The majority of marketing campaigns fail. Whether they targeted the incorrect audience, used poor messaging, or simply were marketing a bad product, there are many reasons why so many promotion efforts fail. However, there is one key strategy that could have avoided these mistakes: doing prior marketing research.
Marketing research identifies your target audience, what types of messages resonate the most with that audience, and demand trends that indicate what types of products your audience wants or needs. This information is invaluable and can be used to strengthen your marketing and advertising campaigns in order to achieve success. Here are some key reasons why marketing research should be utilized by all businesses:
It Guides Your Business’s Focus
Most importantly, marketing research identifies the customers most likely to be interested in your products or services (your target audience). Your target audience research should drive your business decisions, from designing your products or services to advertising them.
By catering your offerings to one specific audience, you can effectively capture that market segment and dedicate your advertising efforts to them, as opposed to aiming for a massive general audience. Target audience research drives business and investment decisions. However, it is important to note that your target audience will likely shift or change over time, so you should perform routine research in order to track their needs and wants.
It Reduces Wasteful Spending
By focusing your efforts on your target audience, you can choose the digital platforms where your audience is most active, as opposed to using a broad variety of channels in an attempt to reach as many people as possible. For example, if you are selling inexpensive headphones intended for college students, then it would be most effective to utilize advertising on social media since your audience is most active there.
Additionally, research can predict future changes in the market so your business can adapt early and avoid costly losses later on. For the healthcare industry, for example, Research America provides invaluable healthcare market research to help medical businesses make informed decisions about future consumer, physician, and market changes.
It Improves Your Content’s Effectiveness
Writing content with one buyer persona in mind makes it much easier to write persuasive and relevant advertising copy, blog posts, social media posts, and more. You can incorporate your target audience’s challenges, experiences, wishes, and more in order to appeal directly to them. Showing how your product or service solves their problem(s) is very persuasive and emphasizes the purpose of your offering. Additionally, research shows what type of messaging your target audience prefers and where they are most likely to interact with your post.
Overall, marketing research is essential for providing focus to your business, reducing wasteful spending, and improving your content’s effectiveness. Although it does require an upfront cost, marketing research is a valuable investment that will often pay for itself from more successful advertising and marketing campaigns.
