualified and authenticated respondents for your project. Working with a reputable recruitment platform provides you with participants who meet your project specifications to ensure the data you collect is reliable. 

Furthermore, they can also assist you with your discussion guides and screeners to help you gather the desired insights and prevent bias-related challenges. 

Here are some key features you should consider in a recruitment service:

• Offers global partnerships for local and international projects
• Provides respondent reports that include people contacted, degree of qualification, and criteria met
• Verifies respondent quality through video responses or screener questions
• Writes, reviews, or edits discussion guides and screener questions
• Does tech compatibility checks and respondent scheduling 
• Processes incentives for you

3. Meeting Elevated Client Expectations

In today's business environment, consumer needs are constantly changing at a rapid pace. To adapt to this shift, you must focus on delivering value-added insights that enable clients to make informed choices within a short period. Clients no longer prefer lengthy, academic-style reports. To keep pace with trends, they require concise, data-driven recommendations that can be immediately applied to their strategy. 

How do you address this?

Efficient project management and streamlined communication are essential to meet client expectations within tight deadlines. In this case, leveraging a video curation solution can condense hours of data into a concise and comprehensive report for your clients. 

Highlight and showcase critical moments in your discussions with tagging, clipping, time marking, transcription, and storyboarding capabilities. To keep your team and clients in the loop, you can utilize collaboration features such as access controls and viewing privileges. 

4. Setting Yourself Apart

Market research firms often struggle to differentiate themselves in today’s digital landscape. You may find that many use similar methods, making it hard to stand out. 

This emphasizes the need to stay relevant by adopting advanced, tailored qualitative research platforms to reveal deeper insights and gain a competitive advantage. To avoid commodification, moving from generic reports to offering actionable recommendations that meet your client's specific needs is crucial.

How do you address this?

The best way to support your qualitative research needs is by working with a ResTech provider that combines customizable tools with full-service support. They are instrumental in facilitating your market research project to improve efficiency. You may come across providers offering a few of the services mentioned below, but it's best to leverage an end-to-end platform to support each phase of your project. 

Some noteworthy services you should look for include:

• IDIs and Focus Groups: Conduct online or in-person in-depth interviews and focus groups to gather qualitative data.
• Video Curation: Utilize multimedia content for richer insights and storytelling.
• Mobile Ethnography Research: Leverage mobile devices for real-time data collection in different environments.
• Transcriptions and Translations: Ensure the accuracy and accessibility of data across languages and formats.
• AI Report Generation: Accelerate the report writing process using AI to save time and resources.
• Recruitment: Access a pool of participants for various research methodologies.
• Online Communities: Foster ongoing engagement and feedback from your target audiences.
• Mock Jury Services: Gain insights into legal and market-related scenarios through conducting mock trials.

5. Catering to Client Constraints

Clients are under pressure to outperform their competitors and rely on market research to gain an edge. However, they often operate with limited budgets, tight timelines, and defined scopes of work. 

As a result, it may be difficult for you to strike a balance between delivering high-quality insights and accommodating these constraints. Maintaining research excellence while meeting your client’s demands requires proficient project management, transparent communication, and adapting research approaches to align with your budget and timelines. 

How do you address this?

To tackle this challenge, teaming up with a flexible market research provider is the way to go. They can customize their research solutions to accommodate your research objectives, budgets, and project schedules. 

You'll have access to various options and methods, ensuring your chosen methodologies align with your specifications. Furthermore, these providers can adjust their offerings accordingly if there is any change in your research design. This collaborative approach helps you simplify and navigate these market research complexities while getting the most value from your investment.

Choose Your Tools Wisely 

Carefully selecting the right tools and services is crucial to overcoming problems in market research. Similar to choosing the right gear for a challenging journey, each tool serves a specific purpose and contributes significantly to your research experience. By leveraging solutions that fit your needs, you can effectively address issues you encounter to deliver valuable insight and help businesses make informed decisions that drive growth and success.

Effectively Solve Research Dilemmas with Civicom® Marketing Research Services

Civicom® Marketing Research Services is the global leader in providing web-enabled qualitative tools for market research. Our full-service solutions include online IDI and focus group facilitation, mobile research, online communities, respondent recruitment, AI report generation, plus other customizable solutions for your research needs. Contact us to see how we can help you achieve project success.