Making the Most of Market Research Firms in the United States

Master the marketing mix with marketing research firms in the United States

Profitable marketing research firms in the US move beyond mastering the nuances of sample managements and calculating significance scores; they also translate what they find into meaningful intelligence you can act on. Rather than churn out tabulated data, they work with you to solve your problems.

Think beyond customer satisfaction polls when interviewing consumer research firms. The best market research firms can provide research methodologies and statistical modeling to analyze the whole “marketing mix.” When making the most of market research firms in the United States, consider:

1. Testing current and emergent products with new product development.

2. Running a price sensitivity model to test affects on sales forecasts.

3. Hiring retail market research firms to analyze placement and channels.

4. Reviewing promotion efforts using a research firm with an advertising focus.

 

Produce goods to match customer expectations through marketing research firm efforts

Combine your product development with work from consumer research firms to get end users into the process early and often. From ideation and initial design to final testing, marketing research firms can connect you with your customer in a systematic rather than ad hoc fashion.
Try: Applied Marketing Science conducts a particular type of product development called Quality Function Deployment that translates what your customer wants into action plans your engineers can work with in R&D. Morpace can develop trade-off models to determine which combination of attributes will lead to a best-selling or most profitable product.

Price the product to sell to your market using models from research firms

Though fixed in place by its own "P" in the marketing mix, product and price are hard to separate. Work with leading market research firms to work up trade-off and price sensitivity models that develop a product you can sell profitably.
Try: Maritz Research’s focus on customer behavior can help develop the right model to measure price sensitivity or purchase intent. Gongos has worked out a Price/Feature Optimization tool that tests not only how much customers will pay for a product, but also which combination of features they want to buy in the product.

Find out where the fish are biting with US market research firms to place your product

All the cutting-edge product development and spot-on pricing modeling does no good if you don't know where people are buying. Work with a firm that can pinpoint what, when and where consumers are purchasing your product category to get into the stream.
Try: The NPD Group collects point-of-sale data for use by companies in retail, manufacturing and finance to measure and track consumer behavior. Click on NPD Insights for their monthly newsletter. America’s Research Group focuses on tracking retail consumer behavior patterns, for retailers and manufacturers of consumer goods.

Test promotion efforts and media channels with market research firms

In addition to traditional media, the Internet has revolutionized how you can interact with your customer: you can develop, promote, sell and service products through the same channel. Employ a market research firm that understands not only conventional message testing but also web design and content analysis.
Try: OTX has developed online tools to comprehensively test television, multi-media, and interactive ad testing. You can even log in to mine data from your project’s results on the fly. Harris Interactive has developed a proprietary “connections-based” research tool that measures how well your market communications builds up the bond between your customer and your brand.

 

• Develop a rapport of mutual trust, so you can focus on your day job-your business, and they can focus on theirs-research. Furthermore, select a market research firm with a comprehensive research package so that your relationship can deepen as your business and research needs grow, rather than getting reacquainted with a new research team every time you need a different type of market research executed.

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