Without insights, data, and information about your customers, markets, or competitors, the chances of steering a business to incredible heights of success are minimal. Today, we take you through some of the steps of carrying out market research.

What is Market Research? Market Research refers to the process involving the collection of information regarding one’s customers and target market in a bid to validate the success of a novel product, aid in the restatement of existing products, or get a clearer understanding of the brand image to make sure there is an effective relay of the company’s value to the public.  Market researchers in Uganda provide companies with valuable information that they can leverage to develop superior products, enhance customer experience or develop compelling marketing strategies capable of drawing in customers and increasing conversion rates for businesses.

Why conduct market research in Uganda? 

Professional market researchers in Uganda have proved invaluable to numerous companies (both domestic and foreign) by providing vital and deep consumer insights into what customers are thinking, their individual preferences as well as the reasons behind their purchase decisions. While existing data and analytics are capable of identifying the particular actions customers make, without market research, businesses are unable to decipher the rationale behind these decisions.

Market research prevails over industry trends and assumptions. Information and data gathered by a credible market research company in Uganda should be able to focus on customer experience, making it more reliable, well-founded, and a much better bet than insights derived from market trends and assumptions that could sometimes turn out to be less accurate.

To avoid planning in a vacuum, good market research companies in Uganda should be able to conduct market research on behalf of your company to provide a basis for more informed and better decision-making. This type of work can only be done by professional market researchers. 

This is because a credible market research company in Uganda should have specialist experts such as Research Analysts that can analyze all facets of your company as well as your market using the most efficient methods for data gathering and provide you with cutting-edge market intelligence, sound data and insights for important business decisions. Stop using intuition for important business decisions. Get quality market research now.

In essence, market research enables your organization to meet your target customers where they are. Through understanding your customers’ actual troubles, pain points, and the solutions they seek, professional market researchers in Uganda can help your company to appropriately design your services or products in order to attract them naturally. 

Furthermore, your company can also benefit through uncovering critical insights into whether demand for any current or future product is available, current competitors and their winning strategies, unmet customer needs and challenges, as well as customer segments among many other services that market research companies in Uganda should be able to offer. 

Traditional market research can be quite expensive, cumbersome, and even outdated. This is especially true for digital enterprises, as well as SME businesses of all types. Because a classic approach to market research can be quite rigid and inflexible in the face of a fast-paced business environment, lean market research can come into play.

LEAN MARKET RESEARCH A lean approach to conducting market research is a technique that involves the use of minimal resources to acquire insights regarding prospective clients. This method enables businesses to design a product or service that serves the actual needs of customers by placing emphasis on understanding the actual wants, needs, and pain points of their potentially available customer base. The main goal of the lean approach to market research is to swiftly and cheaply pinpoint challenges customers face and, consequently devise solutions that can effectively satisfy them.

How to conduct lean market research

While the overall process of conducting market research can turn out to be lengthy, it is without doubt, worth the energy invested. With vast amounts of information on customers’ needs and purchasing habits, businesses are in a better position of obtaining a competitive advantage within their industries.

A comprehensive guide to carrying out lean market research in Uganda

1. Craft user personas

User personas are semi-fictional characters created by companies, based on the demographic and psychographic characteristics of people who consume products and services similar to those of your business. 

In order to forge a bond with your potential clients, it is essential that you discern who they are, what they like, how they interact with your product or service, and their purchasing behavior. 

This might sound easy but as Steve Jobs once said regarding consumers ‘“A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them” Many companies make the mistake of launching new products or services based on intuition or past success. But there are many dangers of relying exclusively on intuition and past success as a marketing strategy.

Obtaining data about your potential customers’ expectations wants and needs is the essence of buyer personas and a critical step in consumer analysis. It involves finding a sample of appropriate people to partake in the research and these may include individuals who have bought from a rival or even those who follow or engage with your brand on social networks.

In order to gather this information, any credible Market research company in Uganda should have the expertise to formulate the right survey/interview questions which can be circulated on-page, via email, or physically, helping you to really know your customer.

2. Conduct one-on-one interviews

A credible market research company in Uganda should also be able to conduct one-on-one interviews with your potential consumers in order to pry further and dig deeper into their thoughts, ideas, concerns, and purchase decisions, which often leads to better and more detailed insights that your sales and marketing teams can use to sell company products or services.

Some of the vital questions that should not go unmasked by a good interviewer should probe about;

• Who are your customers?
• What is their main goal?
• What are the main barriers to achieving their goal?
• If there is anything else they’d like to tell the interviewer.

3. Analyze the data

Data analysis by itself can be a hefty task when it comes to the research process, especially when it involves primary data collected from surveys and interviews. However, it is important to keep in mind that the major reason for choosing to undertake lean market research is to quickly uncover actionable insights for effective decision-making.

Some of the methods that can help effectively handle the data without getting overwhelmed by its magnitude include the following;

1. Flow model

Professional market researchers in Uganda can use the flow model to keep track of the information in a system through forming a simple visual depiction of the ways in which customers use your product and how they interact with one another.

2. Affinity diagram

An affinity diagram can be used by market researchers to sort scores of data and categorize them in order to be able to see the bigger picture. This can be helpful in many instances for example a question about profession can yield a number of broad themes which can be grouped more generally despite each respondent giving a different response.

3. Customer journey map

A customer journey map is another technique that can be used by any business in Uganda to analyze data after conducting market research. It demonstrates the way in which a representative potential client turns into a paying customer by illustrating their first encounter with the brand and each subsequent step taken in the sales cycle, stretching from the point of awareness to that of a repeat purchase.

Conclusion

Conducting market research is very vital for businesses to attain and compete favorably in the market and gain a competitive advantage over competitors. Companies in Uganda can create more effective strategies through data-centered research by working with a professional market research company that uses efficient methods for data gathering.

However many businesses consider hiring Market research companies in Uganda to undertake thorough market research to be costly.

This is why the lean approach to market research can be leveraged to gain valuable insights at a considerably lower cost for more informed and better decision-making as well as ensuring that the product or service being produced meets the actual needs and wants of customers.