Market research has developed rapidly in recent years. While traditional methods still have their place in the industry, agile approaches are becoming increasingly important. In this blog article, we look at why new approaches are needed in market research and what we mean by this.
Agile approaches in market research
Agile market research is an iterative and incremental approach that focuses on fast and flexible responses to changes in the market and among consumers. It is based on the Agile Manifesto, which was originally developed for software development, and uses short cycles and continuous feedback loops to incorporate lessons learned directly into the product development process. With this approach, agile market research is just as close to the lean startup methodology (build-measure-learn).
Advantages of agile approaches
One of the biggest advantages of agile approaches is their flexibility. Agile market research makes it possible to react quickly to changes in the market and among consumers and to gain insights in real time. It also helps to save costs and time by eliminating unnecessary steps and enabling faster decisions.
- Faster results: By using iterative processes and feedback loops, agile teams can react quickly to changes in the market and deliver validated results faster.
- Better customer focus: A survey by GreenBook has shown that agile methods help to achieve better customer focus in market research. By working closely with customers and stakeholders, agile teams can better align their research results with the needs and wishes of their target group.
- Greater efficiency: A study by McKinsey has shown that agile methods help to improve efficiency in market research. By using agile practices such as sprints and retrospectives, teams can better coordinate their work and identify and remove obstacles more quickly, leading to greater efficiency and an overall better result.
- Higher quality: By constantly reviewing and improving work during the process, agile teams can ensure that their work is of high quality and delivers better results.
- Reduced risk: By using agile practices such as continuous integration and continuous delivery, teams can respond quickly to issues and make the necessary adjustments to ensure the project is completed successfully.
In summary, agile market research offers numerous advantages such as flexibility, faster results, greater customer focus, efficiency and quality as well as lower risk. Agile methods also enable companies to react better to changes in the market and develop innovative solutions in a more customer-centric way.
Examples of the use of agile market research
Agile market research is an important approach for innovative companies in various industries, such as Unilever, Zappos and Spotify, to respond quickly to changing market and customer needs and achieve better results.
Unilever: Unilever, a global FMCG company, uses agile methods in market research to react quickly to changes in the market and changing customer needs. For example, Unilever has used an agile approach for its Knorr product line to quickly test and validate new product launches.
Zappos: The online shoe and clothing company Zappos has introduced agile methods in market research in order to react quickly to changes in the market and the needs of its customers. Zappos continuously conducts A/B testing to improve its website and mobile apps and collects feedback from customers via social media and other channels. By using agile methods, Zappos has been able to respond more quickly to the needs of its customers and achieve better results.
Spotify: Spotify, the well-known music streaming service, has used agile methods in market research to quickly develop and launch new features and products. Spotify continuously conducts tests and experiments to test new features and gather feedback from customers. By using agile methods, Spotify has been able to respond quickly to the changing needs of its customers and introduce new products and features to remain competitive
Overall, it can be said that agile market research is now an important approach for innovative companies in a wide range of industries in order to stay in tune with the rapidly changing needs of the market and consumers.
Comparison of the approaches: A comparison of strengths and weaknesses
"When it comes to identifying the best approaches to market research, it's important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches. Agile approaches offer faster and more cost-effective results, but they don't always provide the depth that traditional methods do. Traditional methods offer in-depth insights, but they are often more time-consuming and expensive.
When are agile approaches best suited?
Agile approaches are best suited when quick results are needed to make decisions. They are also suitable for monitoring trends and changes in market behavior.
When are traditional methods best suited?
Traditional methods are best suited when detailed insights into the needs and behaviors of consumers are required. They are also well suited when a broader sample of consumers needs to be surveyed.
Changes in market and consumer behavior
In today's rapidly changing and highly digitalized world, market and consumer behaviour has also changed dramatically.
- Consumers are more informed than ever before. This is reflected, for example, in the fact that the values embodied by a brand are increasingly determining whether consumers make a purchase decision. In a corresponding study, three quarters of buyers stated that they would part with a brand due to a conflict of values.
- The availability of digital technologies has changed consumer expectations and behavior patterns. For example, we want to feel represented by the brands we choose. A genuine connection between consumer and brand is expected. Marketing and communication as a two-way street!
Adapting market research to the modern world
Market researchers must therefore find new approaches to better understand the needs of their target group. Traditional market research methods such as panel surveys or focus groups are often no longer sufficient to gain a deep understanding of consumers' purchasing behavior and motivation.
New approaches include, for example:
- Online surveys: Online surveys are a popular market research tool where consumers are asked to answer questions about their experiences and opinions on a particular product or service. The surveys can be conducted via various channels such as email, social media or the company website and can provide quick and effective insights into the target group.
- Advantages of online surveys:
- Greater flexibility and cost efficiency
- Simpler analysis
- Higher accuracy of results
- Social media analysis: Through social media, market researchers have access to a huge amount of data about consumers, their interests, preferences and opinions. This data provides unparalleled insight into the consumer world and enables market researchers to optimize their research projects and improve results.
Advantages of social media analysis in market research:
- Speed: Enables a quick response to customer feedback and concerns
- Foresight: Helps to recognize and react to trends and market developments at an early stage
- Relevance: Social media offers a unique opportunity to observe the behavior and attitudes of consumers in a natural environment.
- Richness: Social media generates a large amount of data that market researchers can use to gain a deeper understanding of consumers.
- Accessibility: Social media is accessible to all, which allows market researchers to collect data from a broad target group.
- Big data analysis: Big data analysis enables companies to collect, store and analyze large amounts of data in order to gain insights into their target group. These insights can help to identify trends, better understand consumer needs and develop customized offers. Big data analyses can also be used to personalize advertising and marketing campaigns.
Advantages of big data in market research:
- Greater accuracy through real-time data analysis
- Better insights into consumer behavior and trends
- More cost-effective solution compared to conventional methods
- Scalability for large and complex data sets
- Faster decision making and problem solving
Market research has changed significantly in the course of digitalization. New approaches such as online surveys, social media analysis and big data analysis offer companies a deeper understanding of their target group and enable faster decisions. While traditional methods are still relevant, modern approaches can help companies to better meet the needs of their customers and compete in a highly competitive market.
The toolbox of an agile market researcher
This chapter looks at the tools and methods that agile market researchers can use to develop FMCG products. Various methods are presented, including online surveys, individual interviews, behavioral research, A/B tests, observational data on social media, landing pages, usability tests, prototyping tools and data analytics tools.
Online surveys
By using online surveys, you can quickly and cost-effectively obtain feedback from a broad target group that would potentially use your product or service. You can collect quantitative and qualitative data.
Three tools we use for online surveys are:
- Google Forms: A simple and free online survey tool used by many FMCG companies. Google Forms offers customizable survey templates, integrations with other Google tools such as Google Sheets and a variety of analytics features.
- Typeform: A modern and user-friendly online survey tool designed specifically for market research. Typeform offers customizable survey templates and an intuitive user interface that makes it easy to create and conduct surveys. It also offers integrations with other tools such as Zapier and Google Sheets.
- SurveyMonkey: A proven online survey tool designed specifically for FMCG market research. SurveyMonkey offers a wide range of functions and templates as well as easy-to-use analysis and reporting functions.
Individual interviews
Individual interviews can offer similar insights to focus groups, but with the advantage that the results are more individual and can therefore be more targeted to the individual needs of the interviewees.
Here are three important points to consider when conducting individual interviews in market research for FMCG products:
- Target group selection: It is important to ensure that the interview participants are a representative sample of the target group for which the FMCG product is intended. Careful selection of participants who match the target profile is important in order to obtain meaningful and representative results.
- Interview guide: A well-structured interview guide helps to ensure that all relevant questions are asked and that the data is comparable and meaningful. The guide should be well thought out and focused on the specific objectives of the market research study to ensure that it provides relevant and useful information.
- Interviewer qualification: The interviewer should be qualified and experienced to ensure that they are able to ask the questions clearly and accurately and that they are able to have meaningful conversations with the participants. An experienced interviewer can also help to build trust and establish a positive relationship with the participant, which can improve the quality of the results.
Behavioral research
By observing the behavior of potential customers when using your product or performing similar activities, you can gain valuable insights into how it is used in practice and how it can be improved.
Here are three important points to consider when conducting behavioral research in FMCG product market research:
- Observation environment: The environment in which the behavior is observed should be realistic to ensure that the observations are representative of actual consumer behavior. It is also important to ensure that the observation environment is not designed to influence consumer behavior.
- Data analysis: Behavioral research can generate large amounts of data. A thorough analysis of the data is necessary in order to identify and interpret the relevant information. Methods such as data clustering or machine learning can be used here to gain insights from the data.
- Ethics: In behavioral research, it is important to observe ethical principles. Consumers' participation in the study should be voluntary and they should be informed about the purpose of the study. It is also important to ensure that consumer data is treated confidentially and that consumer privacy is respected.
A/B testing
A/B testing allows you to test different versions of your product or service to find out which version works better. The aim is either to identify the product concept that has the greatest potential or to optimize the effectiveness of communication.
When is A/B testing used?
- Online advertising: A/B testing can be used in social media, for example, to test different versions of an advertisement quickly and cost-effectively. Any number of versions can be compared with each other simultaneously without great effort. It is important to ensure that only one feature is varied, e.g. the product concept, the product attribute claim, the packaging or the brand name. The other features should be kept constant.
- Landing pages: There are various use cases for A/B tests on landing pages. Often only small things are changed, e.g. the color of a button. This serves to optimize the website. If the two versions differ more and several features are changed at the same time, this is sometimes referred to as a split test. In this case, the user behavior on the two landing pages is compared directly with each other. In this way, for example, the product concept with the greatest potential can be identified. An A/B test on a landing page requires more effort than in online advertising, but more data can be collected. You can find out more about landing pages in the next section.
- Newsletter: A/B testing with newsletters makes it possible to test different versions of an email campaign to find out which version works best. This approach is particularly suitable if you don't necessarily want to acquire new customers, but have existing customers or a list of interested parties.
→ In our live concept test for example, we create an A/B test with advertising in social media to test various product concepts live on the market.
Through landing pages, you can provide targeted information about the product and direct potential customers to an online survey to receive targeted feedback. This can help supplement the data collected from clicking on ads and gain a more comprehensive understanding of the target audience's needs and wants.
Here are three website builders that make it easy to create landing page tests:
- Webflow: Webflow is a powerful website builder that makes it easy to create landing pages from scratch. It is also integrated with a variety of analytics tools to track the results of tests.
- Carrd: Carrd is a simple but powerful tool for creating landing pages and also enables A/B tests to be carried out.
- Unbounce: Unbounce is a professional tool for creating landing pages and allows you to carry out A/B tests and other experiments.
→ In our live market test for example, we create a landing page and online advertising for your product idea in order to collect valuable market data at an early stage.
Usability tests
Usability tests can help you find out how easy it is for potential customers to use your product or service and how it can be improved.
Here are three tools that are helpful for usability tests:
- UsabilityHub: UsabilityHub is a tool that offers various functions for UX research, including Five Second Tests, Click Tests and Question Tests.
- Optimal Workshop: Optimal Workshop is a tool that offers a variety of UX research tools such as Card Sorting, Tree Testing and Chalkmark to test the usability of products.
- Hotjar: Hotjar is a website visitor behavior analysis tool that also offers heat maps, click analysis and surveys to improve the user-friendliness of websites.
Prototyping tools such as Sketch or Figma can help with the development of mock-ups and prototypes for products or services. They can also help to collect feedback from customers and stakeholders and quickly make adjustments to products.
The three central steps in the development of a prototype are described here:
- Paper prototypes: Inexpensive and quick to create, allow easy changes and provide early feedback
- Low-fidelity prototypes: Uses simple materials such as cardboard or wire to test basic interactions and identify design issues
- High-fidelity prototypes: Provide a realistic user experience to get feedback on details such as layout, colors and typography. However, can be time consuming and expensive.
Data analytics
Data analytics tools such as Google Analytics or Tableau can help analyze usage data and customer feedback. They can also be used to identify trends and behaviors and support decisions based on real-time data.
Here are three of the best data analytics tools:
- Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a free tool that makes it possible to collect and analyze data about user behavior on websites and apps. It offers a variety of functions such as user-defined reports, segmentation and target group analysis.
- Tableau: Tableau is a powerful data analytics tool that makes it possible to visually display and analyze complex data. It also offers features such as automated data refresh and collaboration.
- Power BI: Power BI is a data visualization and business intelligence tool that makes it possible to integrate and visually display data from different sources. It also offers functions such as automated data updating and collaboration.
The use of these tools can help to improve data analysis and decision-making in relation to FMCG products, increasing the profitability and effectiveness of marketing campaigns and product development.
Overall, it is important to use a combination of methods to ensure that the data is representative and meaningful. This approach is also referred to as "mixed-method research".
Mixed-methods research contributes to product development by helping companies gain a better understanding of customer needs and the market, enabling them to make more effective product development and marketing decisions.
These three points briefly summarize the approach:
- By using qualitative and quantitative methods, companies can gain a more comprehensive understanding of customers' needs and wishes in order to develop products that meet these requirements.
- The use of machine learning and AI can help to efficiently analyze large amounts of data to quickly gain insights into customer behavior and needs.
- The combination of qualitative and quantitative data enables companies to react quickly to customer feedback and needs and to develop products that meet customer requirements.
The combination of different research methods and tools enables companies to gain a comprehensive understanding of their customers' needs and wishes and to respond quickly to customer feedback and needs. Mixed-method research contributes to product development by helping companies make more effective decisions regarding product development and marketing.
Summary of the most important points
Market research has evolved in a fast-paced, digital world. Agile methods such as online surveys, social media analysis and big data analysis offer companies a deeper understanding of their target group and enable faster decisions. A combination of different research methods is recommended.
- Agile market research offers numerous advantages such as flexibility, faster results, greater customer focus, efficiency and quality as well as lower risk.
- New approaches such as online surveys, social media analysis and big data analysis enable companies to gain a deeper understanding of their target group and make faster decisions.
- Mixed-method research, i.e. the combination of different research methods and tools, enables companies to gain a comprehensive understanding of their customers' needs and wishes and to make more effective decisions.
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