Diving into the Diversity and Inclusion Survey

Diving into the Diversity and Inclusion Survey

Businesses conduct diversity and inclusion surveys to improve their work culture and the overall employee experience. They do this by gauging their staff’s perspectives and making possible improvements to the general company culture and structure. 

According to McKinsey, organizations within the top diversity quartile have 21% sound financial performance than organizations in the bottom quartile. Diversity also correlates with higher innovation rates.

A practical starting point to foster an inclusive and diverse environment within a workplace relies on conducting an organization-wide diversity and inclusion survey to gather the employees’ feedback on this matter. 

By garnering and analyzing this data, you can better comprehend the current organization status and create a clear path to cultivating D&I.

This article expounds on the key characteristics of diversity and inclusion surveys, their importance, and how to carry out one effectively.

Defining the Diversity and Inclusion Survey

The diversity and inclusion survey is a kind of employee feedback survey, part of the Voice of Employee (VoE) studies that assess employee groups and their experiences in their company. These surveys measure diversity, inclusion, and fairness at your workplace. 

With diversity and inclusion surveys, you can ensure that all people are treated justly and equally, regardless of their gender, age, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disability, religion, or other factors.

Ultimately, this helps build an inclusive culture that drives organizational effectiveness. Essentially, diversity and inclusion surveys enable you to:

  • Identify specific groups who aren’t getting the same experience as others
  • Take appropriate initiatives to promote inclusion and diversity
  • Review procedures and policies and set relevant groups as appropriate
  • Recognize if the bias is unconscious

All in all, diversity and inclusion surveys help you to track your company’s progress towards creating an environment where people are accepted for their beliefs and respected for their values. For example, if your survey shows that workplace sentiments have increased, that means positive progress has been made towards diversity and inclusivity at work. 

The Key Characteristics of the Diversity and Inclusion Survey

These surveys give companies an anonymous and accurate depiction of how fair and inclusive that employees feel about their organization’s culture and employee relations. 

Diversity and Inclusion is a sensitive topic that employees feel strongly about. For starters, your diversity and inclusion survey should include actionable, straightforward questions that help you gauge how different groups find your workplace culture and emphasize areas for improvement.

Some of the key characteristics of a diversity and inclusion survey include:

  • A clear objective for the survey
  • 3-6 questions in length
  • Periodic check-ins on the same audience
  • Use of simple language
  • Use close-ended or multiple-choice questions

The Importance of a Diversity and Inclusion Survey

It is implausible to address the problems of communication gaps and cultural misunderstandings if companies don't know they exist within the organization. While inclusion, equity, and diversity are not always visible and tangible aspects, surveys provide a viable solution to quantify and measure these immaterial concepts at the workplace. 

Most companies are paving the way to cultivating an inclusive environment at the workplace.  The diversity and inclusion survey initiatives are more crucial than ever to address disparity issues in the workplace. According to McKinsey's research, the lack of diversity could have significant financial consequences. 

Companies can achieve 50% higher profits and share performance if women employees are represented better at the company. Similarly, senior-level female employees have a more meaningful impact on the company’s culture. They are more likely to welcome employee-friendly policies and fight for gender and racial disparity. 

Additionally, 61% of the workforce consider inclusion and diversity necessary at the workplace. This further heightens the need to conduct a diversity and inclusion survey to ensure a healthy workplace.

Diversity and inclusion are intertwined, and a survey to assess it helps you cultivate employee engagement, empower innovation, and reduce attrition. Because if you aim to promote and support inclusion and diversity, it is imperative to track them. 

Furthermore, it also helps you build a great company culture that nurtures diversity and inclusion with similar deliberation as other organizational priorities.

Who are those people that contribute to your organization? Do they feel safe and supported? Do their answers change based on who is asking? Surveys allow you to turn inclusion and diversity and inclusion from principles into action.

Here is why running a diversity and inclusion survey is essential.

  • You get to listen to the experiences of people and whether it varies for different groups
  • Identify groups/individuals who feel less included. And if that’s the case, then why
  • Comprehend how well you can implement your initiatives 
  • Measure your results against the set benchmarks
  • Attain compelling evidence to propel change

The Advantages and Disadvantages of a Diversity and Inclusion Survey

The following are some of the advantages and disadvantages of diversity and inclusion surveys.

The Advantages

  • Diverse management increases revenue by 19%.
  • Diversity and inclusion surveys create a safe avenue and space for employees to share their feedback about the company culture, encouraging employees to perform better
  • More opportunities for a forward-thinking and innovative culture
  • Companies enjoy 41% higher revenue when they conduct diversity and inclusion surveys and make improvements to the culture
  • Organizations that promote diversity and inclusion surveys are more creative, engaged, and successful

The Disadvantages

  • The survey takes some time to implement
  • Conducting the survey is not enough; companies need to take the employees’ feedback as well
  • Some questions might paint a negative picture even if the sentiments behind them are not bad
  • Creating and analyzing surveys takes time and money
  • Incorrect interpretations of results

How to Conduct a Diversity and Inclusion Survey 

Conducting a diversity and inclusion survey may reveal challenges that alert businesses of any discrimination beforehand, helping companies take appropriate action and set policies, as needed, to address concerns and issues identified in the survey results. 

However, to do so, it is essential to conduct D&I surveys in a proper way to get accurate results.

Here is how you can conduct a diversity and inclusion survey effectively.

Step 1. Understand the Scope and Purpose of the Study

Before you begin to structure your survey, you need to have a straightforward research question to define what answers you’re looking for and what goals you expect to achieve. Then, based on your main question, you’ll be better able to determine who you need to target in the survey.

Do you want to see if your policies and set standards are adequate, or are you trying to figure out diversity and inclusion-related prominent issues?

Understanding the scope and purpose of your survey improves the quality of deductions. Make a list of the issues and questions in your research and prioritize it.

Step 2. Involve the Relevant Team

Once you fully understand the scope and purpose of your surveys, it is essential to communicate and create a team that recognizes its importance to ensure they prioritize it.

Give your team a presentation to describe the importance and meanings of inclusion and diversity. Ensure that there is room for discussion, concerns, and questions. Make them feel heard, involved, and valued in the process.

Step 3. Set Up a Diversity & Inclusion Taskforce

It is imperative to set up a small diversity and inclusion task force for your surveys — a group of employees that come together routinely to talk about the latest developments as in what is working and what is not going well. 

Step 4. Deploy the Surveys 

Before sending out and distributing surveys, create a clear roadmap for when, where, and with whom you’ll conduct the study. Determine the number of responses you'll need beforehand, as part of your survey response rate and how you’ll access and analyze the sample population.

When you create a robust research plan to get answers to your research questions, you will be satisfied

and confident about sending out the survey according to your preferred method of choice – online, in-person, or by mail.

Step 5. Measure the Results

No matter which method you choose to analyze your diversity and inclusion survey results, it is vital to process the information accurately. You can do this by leveraging software that helps you sort the responses according to specific requirements. 

You should refine the information by eliminating all the incorrect and incomplete responses. For instance, if you ask open-ended questions, it is essential to interpret the reactions by allotting labels to each respondent’s answers and structuring them into themes or categories. 

You can also leverage some qualitative methods and approaches, like thematic analysis, more suitable to analyze interviews. Typically, you can conduct statistical analysis leveraging programs such as SPSS. The same set of survey data can be subject to many pieces of research.

Diversity and Inclusion Survey Questions – Tips and Examples

To get the most out of your diversity and inclusion survey, you must ask the right questions from the right audience. Give you people the opportunity to share their observations and experiences with a combination of questions leveraging the Likert scale to measure opinion and satisfaction and opinion. 

Using the following questions for understanding employees' standpoint on fairness, respect, equity, diversity, and inclusion can help you gauge employee engagement and satisfaction.

  • Does everybody have an equal opportunity to succeed in this company?
  • Does the company leadership support the value of inclusion and diversity?
  • Do all the employees in the company receive fair treatment?
  • Does the company have a supportive environment for open and free expression of opinion, ideas, and beliefs?
  • Do you feel empowered to make work-related decisions?
  • Do you relate to any leaders in the organization?
  • Does the senior leadership team reflect a diverse organizational outlook?
  • Does your manager encourage all the employees to share different ideas, speak up, and be vocal about diversity and inclusion issues?
  • Does your company value diverse ideas and opinions?
  • Does your firm give raises, appraisals, and promotions equally and fairly to all employees?
  • How can we ensure all the team members feel valued and heard? 
  • How can you improve inclusion and diversity in the company? 

Measuring Diversity and Inclusion Using Survey Data

For some companies, mounting diverse and inclusive initiatives may seem like a multi-faceted endeavor. However, it is vital to pay attention to this aspect to ensure a healthy and motivating workplace for all employees alike.

Diversion and inclusion surveys are paramount to a company’s overall strategy. It helps reveal representation and unfairness gaps within your organization. 

Tailored surveys help organizations effectively reach their diversity and inclusion goals by garnering employee feedback and benchmarking the current status.

Tailored employee feedback surveys help organizations effectively reach their diversity and inclusion goals. Most importantly, they enable you to take a more meaningful approach to cultivate a more diversified culture.  

Along with this, you can conduct employee recognition surveys that boost employee morale, in turn, helping you scale your business.

With the help of a professional survey platform, it becomes easier to distribute the surveys to your employees. Moreover, by using an inclusive design for such research purposes, you can make your employees feel visible. Launch your survey today!

by admin

How to Conduct a Market Trend Analysis for Sublime Market Research

How to Conduct a Market Trend Analysis for Sublime Market Research

Conducting a market trend analysis is critical for a market research campaign, as it uncovers trends in both an industry and within a target market — the group of customers most likely to purchase from a company. 

Market trend analysis is valuable for data-driven decision-making, as it consolidates trends extracted from data and puts them and their key aspects, such as customer behavior, for example, into perspective. In turn, this helps businesses recognize patterns and make predictions on various strategies and campaigns, along with discovering future trends. 

Additionally, although trend analysis is chiefly used in the financial sector, its concept is also essential to market research, as it is used to make sense of survey data analysis, allowing researchers to understand their findings, thereby improving the market research process.

This article explores market trend analysis, why businesses must conduct it, how to conduct it for efficient market research and more.

Understanding Market Trend Analysis

A market trend analysis is a kind of trend analysis, except rather than focusing on the financial aspects of a sector or business, it refers to analyzing trends in a market or industry at large.

Specifically, a market trend analysis is a method of analysis on past and current market behavior, along with dominant patterns of the market and its consumers. This kind of analysis relies on examining statistical data and recorded market behavior over a defined period of time.

This kind of analysis covers a wide range of topics, as trends can appear within different aspects of a market. 

Businesses, therefore, use this kind of analysis to extract necessary information in order to map out and support the strategic planning process and forecast future trends within customers, campaigns and other business plans. 

Identifying the prominent traits of an industry and its target market, this kind of analysis acquaints businesses with key occurrences in the market, thus it is a vital practice in market research.

The Importance of Market Trend Analysis

Market trend analysis carries significant weight in market research, for a number of reasons, including the ones aforementioned.

First off, one of the greatest concerns in a business and virtually any entity is that of performance. A market trend analysis grants insights on performance, identifying areas of sufficient business performance, along with those that aren’t faring well.  

Thus, it helps businesses on the decision-making front, providing insights that boost long-term strategy and helping businesses avoid future setbacks. 

Given that in market research, trend analysis is used to better understand consumers, this kind of analysis provides insights into customer behavior trends, allowing businesses to cater to customers with data backing all of their decisions. This way, customers are more likely to engage with brand campaigns and make purchases. 

Moreover, market trend analysis can obtain valuable insights into the overall scenario of a market. For example, a SaaS company can discover the products, services and startups within a particular niche of their industry. 

Alternatively, a shoe brand can discover the latest trends in shoe designs and fashions by running various market research campaigns that capture customer sentiment, opinions, preferences and recognition of shoe brands and styles.

Market trend analysis also helps businesses gain an understanding of their market’s macro-environment, the holistic condition existing in an economy, rather than a specific sector of it. 

Conducting trend analysis helps businesses find and display long-term data in summary form. The data can be used to investigate changes across different points in time and find how both customers and markets respond to them. 

These variations can involve changes in demand levels in the market, allowing businesses to take appropriate action, as periods of high demand and low demand require different strategies. 

What Businesses Can Learn with Trend Analysis

Businesses can gain the various insights laid out above. In terms of market research, these insights provide information about three key aspects: customer preferences, the macroeconomic environment (market’s economy at large) and changes in the industry.

With the trend analysis report, you can compare historical data and get answers to questions like:

In market trend analysis report, businesses can understand the following:

  • Changes in their NPS score over a period of time
  • Levels of employee engagement and turnover
  • Sales fluctuations and forecasts
  • Change in customer experience in the past year

There are various other market aspects that businesses can examine with this kind of analysis.  In addition, businesses can plan their actions in response to long-time or emerging trends and any changes in their market. As such, trend analysis prepares businesses for the long term. 

The Different Types of Market Trend Analyses

There are four main types of market trend analyses that businesses and market researchers should acquaint themselves with. The following explains the four kinds, so that businesses can aptly conduct a market trend analysis and analyze it based on the categories.

  1. Consumer Trend Analysis:
    1. This focuses on trends among a target market, its segments and customer personas.
    2. It involves gathering key customer data such as customer satisfaction, customer aversions, needs, opinions, preferences, customer buying behavior and more.
    3. This involves studying product trends in relation to customers' reception and opinions of them. 
  2. Historical Trends Analysis:
    1. This is an investigation into past industry trends in a market or niche.
    2. It shows researchers how such trends developed, how they affect the present and how they will affect the future. 
    3. Historical trends concern historical data, which can date back years, along with data from the near past, such as the past few days, weeks and months.
    4. In this kind of trend analysis, there is typically a comparison between the current market with others, such as year-by-year or period-by-period analysis. 
  3. Seasonal and Temporal Trend Analysis:
    1. This is an analysis of market shifts relating to seasonal events, such as holidays, the weather, natural disasters, etc. 
    2. Many of these are recurrent, such as the holiday season, which starts around late November and lasts through most of December. For businesses, strategizing for this season occurs many months in advance, thus the data they use tends to be historical trends analysis.
  4. Geographic Analysis:
    1. This entails studying trend changes based on geographic location. 
    2. These analyses can include comparisons between different regional areas within a country, or on an international basis, studying trends from different countries and even continents. 
    3. It involves conducting global market research, should the trend analysis delve into international markets. 
    4. This analysis seeks to discover how trends develop in geographies of various sizes and places. 

How to Conduct Market Trend Analysis to Excel in Market Research

There are various means to run such an analysis and businesses can complete this with a process for collecting, comparing and analyzing data.

The following explains how to conduct market trend analysis in a step-by-step process.

  1. Determine the trends you seek to study for your trend analysis. To do so, refer to the above section on the major different kinds of market trend analyses. You can also perform a social media and desktop versus mobile analysis, should your business require it.
  2. Create a focus on your trend analysis within the main topic you chose. For example, if you choose to analyze consumer trends, consider the major aspects of consumers that you ought to focus on for your study. This will differ from business to business.
    1. For example, you can study their reactions to your ads and marketing messages, their purchasing behaviors, their preferences, etc.
  3. Pinpoint your target population of study. You can also begin broadly, by targeting the entirety of your target market.
  4. Conduct secondary research in regards to your target market and the focus of the study. 
    1. There are various online sources to consult, such as trade publications, news sites, sites dedicated to your niche, statistics websites, etc.
  5. Stay up to date with industry research and trends reports. There are various online sources offering these reports, such as IBISWorld.
  6. Study your competition. Observing your competitors gives you a good picture of their market positioning and how they react to an emerging trend.
  7. Conduct primary research around the focus of your trend analysis. There are various methods and digital tools that can be used to extract primary data. Survey research is among the strongest, as it powers its users to inquire into any topic, form and ask any question, along with distributing the survey to its intended audience.
    1. Find the correct online survey platform to conduct your primary trend analysis research. A strong tool is user-friendly, offers deployment on a vast network of popular websites and apps, offers global support, uses random device engagement (RDE) sampling and more. 
  8. Analyze all of your findings by studying both primary and secondary resources. Specifically, look for patterns and repeated actions, opinions, etc.
  9. Based on your analysis, identify all possible trends, both minor and major. Create a document based on these findings. 
  10. Put your analysis into action. If you are able to successfully discover trends, create a plan of action based on them. Your plan of action can include new campaigns or changes to current campaigns, changes to your strategy or changes to how you engage your topic of study, in this case, the customers.
    1. You ought to conduct more survey research should your analysis appear to be lacking, if it leads to further questions or if you simply need to understand your trends at a more granular level. 

Powering Each Market Research and Trends Project

Conducting a market trend analysis is a crucial factor in maintaining strong market research campaigns. Aside from uncovering trends among customers, market segments and the market at large, this kind of analysis complements any market research endeavor, with key, organized data.

While there are various means of performing market trend analysis, survey research helps carry this kind of analysis, as it empowers researchers to inquire into virtually every business subject, from purchases, to buying habits, to brand recognition and much more. 

As such, the proper online survey platform will unlock various trends, but businesses must choose one wisely, as they are not all built the same. A strong online survey platform will enable businesses to deploy a massive volume of surveys across a multitude of digital websites and apps, hyper-target customers and take a few days at most to complete. 

The Pollfish online survey platform offers all of these capabilities, including an RDE (random device engagement) method to draw responses from digital users voluntarily, bias-free and in their natural environments.

by Pollfish Marketing Team

Performing a Customer Behavior Analysis for a Deep Read

Performing a Customer Behavior Analysis for a Deep Read

In order to access customers, businesses must conduct a customer behavior analysis. Given that customers are the lifeblood of any business, it is critical to analyze their behavior, as doing so will support any business strategy. 

A customer behavior analysis is a kind of analysis that provides a granular evaluation of customer behavior. Specifically, it examines customer behavior in relation to a particular business.

It is especially important to run this analysis, given that customer expectations and needs constantly shift; nevertheless, 76% of customers expect companies to understand their needs. When businesses understand customer behavior, they have a context to their customers’ needs, making them more practical to fulfill.

This article explores customer behavior analysis, its importance, how to conduct it and how the role of survey research in conducting this analysis.   

Understanding Customer Behavior Analysis

A customer behavior analysis is a kind of analysis that melds qualitative and quantitative observations of how customers interact with a particular company. It involves studying how customers interact in-store, on a website, social media, apps and other places, both physical and digital. 

This analysis examines what influences their customer buying behavior, which includes studying the triggers, motivations and reasons behind their buying choices. 

In this behavior analysis, customers are first segmented into customer personas based on their shared characteristics. Then, researchers observe each segment throughout the different stages of their customer journey map. This stage serves as the heart of the analysis, as it requires scrutinizing how the personas interact with a company.

This analysis grants insight into the various variables that may influence a customer segment and customer persona. It allows businesses to understand how customers feel about a company, thus it is a crucial component of brand tracking.

The Importance of Customer Behavior Analysis

It is important to conduct customer behavior analysis for a number of reasons. 

A behavior analysis is a proven method for understanding customers and connecting them to the business. It allows businesses to understand their customers’ priorities, motives and rationalizations behind their decisions.

Given that customers exhibit these thoughts and actions as part of the customer journey, conducting this kind of analysis helps businesses understand how customers feel about their company.

Additionally, a customer behavior analysis allows companies to understand customer habits and motivations. This includes how customers behave in different settings, whether it is digitally or physically. 

Without it, market researchers and online store web developers would only have a scant idea of how their customers shop, whether it is on or offline. Conducting it can reveal these multi-environmental habits, also revealing unique or latent patterns. 

Businesses can also offer a better shopping experience by nailing down where and how customers face issues. These can involve non-virtual problems, such as poor customer support, along with technical problems, such as slow web pages and functionality problems. 

When it comes to the latter, a poor check-out experience may lead customers to abandon their carts prior to purchasing. Additionally, an improper search may deter shoppers from finding their products. These instances lead to site leaves and lack of conversions, therefore casting a blow to revenue. Businesses can avoid these issues and missed opportunities by performing a customer behavior analysis.

Furthermore, businesses can improve their existing marketing campaigns and form new ones from analyzing customer behavior. This will improve both customer retention and acquisition, as brands can tweak campaigns based on studying existing target market members, therefore creating more fitting campaigns for future potential customers.

This analysis reveals recurring patterns on shopping transaction timing, location of purchase, device used for purchases, frequency of buying, favorite products and other behavioral aspects. As such, marketers can better understand customers’ actions and use this information to target their audience more precisely. 

Moreover, marketers can use this data to optimize various customer experiences, create more personalized content from the intelligence they gained, create more enticing advertising campaigns and determine the value of different customer segments and personas. 

All in all, customer behavior analysis offers a myriad of benefits that can help solve various business needs.

The Use of Surveys in Customer Behavior Analysis

Given the scope of customer behavior, there are various methods and tools to analyze it, from one-on-one calls with customers, to in-store experiences, to digital tools such as experience analytics. 

Online surveys are the most potent tool for studying customer behavior, as they allow businesses to study virtually any aspect of customer behavior and ask all of their desired questions.

Surveys offer value in various aspects of performing a customer behavior analysis, such as segmenting customers via market segmentation. This allows businesses to understand the key groups making up their target market and how to serve them more effectively. Additionally, as aforementioned, surveys help businesses form their customer personas, another key practice for targeting an audience.

Surveys allow market researchers to inquire into any customer behavior topic. This way, researchers can detect the presence of certain common behaviors, along with patterns in preferences, actions and inclinations, all of which are crucial factors in a behavioral analysis.

Surveys can provide both qualitative and quantitative market research data for researchers, granting them a holistic view of customer behavior. Thus, surveys do not merely provide a means of analysis but are complementary to various market research campaigns. 

A strong survey platform makes it possible and practical to study a vast pool of customer behavior via deployment across thousands of high-traffic websites and apps. Additionally, a platform that offers filtering data for survey results makes it easy to perform an analysis of all the collected data. 

How to Conduct a Customer Behavior Analysis

There are several ways to perform such an analysis, including through the use of surveys. The following explains how to conduct a customer behavior analysis through a multi-step approach:

  1. Segment your target audience. This involves dividing your customers into various groups, or segments, based on shared demographic and psychographic characteristics.
    1. There is also a wide range of other characteristics to use for segmenting, involving behavioral characteristics such as:
      1. Web and app activity, preferred media channels and online and offline shopping habits.
    2. Consider the most valuable segments to your business. You can find them when you calculate customers’ CLV or customer lifetime value, or by performing an RFM analysis. 
  2. Pinpoint the benefits of each segment. Each customer group and persona will choose a particular business in their own unique way. Market researchers should identify what triggers these segments to choose a particular company over another.
    1. Refer to products, services and experiences, along with external factors that influence buying decisions.
    2. Consider the different effects on purchasing, such as: did customers buy a product due to its brand? Did they make a convenience purchase? How much did the customer seek to spend? How urgent was their purchase decision?
    3. Always consider the context of a customer’s behavior and needs during the analysis.
  3. Conduct survey research. This involves using both the qualitative survey and quantitative survey for a holistic read of your customers' behaviors.
    1. Additionally, it is critical to perform secondary market research, using external sources of already published data. While this provides useful information, not all or any secondary resource will provide relevant information to your niche and specifically, your customer base.
    2. After you conduct qualitative and quantitative research, compare the two sets against each other as you discover patterns, habits and other key components of customer behavior.
  4. Use your analysis findings on a campaign. You can apply your analysis to various campaigns, from content optimization to advertising.
    1. Use the best delivery channel for each persona.
    2. Provide personalization to different segments and personas whenever possible.
    3. Fix any hindrances in the CX (customer experience).
    4. Nurture the customers throughout their CX.
    5. Assure any changes won’t adversely affect your customers, as not all will be receptive to change. Conducting surveys can help you determine which customers are less fond of it.
  5. Analyze the results of any changes you’ve applied to your campaigns. Marketers should always test their results and the same applies to changes made after running a customer behavior analysis. 
    1. Test the effects of your changes with different metrics such as traffic to websites. Advertising spend versus revenue, conversion rates, CLV, customer acquisition cost (CAC) and more.
    2. Analyzing results ought to be a continual process, giving the vast external influences on customers, such as politics, technology, new products in a niche, etc.

Staying Attuned to Customers 

Performing a customer behavior analysis is a crucial task in obtaining a deep understanding of how customers behave in relation to your offerings, experiences and business as a whole. Such an analysis should therefore be ongoing, as even the most loyal customers change from various influences.

Surveys provide a powerful yet practical means for performing a behavioral analysis, given that they can be deployed to the masses, are highly targeted and allow market researchers to delve into any behavioral topic through questions of their choice.

The key is to use an online survey platform that offers these capabilities and more. 

Although conducting such an analysis is likely to require several tools and methods, surveys allow researchers to capture insights into all customer behaviors, along with their needs and opinions, as surveys allow researchers to explore any topic and ask about it explicitly and in a custom way.

A strong online survey platform offers capabilities that put survey bias, survey fraud and other low-quality data at bay. Such a platform makes it easy to study customer behavior by extracting data based on precise demographics and psychographics, adding randomization to the sampling process via RDE (random device engagement) and offering several data visualization formats.

Businesses should therefore choose their online survey platform wisely.

by Pollfish Marketing Team

How to Find and Obtain a Survey Sample for Accurate Market Research

How to Find and Obtain a Survey Sample for Accurate Market Research

A survey sample is a critical batch of respondents studied in market research campaigns. Given that this group forms the core of any campaign, it needs to be dealt with correctly. 

This involves extracting the sample, reaching out to it across various digital properties, analyzing it and moving forward with all the necessary steps to generate effective survey studies. 

As such, market researchers and marketers should be acquainted with the various survey sampling methods used to obtain a survey sample and all of its other particulars.

This article provides insights into the survey sample, including how to collect one and proceed with analysis and other crucial next steps. 

Defining the Survey Sample

Also called the survey pool, a survey sample is a group of participants who take part in a market research study, specifically, a survey study.

As its name suggests, this sample is derived from the method known as survey sampling, in which researchers extract respondents to represent a population of study. There are various methods and sub-methods involved in survey sampling.  

In market research, the survey sample comprises a business’s target market, that is, a portion of a market population that is most willing and likely to purchase from the business. As such, all marketing efforts are directed at this group of the population.

A survey sample does not have to be broad, meaning that it does not necessarily need to study all the members that make up a target market. Instead, it can be composed of a specific segment of a target market.

In order to procure this segment, researchers must perform market segmentation.

Understanding the Various Ways to Obtain a Survey Sample 

As aforementioned, there are various ways to acquire a survey sample, one of the most critical preliminary steps in conducting market research techniques. 

Acquiring a survey sample includes two major undertakings: 

  1. Deciding on the makeup of the survey sample itself
  2. Choosing a method to obtain the survey sample

The former involves determining who will take part in the sample and how many respondents to include in the sample. The latter is known as survey sampling and it entails garnering the members of a target population to take part in a survey study. 

In regards to the latter, there are two main methods of survey sampling: probability and random sampling. First, you will need to identify the makeup and scope of your survey pool. Then, you can move forward with it by deciding on a survey sampling method to obtain the pool.

The following explains how to carry out the formation of the survey sample. 

How to Choose the Makeup of the Survey Sample Itself

In reference to the above section on understanding the ways to obtain a survey sample, the second aspect of acquiring a sample — after choosing between the probability and non-probability sampling methods — is to decide who should be in the survey sample itself and how big it should be.

In order to decide on the makeup of the sampling pool, follow these steps.

  1. Refer to the purpose of your market research campaign.
    1. Ask yourself, what are its main themes and variables, along with its appropriate macro markets.
    2. For example: To learn how to market a new product to middle-aged adults in the US, your target market, or target population is middle-aged adults in the US.
  2. Decide whether you are looking to study the wider target population, or if it is more convenient for your business to study a particular segment of the population of interest.
    1. In this case, you would need to conduct market segmentation.
    2. You can also perform market research to reach the correct target market sample.
  3. Determine your accuracy requirements. This involves understanding the degree of the risk your survey study will take in terms of receiving answers that do not accurately describe the entire population.
    1. This is because you won’t be surveying the entire population.
    2. To determine how closely your answers reflect the views of your studied population, you’ll need to calculate the margin of error. 
      1. Ex: If your margin of error is 4%, that means 4% is added on both sides of the results of your survey sample. So if 70% of your sample likes shopping online, then the results show that 66-74% of your sample actually likes online shopping. 
      2. Your margin of error should be kept under 10% to maintain quality findings.
  4. Find the proper confidence interval. Also called the confidence level, this metric shows the likelihood of the sample you used matters in your results, as repeated studies would form the same results. 
    1. For example, a 95% confidence level would yield the same results 95% of the time. 
    2. 95% is the most common confidence level used in statistics. The ideal confidence level range is between 90-99%. Anything lower than 90% is not recommended.
  5. Finally, decide on the most fitting survey sampling method to extract your survey pool.

The Two Main Methods for Obtaining a Survey Sample

Once you’ve identified the makeup of your survey sample, you’ll need to deploy your surveys. To do so, you must decide on a method for obtaining your survey sample. The following explains the two main types of survey sampling methods.

Market researchers ought to understand these methods and all that they entail before initiating any market research campaign. Being versed in these methods will help guide your study.

Probability Sampling

Also called random sampling, this method involves giving every member of a studied population an equal chance of being selected in the survey sample. In order to select the respondents, researchers would use a random process, in which selected participants are presented as unbiased representations of the total population.

Probability sampling has several more complex sub-methods, such as stratified sampling, which involves selecting participants from subgroups of a population, such as those based on age, location, ethnicity, interest, etc. There are various other methods that makeup probability sampling.

Random sampling aims to gain a sample that represents an entire population of study. Therefore, the results of the study must be generalizable to the studied population. As such, this method is viable for quantitative market research, since it is focused on understanding a larger population by studying a much smaller subset.

This kind of sampling is therefore not ideal for qualitative market research, which seeks to elucidate a specific group of people, without generalizing the findings to a larger population.

Non-Probability Sampling

Also referred to as non-random sampling, non-probability sampling acts antithetically to probability sampling, as it does not use random means to select respondents. Thus, the members of a studied population do not have an equal chance of being selected; some of them will have no chance of being selected.

This main sampling method also has several of its own methods, such as convenience sampling, in which participants are selected if they are readily available and willing to participate. For example, if your study requires studying librarians and you only select those in your zip code, as opposed to those across geographic locations.

All procedures that avoid random selections and involve the judgment of the researchers fall under the non-probability sampling method. As such, even an online survey platform — which has a far wider reach than focus groups or one-on-one interviews — is considered a non-probability sampling tool. This is because in such a platform, the survey sample is not derived from every member of the target population. These kinds of platforms may also not rely on random processes.

One of the most powerful forms of non-probability sampling is organic sampling or Random Device Engagement. This method procures respondents organically, that is, it reaches them in their natural digital settings, as opposed to using survey panels, a sampling method that involves pre-recruiting a set of respondents. 

RDE polling engages digital users where they are voluntarily; as such, participants join on their own will and can be found on a vast network of publishing websites and apps. Thus, although the respondents aren’t extracted through organic means, RDE still offers a survey sample that joined through organic settings. 

How to Proceed with a Survey Sample

After determining the correct people to use for your survey sample, choosing which sampling method is best, along with the correct sub-method to use, launch your survey. Then analyze your initial results by performing a survey data analysis. 

This will be the preliminary analysis, as based on your findings, you may need to conduct another survey, either on the same group or on a specific segment of your target market, if your study was aimed at your general target market.

If you surveyed a segment of your target market, you may need to study another to compare the two. Perhaps some segments are more inclined to generate customer loyalty than others. 

If you discovered a particular behavior from your survey studies that require further studying, consider embarking on experimental research. This will help you prove whether there are correlational factors at play between your variables.

Once you’ve received a valuable share of insights, take action. A valuable amount will differ from company to company and research campaign to research campaign. Consider the findings of your survey studies. If they point to the utility in certain actions, especially if those actions seem prospective for your study or business at large, then take them. The goal of a survey sample is to forge ahead in your market research, which should always be actionable.

Leading the Charge on Your Survey Pool

The survey sample, also referred to as the survey pool, is indispensable for all market research campaigns, as those of the present-day usually rely on survey research. As the core of the survey campaign, the survey sample will determine the accuracy of the entire market research operation.

As such, it must be identified carefully and obtained properly. Aside from the actions to take in regards to these practices, another crucial factor in developing surveys for the correct survey sample is an online survey platform. Such a platform should not simply allow you to create surveys and deploy them, but to reach the correct people, i.e., your survey sample.

A potent online survey platform will allow you to choose the respondents making up your survey pool in the screening or audience section of the survey tool. In this section, you should be able to add and filter the respondents you seek on a variety of categories, including demographics, psychographics and geolocation. 

The key is to choose the correct online survey provider.

by Pollfish Marketing Team

How to Increase Market Share with Surveys

How to Increase Market Share with Surveys

Companies that want to achieve brand leadership must evaluate and work towards increasing their market share. Businesses with a large market share yield larger profits and brand equity, granting them instant recognition and household name status.  

While elevating market share may be the objective of many businesses, it is often difficult to come by, especially for startups and smaller companies. Small businesses are particularly at risk, as 20% of small businesses fail within their first year. 

A significant market share prevents business failure, while a shrinking market share can lead to bankruptcy in the worst cases. Thus, it is in the best interest of businesses to assess and attempt to grow their market share, as it will help them achieve recognition and increase profitability.   

This article explores the concept of market share, its importance, calculation and how market research, particularly surveys, help increase market share.

Understanding Market Share

Market share refers to the portion of a market that an individual company controls. Specifically, it is the percentage of total sales generated by a particular company in an industry. 

This metric is calculated by factoring in a company’s sales over a period of time along with the total sales over the same period. Market share is typically assessed over a year or quarter. (The formula and explanation are in a below section).

This calculation provides a general idea of the size of a company in relation to its market and its competitors. A company with the largest market share is considered a market leader in its industry. These companies tend to be well-established brands with a strong brand equity and consumer loyalty. 

Market share shows a business’s monetary standing and its portion of dominance within an industry. As such, it shows how it measures up against other businesses in its market. To increase market share and outperform competitors, a business would need to earn more sales, those that exceed the sales of competitors.

The Importance of Market Share

It is important to keep track of market share in order to understand how a business fares in its overall market and how it performs compared to its competitors. Additionally, growing market share begins with analyzing it.

Businesses of all sizes should aim at scaling their market share, as a higher market share gives companies a competitive advantage. This is because companies with higher shares yield higher buying power, allowing them to save money by receiving better prices from their vendors. 

This is made possible by making larger order volumes, something businesses with high market shares engage in, as larger market shares reveal a higher demand for their products or services. 

As such, an increased market share works in parallel with larger production, and greater production lessens a company’s cost of producing an individual product. This is due to the economies of sale.

Additionally, the market share metric is a measure of market competitiveness, allowing business owners and executives to forecast market growth and reduction. It indicates whether a business is poised for success or needs to strategize more on avoiding market declines. 

It allows businesses to gauge their market potential and focus on improving their standing. Moreover, it is a critical measurement to be used in tandem with studying customer behavior, as it places it in perspective with a business’s market performance.

When businesses increase their market share, they essentially wield a larger slice of the market; a high-performing business will see increases in its market share quicker than its competitors. It is critical to mark down changes to a market share — these include both changes in a business’s own market share and those of its competitors. 

This is because, in stable markets, changes in share distribution can distort the well-balanced market forces. In growth markets, however, changes are expected and are less consequential.  

Despite the dynamics of a market, increasing market share is crucial for businesses to grow their company. Thus, a larger percentage of the market yields higher sales and revenue.

How to Calculate Market Share

This metric follows a fairly simple calculation. Market share is calculated with only two variables: a company’s sales within a certain time period and the total sales within an industry during that same time period. 

To calculate market share, you need to divide a company’s total sales over a specific time period, such as a quarter, by the total sales of its industry within that period. The result is your market share for that time period. 

The Market Share Formula

The following displays the simple calculation of the formula:

Market share (MS) = Total sales (S) / Total industry revenue (R)  X 100

The following is an example of a business’s market share for one year:

S= 900,000

R= 100,000,000

MS= 900,000 / 100,000,000 = 0.009

MS= 0.009 x 100 = 0.9%

MS= 0.9%

However, businesses can also calculate their relative market share, the measure of a business’s share in comparison to a specific market competitor or market leader. In this case, you would need to have measured your market share already, as it is one of the variables.

Divide your market share by that of the relevant rival. The formula is as follows:

Relative Market share (RMS) = Individual market share (MS) / Largest industry market share (LMS) X 100

How to Grow Your Market Share

Growing a business’s market share relies on a multitude of factors and strategies. Business owners and marketers must apply all of these methods and more to successfully increase their market share. 

These methods also help businesses improve across various functions, making them useful contributors to overall business success. 

Marketing and branding

Marketing and branding campaigns help businesses improve on a wealth of KPIs. These functions drive demand, awareness and grow a digital following. Branding is one of the many branches of marketing and it is essential for long-term success. 

Reduced prices

Price reductions and their various offshoots (promotions, holiday specials, etc.) have long been trusted methods to draw more sales. This allows businesses to beat the prices their competitors offer, luring in new customers before using regular prices again. 

Nurturing and Retention

Nurturing customers leads to customer retention, as it allows businesses to be fresh on the minds of their target market. There are numerous ways to do this, such as via email marketing, newsletters, a content subscription, social media, ads and more, such as follow-up calls. This creates relationships with customers, the kinds that nurture them to continue patronizing the company — thus helping raise its market share.

New Features, Products and Services

Creating new offerings helps a brand stay relevant and opens the door for more revenue and sales pools. Many major companies profit off of their innovation, such as Apple, which annually offers new products and product upgrades. 

Acquisition

Acquiring the competition not only removes a competitor as a threat to a business, but also gives a business all of the acquired company’s sales, revenue and shares. Mergers and acquisitions grant businesses a major growth spurt and all the assets from its acquired company, directly increasing their market share.  

How Surveys Help Increase Market Share

Surveys are a prominent market research method, especially the online survey variety, which connects businesses with the masses, including with those in their target market.  

Surveys allow businesses to access the minds of their customers, showing them how to better serve and market to their target market. Surveys also allow companies to uncover the makeup of their target market via market segmentation and identifying customer personas. 

Studying the needs, desires, opinions, sentiments and aversions of your target market is an absolute necessity for businesses. In fact, 14% of businesses fail due to not paying attention to their customers’ needs. Those that do are more equipped to acquire new customers and retain existing ones. 

Surveys allow brands to be data-driven, providing a tried and true method for obtaining data for decision-making. 

Surveys also have the capability to influence customers’ purchasing decisions. This is especially true if a brand inserts its name and offerings into its survey. Or, it can pinpoint customer pain points and the lack of other companies’ means of correcting them. 

Surveys enable businesses to ask any questions they seek, thereby bringing them answers they wouldn’t otherwise find from conducting secondary research alone. They are superior to other primary research methods, as they are completely anonymous and lessen the pressure of respondents to answer in a particular way.

As such, survey research makes businesses well-attuned to their customers, allowing them to market to, nurture and communicate with them more effectively. In turn, their performance will improve, raising revenue and therefore their market share.

Netting a Larger Slice of the Market

Businesses of all sizes must assess and work towards increasing their market share, as it represents the portion of a market that an individual company controls in relation to the overall market. 

It helps businesses understand their market standing in comparison to their competitors and predict growth and declines. A larger market share lets businesses increase their capacity and efficiency.

In order to evaluate and grow market share, businesses ought to conduct survey research. However, they must use the correct online survey software. 

A strong online survey platform offers a plethora of capabilities and extracts only the most quality data. 

Such a platform should offer full customization of the screener and questionnaire, deploy the survey to targeted individuals in a massive publisher network, offer filtering data after the survey completes all of its quotas and use artificial intelligence to perform quality checks that remove poor quality data.

This kind of platform provides the most useful customer data, allowing a business to make headway to its market share.

by Pollfish Marketing Team

Using Survey Research to Unlock Cultural Trends

Using Survey Research to Unlock Cultural Trends

In order to stay adept at serving customers, brands must be attuned to cultural trends, whether they’re operating domestically only or marketing to customers abroad. 

Our Global Customer Expectations poll revealed that almost a quarter of global customers seek brands that are more sensitive to the cultural aspects of their country.

Another supporting study found that brand involvement in cultural trends makes up a full 25 percent of a customers’ purchase decision. Evidently, brands have a stake in cultural involvement when it comes to satisfying their customers.

Unlike some of the more static aspects of marketing, cultural trends are, by nature, inclined to shift and fluctuate. Thus, the challenge becomes not merely discovering cultural trends but assuring their relevance and showing cultural deference. 

This article delves into cultural trends, the need for businesses to be culturally competent and relevant, how surveys uncover various cultural trends and how to set up a survey to extract this information.

Understanding Cultural Trends

Cultural trends refer to popularized alterations and tendencies in culture, whether they are material or nonmaterial. These involve emerging or continuous behaviors, items and the relations of both. For example, product use; some trends involve using products in a particular way or for a particular act.

Cultural trends can also specifically apply to the dominant or emerging cultural aspects present among different cultures. This is a matter of concern for businesses that operate both internationally and domestically, as customers expect businesses to understand cultural matters that pertain to their country — as our survey found — along with others.

For example, a study by Salesforce found that 66% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations, yet 66% also say that they are treated like numbers. Additionally, 52% of customers expect offers to always be personalized.

Understanding cultural differences and trends is crucial in each case. In regards to the former, understanding cultural practices and other concerns is crucial to make customers feel distinguished and as more than just another number being marketed to.

Regarding the latter, personalization cannot be fully achieved without paying attention to cultural matters. In fact, companies may incur issues when trying to personalize, by not taking into account cultural differences.

Businesses must also take heed to the cultural trends present within their country, as it is a means of staying relevant. Some cultural trends align with certain values, which is crucial to include in marketing campaigns. This is because 71% of customers prefer buying from companies aligned with their values. 

Understanding cultural trends is key for market research, especially if a brand uses its name in its research; it is also important for a wide breadth of marketing campaigns. 

The Importance of Cultural Trends 

To piggyback off of the previous section, understanding cultural trends is a must for various reasons. The two main reasons deal with domestic and international customers. However, they also apply to dealing with employees, vendors and partners.

On the international front, few businesses can evade the need to deal with foreign clients, customers and employees. Given that the world is globalized and global markets open new opportunities, businesses would be at a disadvantage not to branch out into new geographic markets. 

In order to properly cater to the international market, businesses must be acquainted with cultural trends across geographies, especially those that pertain to specific countries. 

Cultural change is broader than social change, although it can include it in its sphere of influence. As such, societies and their markets are the results of culture. It is a culture that sets boundaries, limits and dictates what is acceptable or not. Thus, businesses must be in tune with the culture of the market they wish to pursue. 

Understanding cultural trends is the gateway into cultural competence, the ability to effectively interact, work, and develop meaningful relationships with people from various cultural backgrounds. 

Cultural competence allows brands to ease into different geographic markets, as it makes global customers feel understood and heard, a key tactic to ward off making them feel like just another number. 

Understanding cultural trends also helps businesses avoid cultural misunderstandings, the kinds that directly cause businesses to lose customers and tarnish their reputation. This can get to a bad enough point in which a business’s harmless misunderstanding makes the news, a blow to brand equity and reputation.

Finally, being culturally competent is necessary for conducting business domestically, as customers are more likely to buy from brands that incorporate timely cultural aspects into their marketing and business at large (as proven in the intro). 

Incorporating cultural trends domestically posits a business as more culturally savvy than its competitors. Additionally, it speaks directly to some of the thoughts occupying customer’s minds.

Moreover, the US and many other countries have significant immigrant populations; thus it is imminent for companies to be in contact with people of other cultural backgrounds, whether they are customers, employees, partners, vendors or clients. Thus, it is key to be in the know of all the cultural trends of your target market.

How Surveys Help Discover All Kinds of Cultural Trends 

Surveys are a tool that opens many doors into the minds of customers, and customer satisfaction is a prominent objective to keep any business afloat.  

Firstly, surveys define a business’s clientele; this is done via market segmentation, in which market researchers granularly define their target market by segmenting into different groups. This helps businesses learn the demographics of their most valuable customers. 

Through this practice, businesses uncover the ethnicities, cultures and national backgrounds of their targeted customer segments. This allows businesses to zero in on particular cultural trends: those that are most relevant to the segments of their target market, specifically the most valuable segments.

Furthermore, surveys allow brands to delve into virtually any topic of their choice and understand it at an in-depth level. Thus, they can do so by creating surveys that delve into their target market’s cultural trends. 

Surveys, especially the online variety, provide the ease of deploying questionnaires to a business’s intended audience. Most conveniently, online surveys are completely anonymous, so respondents can freely provide answers on all cultural matters, even those that are more sensitive in nature. 

Businesses can cover various cultural matters in just one survey, though longer surveys should provide survey incentives to guarantee participation. Businesses can also set up survey campaigns that include multiple smaller-length surveys that cover various topics within cultural considerations. 

Surveys have the power to generate both quantitative and qualitative market research, depending on how the questions are set up. Multiple-choice questions lend themselves to quantitative data, while open-ended questions allow businesses to gain qualitative data unique to each survey respondent. 

Either way, businesses can gain both kinds of data within just one survey. To do so, they can ask a multiple-choice question and follow it up with an open-ended question.

Survey Questions that Unlock Cultural Trends

The questionnaire is the heart of a survey; therefore, brands must arrange it strategically to set their survey up for success. 

They should also target respondents differently per country in the screening portion of the survey. After choosing the customer segments to target, researchers need to create their questionnaire accordingly.

Because all countries, even those that appear to be culturally similar, have distinct cultures, market researchers should focus on specific questions per country. However, before veering into the specific, there are certain general questions that researchers should begin with as a best practice.

The following provides question examples on the preliminary questions market researchers can use in their cultural trends survey before delving deeper: 

  1. What is the biggest cultural change you’ve seen [country name] undergo?
    1. Multiple-choice and open-ended answers
  2. How do you feel about [a cultural event, major recent occurrence, trend observed via secondary research] ?
    1. Scaled and open-ended answers
  3. Which brands do you use for [a particular need]?
    1. Multiple-choice, multiple-selection answers
    2. Do some research on the brands from a particular country
  4. What would be considered rude coming from a company in your country?
    1. open-ended answer
  5. What are some of the biggest trends in [your niche] in your country?
    1. Multiple-choice and open-ended answers

Being In Tune With All Customers

A lack of cultural awareness has grave costs on businesses. That’s why virtually all businesses must be culturally aware within their domestic and international markets. The latter is especially important in the age of the internet, where global customers may discover a brand digitally, therefore opening the doors for businesses to venture into global markets. 

While surveys are a convenient method to uncover cultural trends and differences, they are only as useful as the online survey platform that administers them. A strong online survey platform must be able to facilitate all stages of the survey process: from the screener, to the questionnaire, to deployment and finally, filtering data after the survey completes all of its quotas. Additionally, a strong survey software uses artificial intelligence to perform quality checks that remove gibberish answers, flatlining and other poor data to ensure the highest quality of customer data.

Businesses should opt for such a platform to not simply obtain cultural trends information, but to engage in a valuable market research campaign. 

by Pollfish Marketing Team

Understanding Customer Value and How Businesses Can Generate It with Surveys

Understanding Customer Value and How Businesses Can Generate It with Surveys

Customer value is a key aspect for acquiring, developing and retaining customers. Businesses would be remiss not to work on improving it to sustain profitable customer relationships. 

Contrary to its name, it does not signify the value that a customer brings to a business — which is not to say that customers don’t carry value. Rather, customer value denotes the satisfaction a customer experiences or expects to experience by taking an action relative to the cost of that action.

Businesses must provide this value, as over 65% of customers globally believe it is very important for businesses to understand their unique needs and expectations. When a business properly serves its target market, then its members derive a higher customer value.

In turn, this makes a business more competitive and better positioned to develop customer satisfaction and build customer loyalty.

This article explains the concept of customer value, its importance, how to calculate it, how surveys can improve it and more.

Understanding Customer Value

Also called customer-perceived value, this concept is defined by the perception of what a product or service is worth to a customer versus its possible alternatives. 

More specifically, it entails the benefits a customer derives from a service or product in relation to the customer’s costs, which include all the efforts and difficulties they face when obtaining or using a product or service.

In short, this measurement explains whether a customer feels they received benefits over the price that they paid. 

In this regard, “paying” does not simply refer to prices such as one-time and subscription costs, fees, interest, etc. Instead, it also includes non-price aspects, such as providing their effort, energy, time, data and other inconveniences.

In addition, payments do not necessarily refer to purchases; they can also mean store visits, sign-ups, content downloads and more.

The benefits in customer value denote the advantages or quality of a product, service, image and the brand equity of a company, along with a good customer experience (CX), values, the success a customer experiences from using a product and so on.

Businesses can heighten their customer value when they augment their core competencies and other drivers of value to better serve all customers’ needs and concerns.

The Importance of Customer Value

Customer value is important for businesses for many reasons. 

Firstly, customer value increases both the customer experience and customer satisfaction. CX plays a major role in the long-term success of brands, as 74% of customers are likely to buy based on customer experience alone. Experience-driven businesses also see a 1.5 times higher YoY growth in repeat purchases and customer retention, a necessity for maintaining a business’s customer base. 

The reverse also occurs, as a good customer experience creates customer value.

As for customer satisfaction, it is especially important for a business, as unhappy customers churn, while satisfied customers stay and are far more likely to become repeat customers. Thus, satisfaction drives loyalty, thereby upholding customer retention. Customer value is largely involved with satisfaction, as satisfied customers drive some sort of value, while dissatisfied customers either don’t or gain very little from their transactions and engagements with a business.

Customer value also forges customer advocacy, in which the customers themselves act as marketers for a company. Customer advocates recommend the companies that bring them value, thereby spreading brand awareness, fostering a positive brand image and essentially providing free marketing services. Customer advocates spread their messages across social media, review websites, forums, blogs (if they have them) and also produce word-of-mouth marketing. This can attract many new leads and conversions.

Additionally, customer value steers sales forward, as it creates a sense of urgency for customers, prompting them to not simply buy but to buy sooner. By forming timeframes for key value-building benefits to the customers, such as increased efficiency, lower downtime, better quality, and many more value points, customers will be much more drawn to purchase from a business in a timely manner. In turn, sales workers can close sales quicker. 

Finally, while it may seem to be a stretch, creating customer value contributes to a business’s market share — the percentage of a total market a business controls for its products and services. A higher market share allows businesses to operate on a greater scale and increase their profitability. This occurs when businesses provide as much customer value as possible, such as pricing convenience, useful products and many other factors.

How to Calculate Customer Value

Although customer value includes intangible items in addition to tangible ones, businesses can still measure it to understand the value their customers derive from their business. First, businesses must consider all the factors that make up the two main variables in customer value: benefits and costs.

When compiling all of these factors, businesses must identify the most relevant ones in relation to their business and for their customers. The reason behind this is evident, given that businesses have different value propositions, offerings, prices and so on.

Although the calculation for customer value is simple, the many factors behind its two variables render this calculation more of a rough estimate, than a hard and fast metric. 

The following lays out the various components of customer benefits and costs:

Total Customer Benefits:

  • Product benefit
    • the problem a product solves
    • ease of onboarding
  • Service benefit
    •  service convenience
  • Experience benefit
    • ease of use
  • Personal benefit
    • social status
  • Image/branding benefit
    • brand reputation 

Total Customer Costs:

  • Monetary costs
    • Tangible
      • The price of a product or service
      • Installation or onboarding costs
      • Renewal costs
  • Time costs
    • Intangible
      • Time invested in buying a product or service
      • Time invested in learning how to use a product
  • Energy costs
    • Tangible
      • Installation or onboarding costs
      • Maintenance costs
      • The cost of accessing your product or service
      • Renewal costs
    • Intangible
      • Time spent understanding how your product or service works
      • Physical commitment
  • Psychic/emotional costs
    • Tangible
      • The cost of accessing your product or service
      • The cost of using a service/product with issues
    • Intangible
      • A poor customer experience
      • Physical or emotional stress induced from buying or installing your product
      • A poor brand reputation

Businesses must bear in mind that because this calculation includes tangible and intangible elements, the customer value formula won't look like a typical mathematic calculation. 

You'll need to specify how much benefits are worth in comparison to the costs customers incur, such as time investment, emotional stress, and more.

Customer value is also going to vary depending on the customer segments you analyze. Since each segment, customer persona and individual customer is different, they’ll have particular needs, expectations and goals. 

As such, they’ll have customer values, along with different standards of good and poor value. Businesses should therefore conduct market segmentation, identify personas and calculate the customer value for each segment and persona.

The Customer Value Formula

After you consider all the possible benefits and costs associated with your business or particular product or service, and have narrowed down the most relevant, you’ll need to plug them into the customer value formula.

Use the following formula:

(Total Customer Benefits - Total Customer Costs) = Customer Value

(B - C = CV)

How Surveys Help Improve Customer Value

Online surveys provide a method that goes far beyond understanding a target market, or any group of customers. It can significantly improve customer value. Here’s why:

Brands should consider that when they sell a product, the utility of that product usually doesn’t change among customers. However, although its functionality remains the same, customer value will waver, as customers find value in different aspects of a product. 

Surveys give businesses a firsthand approach of understanding what they consider valuable and what tarnishes that value for them. Adding to this, surveys can be set up in a number of ways, allowing business to both measure and gain specific customer data. 

With online surveys, businesses can segment their customers and identify personas, as surveys are potent tools for market segmentation. In addition, online surveys grant businesses the ability to target their most loyal customer group. 

Thus, surveying allows them to understand the makeup of their target market more precisely and study the most valuable subsets of customers.

There are also numerous kinds of customer satisfaction surveys, such as the net promoter score, or NPS survey and the customer effort score, or CES survey. The CES survey is particularly relevant to customer value, as it measures customer effort, one of the costs and variables of customer value.  

Businesses should also consider that customer needs change throughout the customer journey and especially during a customer lifecycle. The customer journey includes pre-sales purchase intent, the browsing, the actual purchase, the installation, the use of a product or service and post-sales events. Thus, what they prioritize in terms of value is constantly changing. 

Surveys allow companies to keep track of those changes, whether it is via brand tracking, brand visibility, changes in customer loyalty and more. Surveys can be deployed through various stages in the sales process making it easy to detect changes and consistencies in what customers perceive to be valuable about a business and its offerings. 

Additionally, surveys allow businesses to evaluate how different customer segments feel about their pricing in a simple way. This is important to customer value, given that price is one of the major costs associated with customer value and a general customer pain point. All answers remain anonymous, which allows customers to be honest about how they feel about prices. 

Forging Value Across All Offerings

In summary, businesses ought to pay careful attention to their customer value, as it dictates how customers perceive a brand in terms of its value to them. It is evident that businesses with low customer value will inevitably lose customers, while those with high customer value will retain and acquire customers.

Online surveys provide a quick and efficient way for businesses to understand and improve their customer value, as surveys gain insights on all the factors and variables of this notion. They can show where businesses are lacking, how they can improve and most importantly, what it is specifically that customers want and need.

However, not all online survey platforms offer the same functionalities and efficiencies. Businesses must therefore invest in a strong online survey platform, one that makes it easy to create and deploy surveys. 

Additionally, they should opt for providers that offer high-quality data, such as RDE (random device engagement sampling) to net respondents in their natural digital habitats in a completely randomized way, as well as include artificial intelligence that performs quality checks that ensure the highest quality of customer data.

When an online survey provider offers all of these functionalities and customer service around the clock, businesses are poised to gain valuable insights on customer value, raise it and are generally in good hands for all other customer data needs.

by Pollfish Marketing Team

Understanding the Customer Churn Rate and Using Surveys to Lower It

Understanding the Customer Churn Rate and Using Surveys to Lower It

The customer churn rate is a crucial metric that all businesses must measure, as customer churn is a grim reality that businesses contend with regularly. In fact, two-thirds of companies have a customer churn rate above 5%.

Also referred to as customer attrition, defection or turnover, this metric gauges the unfavorable aspect of the loss of business with customers, users, vendors, revenue, or other factors within a period of time. 

Commonly used in SaaS market research, it is used to measure the percentage of customers who unsubscribe from a SaaS product in a given period of time. However, this metric is crucial to measure in all industries. 

This rate ought to be kept low, as churn usually indicates customer dissatisfaction or the availability of affordable alternatives. This is hugely problematic, as the customer is king; 43% of customers spend more money on brands they're loyal to. Additionally, acquiring a new customer costs 5 times more than retaining an existing customer. Thus, businesses should retain their loyal customers.

This article expounds on the customer churn rate, its importance, its average across various industries, its calculation and how surveys can lower it.

Understanding the Customer Churn Rate

As its name suggests, this rate is a calculation of customer churn. Before diving into the metric, businesses should understand the meaning of customer churn. 

Customer churn refers to the number of customers or subscribers who stop using a service during a given time period. There are a number of ways that customer churn affects a business, depending on its nature. These include:

  1. An account closure
  2. A subscription cancellation 
  3. A non-renewal of a contract or service agreement
  4. A consumer switching to another service provider
  5. The cancellation of a contract midway through it or before completion

The customer churn rate (CCR) is therefore a metric that calculates the total number of customers a business has lost during a specific period. Therefore, it is the antithesis of the customer retention rate. 

The customer churn rate is typically used to measure churn in businesses that run on a contractual or subscription-based product or service offering. As such, this term is chiefly associated with companies that operate on a subscription basis, such as SaaS companies. 

referred to as the proportion of contractual (or subscribed) customers who terminate their contractual relationships/subscriptions with a company in a given timeframe. In this context, the term is primarily associated with companies operating on a subscription basis.

The Importance of the Customer Churn Rate

Businesses should measure their customer churn rate at regular intervals, as it is an important metric. 

Firstly, its indication of lost customers directly ties into lost revenue. When a company loses customers, it negatively affects its bottom line. In this way, a high churn limits a business’s growth potential. Additionally, a significant churn rate always incurs financial difficulties of some degree.

Another reason it is so important to study and improve customer churn is that it is far more expensive to acquire new customers than it is to retain existing ones. In fact, acquiring a new customer costs 5 times more than retaining an existing one. As such, a business’s customer acquisition cost (CAC) is going to be more expensive than its customer retention rate (CRR). 

Therefore, when a business loses existing customers, it will have to grapple with both the loss of revenue and business opportunities, coupled with the need to spend more on acquiring customers to make up for those that have churned.

As such, businesses must rein in their customer churn rate — and in order to do so, they have to keep track of it. 

Studying this rate also involves keeping tabs on the competition, another critical area of maintaining business success. This is because the CCR can increase when competitors launch new and/or less expensive products, which may entice customers to churn and switch to them.

This dampens customer loyalty for obvious reasons and for some customers, can be a permanent switch to another brand. The ability to predict the churn rate is necessary for a company’s long-term success. Thus, businesses should gauge their churn rate and control it whenever possible.

How to Calculate the Customer Churn Rate

There are multiple ways to calculate the customer churn rate. This metric is typically presented as a percentage of either lost revenue or customers lost within a period of time. The following explains the CCR calculation:

To calculate a company's churn rate, first, you must choose a period of time to evaluate and identify the following values:

  • The number of customers at the start of a period (X)
  • The number of customers lost during the period (Y)

Then, use the following churn rate formula to determine your customer churn rate (Z), expressed as a percentage.

Customer Churn Rate Formula

CCR =  (Y / X) x 100

CCR =  (number customers churned in a period / number of customers at the beginning of the period) X 100

For example, if a business had 200 existing customers at the start of Q3 and lost 20 customers by the end of Q3, it would calculator its churn rate as such:

CCR =  (20/200) x 100

CRR = 0.1 x 100 

CRR = 10%

This means that this business has a quarterly customer churn rate of 10% for Q3.  

Aside from the number of lost customers, there are other churn metrics to plug into the customer churn rate formula. Whether or not these metrics are worth using to calculate the CCR is completely up to the business in question. It will depend on the nature of the business and its performance metrics needs.

Other churn metrics that businesses can use include the following:

  • recurring revenue lost
  • percentage of customers lost during a specific period
  • decreased engagement product engagement
  • percentage of revenue lost
  • other variables specific to their product and business. 

The more granular a company is with its customer churn analysis, the more effective it can be when working to reduce the churn rate and keep its customers.

Ideal Versus Poor Customer Churn Rate Benchmarks

All businesses undergo churn, even those that are new and/or are experiencing a solid subscription rate with no current turnover. 

How can businesses distinguish between a good and bad churn rate? There are certain existing benchmarks for this. The most ideal, but unrealistic churn rate is 0%, as no business profits when a customer churns.  

Given that it is virtually impossible to maintain a 0% churn rate, there are certain practical benchmarks that businesses can aim for. The following lists both ideal and poor CRR benchmarks that businesses ought to know:

  1. The ideal churn rate is 5-7%.
    1. This is considered the proper rate for mature and well-established SaaS companies that target enterprises.
    2.  For early-stage businesses, the monthly churn should be closer to 5%.
  2. A churn rate above 10% is a critical warning that a business is poorly faring in customer retention. 
    1. It signifies the need to change the customer experience (CX).
  3. A high CCR is over 10%, signifying that a business is operating at an unsustainable rate.
    1. It usually means that marketing efforts/ resources are used for acquiring customers rather than retaining them.
  4. When a business has a high churn rate, it must examine how it forms and fosters its customer relationships.

The Customer Churn Rate Across Industries

The CCR varies across industries and is highly likely to vary from one company to the next. Businesses should have an overview of how the churn rate fares in their industry and others. The following lists the average customer churn rate across several major industries:

  1. General retail: 24%
  2. Online retail: 22%
  3. Financial: 25%
  4. Telecommunications: 21%
  5. Travel: 18%
  6. Big box electronics: 11%
  7. Cable: 25%
  8. SaaS: 4.79%

How Surveys Can Lower Customer Churn Rate

Survey research can be used for a variety of purposes, which include lowering this unfortunate metric. This is because reinforcing strong business relationships with customers is a must in order to decrease the CCR. The most potent way to achieve this goal is by understanding your target market. Surveys allow businesses to do so in a quick and efficient manner.

Surveys allow businesses to examine their customers on an in-depth level, as surveys provide them with anonymity and speed, unlike survey panels and focus groups, which are not anonymous and are typically more time-consuming.

Given that surveys can address a wide range of topics, from customer satisfaction, to customer aversions, to customer buying behavior, brands can gain a wide swath of insights that support various campaigns. 

Whether a business seeks to adjust its pricing strategy, partake in customer development before releasing a new product or improve its brand visibility, surveys provide the strongest means for obtaining customer feedback and insights. 

Essentially, surveys allow businesses to understand their customers in relation to numerous business topics and concerns, while also providing them the opportunity to improve their strategies across functions, such as marketing, advertising and beyond. When businesses are in lockstep with their customers, they are far less likely to disappoint them.

Thus, businesses that know how to cater to their customers are poised to satisfy and delight them, thereby lowering their customer churn.  

Using the Best Online Survey Platform to Reduce Churn

Customer churn can occur within even the most loyal of customers, especially in a highly competitive landscape. Understanding what causes formerly loyal customers to abandon ship is much-needed to sustain business growth.

While survey research is crucial, all online survey platforms are not identical in function, interfaces, data quality and ease of use. A strong online survey tool ought to excel in all regards and more. 

For example, a useful online survey platform should incorporate RDE (random device engagement sampling) in order to capture respondents in their natural digital habitats and in a completely randomized manner, as well as include artificial intelligence that performs quality checks to ensure the highest quality of customer data.

Businesses should choose their survey software wisely, should they seek to lower their churn rate and improve on many other business fronts.

by Pollfish Marketing Team

How to Perfect an In-Home Use Test (IHUT) with Survey Research

How to Perfect an In-Home Use Test (IHUT)with Survey Research

An in-home use test is a critical form of market research, particularly for product testing, product development teams and businesses that have yet to launch a product to market. 

While market research may appear non-experimental outwardly, there are several kinds of testing necessary to conduct, such as experimental research and in product testing specifically, customer development. 

An in-home use test complements the experimental aspect of market research and allows businesses to understand the viability of their product from their customers themselves. 

This article expounds upon the in-home use test and illustrates how survey research can perfect it so that you fulfill your market research techniques.  

Defining the In-Home Use Test

This kind of research is a critical method in product testing, in which businesses measure the performance of products and their effects on customer satisfaction. 

Also called the home usage test or in-home user test and abbreviated as the HUT or IHUT, this form of market research refers to the testing of a new product by way of sending it to a customer's home rather than sending the customer to a facility to try the product. 

This way, businesses can understand how customers will use their products as they normally would — in their natural home environments. 

Rather than using the products in an altered environment such as a testing facility, users test the product as they would in their everyday lives. This method removes any biases that occur in unnatural settings and controlled environments.

Thus, market researchers and businesses can understand exactly how their target market interacts with their products before they officially launch new products to the general public.  

After using the product(s), the customers are sent surveys to share their opinions and experiences with the new product(s).

When to Use an In-Home Use Test

There are several situations in which using an IHUT is a necessity. They often tie into the need of assuring the success of a product, as opposed to being used with other campaigns, such as branding or advertising. 

The most utilitarian purpose of using the home usage test in your market research is to gain honest customer feedback on a product before it gets launched. 

Market researchers can also stand to use it for different purposes, which include the following:

  1. Innovation experiments: refining or updating an existing product.
  2. Early product development: when a new product idea is not fully fleshed out, sending testers an early version. This allows product developers to decide whether the product is worth continuing to build.
  3. Gauging a Commonly Used Product: Some products are used every day; researchers can conduct an IHUT on commonly used products to understand their utility, appeal and limitations. 
  4. Recording customer satisfaction over time: Some customers become more satisfied with a product they typically use over time, while others’ satisfaction may be in decline. Then there are those that don’t waver in their satisfaction levels with a product at all.
  5. Buying intent and buying pains: Market researchers can learn if using a product over time has any sway in their intent to buy, along with their buying pains. 

How to Conduct an In-Home Use Test

The following is a comprehensive set of instructions that explain how to conduct an in-home use test. The IHUT involves a process that market researchers can streamline in order to get the quickest results. 

This is to say that you do not need to take part in all of the steps outlined below. You may have already performed some of them as part of the encompassing market research process. 

  1. Determine your target market. This can be done through several market research techniques, including secondary and primary research. 
    1. You must use the correct target market sample when conducting any form of market research.
    2. You may also conduct market segmentation to further split your target market into smaller segments.
  2. Deliberate whether you need to perform customer development. If so, find the appropriate step in this process to begin sending out an in-home use test to customers.
  3. If you have several untested products, prioritize the one which needs product testing most urgently. 
    1. It is beneficial to practice product intuition before sending a product out for IHUT. For example, you ought to infer which product will perform or be of best use to your customers based on past experience or research.   
  4. Choose the number of HUT testers you will need to try your product. 
    1. The ideal number is between 10 -100 participants.
  5. Ascertain the length of the IHUT study; this can involve testing your product for several days- months, depending on your market research needs.
  6. Obtain your HUT testers by way of recruiting survey panels or via an online survey tool.
    1. You can also reach out to known customers by way of their contact information. For example, if they made electronic purchases, your business then has access to their names and email addresses. This is true in other situations, such as interacting with an online chat and providing contact information.
  7. Offer an incentive to your desired testers to ensure that they partake in your in-home user test.
  8. Deploy your products to the IHUT participants.
    1. Include instructions on how you require their participation in the IHUT. Remember to make mention of how they are to return the items (if they should) and whether they should take notes of their experience.
  9. Follow up with your participants if need be, particularly if you’re running a long study.
  10. Survey your participants by way of mail-in surveys you can send with their products, phone calls or post-HUT online surveys.
  11. Analyze your findings when you’ve garnered feedback from all the participants in the study.
  12. Report the viability of the product and determine if it is ready for launch.
    1. This involves other considerations, such as: 
      1. whether it needs more testing on other segments of your target market
      2. if a similar product needs testing to be used in comparison
      3. or if you should pull the plug on the product entirely

The IHUT Role in Customer Development

As aforementioned, customer development is a step in the IHUT process. However, given that customer development consists of its own framework and methodology, it can also be said to envelop the in-home use test.

As such, the IHUT can be viewed as a step of the customer development process, namely the first step of customer development, that of customer discovery. This step is predicated on understanding customers and their needs, with a focus on the kinds that your company may fulfill.  

It involves testing two hypotheses that relate back to the product:

  1. The problem hypothesis: your understanding of customer pain points
  2. The product hypothesis: your solution to these pain points

The HUT can also be applied as part of Step 2 of customer development, that of customer validation. It is centered on gaining validation via selling your product, after your target market approves of it from Step 1.

This is to say that although not its primary use case, the IHUT approach can be used in tandem with a product already in the market. Deploying it alongside an existing product is actually useful for three of the points aforesaid in the above section on when to use the in-home use test.

These include gauging a commonly used product, recording satisfaction over time and delving into buying intent and pain points. 

As such, the IHUT approach is useful to leverage alongside the customer development process.

Complementing Your In-Home Use Test with Surveys

The in-home usage test is not a standalone practice as it involves more than just sending out products. The core of this test is obtaining customer feedback on a particular product. There are several routes you can take to study customer opinions of an IHUT product.

You can call them directly and have a discussion on their findings. You can also send them surveys along with the products. Surveys allow you to ask virtually any product-related question.

For quicker insights, it is best to deploy electronic surveys, some of which may facilitate various aspects of survey research, depending on the platform you use. These include using advanced skip logic to route your respondents to the appropriate answers based on their answer to a previous question.

If you are running an IHUT alongside an already existing product, you ought to use a strong online survey platform, which can distribute your surveys to the masses and allow you to dictate exactly who gets to take part in them. This way, you are ensuring that only your target market will take the surveys.

Taking this approach also enables you to assess the percentage of your target market that is aware of your product. 

Perfecting Your In-Home Use Test with Survey Research

Closing off, an in-home usage test (IHUT) is a valuable market research method. While it is primarily used for testing new products before they are officially launched, such a test can be deployed in all stages of product development.

Survey research perfect IHUTs, in that this is the foremost method of gaining customer feedback and insights. To reap the most valuable insights, you ought to conduct regular surveys on your target market. 

Running continuous surveys is an adequate means for gaining a host of customer and business insights, along with a range of market research. This is because you can field surveys for virtually any marketing campaign.

Thus, running surveys gives you continuous insights that not only complement your in-home use test, but perfect it as well. But they must be administered carefully. 

To do so, you need to invest in a robust online survey tool, the kind that brings agile data from your target market and allows you to distill your target market down to the smallest segment.

by Pollfish Marketing Team

How To Conduct Financial Market Research Like a Pro

How To Conduct Financial Market Research Like A Pro

Financial services providers need to integrate financial market research into their business strategy. This research supplies providers in this vertical with meaningful insights on their target market, market products, and services.

Moreover, this data grants and gives financial services providers a framework for decision-making. As these institutions have to deal with money, there’s a lot at stake for banks and money lending companies. 

In 2019 alone, the global financial services industry spent an estimated $50 billion extracting raw data to support their trading activities and transactions. 

This is because financial market research data enables them to forecast and analyze any trends or aspects of the organization that needs changes. Not only this, market research offers opportunities for investments that increase the profits for an organization.

Even in 2020, when the pandemic brought the entire world to a standstill and disrupted the global economy, financial market research helped finance leaders and the financial services industry to support the economy’s financial recovery. 

The Rising Importance Of Financial Services Industry

As aforementioned, the financial services industry is the main driver of a country’s economy, mainly dominated by large organizations. With a strong financial services sector, the nation’s economy grows, and the consumers earn more, thereby increasing their purchasing power.

The uncertainty brought about by the global pandemic means that potentially every company and organization is likely to make smart and bold financial decisions. Unlike the financial crisis of 2008, the 2020 pandemic has disrupted all aspects of the economy. This means that finance leaders and the financial services industry are strategically positioned to support the economy’s financial recovery. 

With the recent changes in technologies, the rise of new investment trends, and the significant shift in consumer behavior, financial services companies are forced to tap into valuable information to approach these changes. 

Moreover, companies need to leverage relevant data and insights to make the most of these opportunities to keep up with the recent digitization and innovation in the financial services industry. 

This means that market research is as crucial for the finance sector as any other industry. 

The Importance of Conducting Financial Market Research 

Financial markets play a crucial role in driving a country’s economy and offering countless opportunities for investors to tap into specific markets and services. But with changing regulatory demands and consumer requirements, financial services companies and organizations need unique insights to keep up with this changing industry.

Financial market research is essential because it can help break down market data and trends into a broader context that offers finance companies a clear perspective of the risks and benefits of a particular service.

Therefore, several financial services providers invest in data analytics and market research to gain valuable information about their customers. 

However, conducting accurate research is not easy. Lenders, bankers, real estate brokers, and all other kinds of financial services providers need to know precisely what kind of information will help them in decision making. 

For commercial banks and investment companies, market research is essential as it determines which business proposition can benefit them in the long run. Moreover, it helps brokerage firms assess which products are in demand by their customer base so that they can suggest them based on the individual requirements of their customers.

The following expounds on  why a financial market analysis is important for banks and other businesses for their decision-making process:

  • Reduced Business Risks

When it comes to investing money, businesses need to know the right time to invest. With financial market research, they can predict the value of their investment to reduce business risks. Developing a financial plan that outlines all the risks and benefits that a firm may incur can give financial services providers an idea of which opportunities to invest in. 

Understanding these trends is also important so firms know exactly how to respond to market changes. Some frequent research areas for financial services providers include: 

  • Insurance
  • Business Banking 
  • Personal Loans  
  • Mortgages
  • Property Management

  • Effective Forecasting And Analysis

Accurate financial forecasting is crucial for financial service providers to strategize in the face of any uncertainties that may affect their business. Thus, financial market research equips businesses and institutions in their strategic planning process. 

This kind of research also provides deep insights into customer behavior and market shifts due to external factors and variations in market trends. With thorough finance market research, supported with effective survey campaigns, businesses can tap into what their customers are doing to offer something unique that sets them apart in the industry.

 It enables financial service institutions to set realistic and feasible goals and helps them predict their annual budgets. 

  • Accurate Demographic Targeting

To know their ideal demographic, businesses need effective financial market research to assess their target market and what they require from their business. This kind of research is also useful for understanding the distribution of consumer spending over a particular period and how customers feel about their financial situations. 

Financial service providers should inquire of their target market as such: are its members willing to make financial deals with your business at this time of crisis? How have their spending and saving plans changed?

Adequate financial research will delve into all these behaviors and trends at length to help institutions make better decisions. It also provides insights into demographic spending trends, where customers look for financial guidance and receptivity to media. 

  • Internal Audit Assistance

Businesses can evaluate the trading activities, existing credits, and regulatory reports for a successful internal audit by assessing financial market conduct.

The interconnectedness within the financial system has made it necessary for institutions to analyze their vulnerability to systemic risks by assessing and analyzing macro-economic factors, industry trends, changes in regulations, risks materializing at other entities, and innovation by peers.

Carrying out an internal audit for a company offers a detailed report on the market's existing and predicted financial risks. The interconnectedness of different industries and systematic risks in the economy brought about by the pandemic have made it imperative for financial services providers to put forward a dynamic audit plan. And the only way an audit plan will be successful in pointing out a company’s vulnerabilities is with adequate financial market research. 

How To Conduct  Financial Market Research

The following are two foremost methods for conducting financial market research:

Primary market research methods for the finance industry

Primary market research for the finance industry involves the direct participation of financial services providers in the research. It offers valuable data on different market areas that providers may require, as obtaining firsthand data provides them with unique insights, particularly their study. This is of utmost importance as secondary research providers do not provide data into the particular inquiries and topics of study that a financial services provider seeks. 

Some of the methods to conduct primary market research for the finance industry include:

  • Interviews – Financial services providers can hold interviews with industry participants to ask questions that require deep understanding. This is important to assess the changing preferences of clients for different financial services
  • Observations – This is a qualitative, no-interaction technique used by financial advisors that can help them gain useful insights regarding the practices followed by finance companies, their competitors, and customer trends
  • Email surveys – Financial advisors can contact industry participants and get feedback through a survey that includes short questions. These responses can then be analyzed and compiled as a report to understand market trends
  • Online Surveys – They prove to be an essential tool within market research techniques as they collect data and insights on the exact amount of respondents to use in a survey pool. Online surveys can also support a company’s decision-making processes and offer them a competitive advantage through fast quality data. By accessing the right platform for generating online surveys, the financial services providers access qualitative and quantitative surveys.

Secondary market research methods for the finance industry

Secondary market research for the finance industry relies on data and information that researchers extract, meaning that the data has already been conducted by a third party and made available. 

Some of the methods to conduct secondary market research include:

  • Industry Reports – Industry reports identify any opportunities or risks that the industry might face and present scenarios from the past that can help financial advisors deal with threats in a better way 
  • Case Studies – Case studies illustrate how industries dealt with financial crises in the past and can provide a detailed, in-depth investigation into a complex situation. They are perfect for providing you with real-life examples of industries and actionable insights
  • Statistics sites – Statistical research can help you decide which data collection methods would garner maximum results, what decisions to make, and how to predict behavioral response based on past statistical reports
  • Research papers – Research papers provide in-depth knowledge on a particular topic that helps financial services providers understand and make better decisions
  • Research agencies – Research agencies know all the proper tactics for conducting market research. They can help financial advisors with information such as client preferences, the right target market, predicting future financial conditions, etc

However, the type of research method financial advisors choose depends highly on time and available data. Qualitative market research like interviews and participant observation offers detailed, rich information and takes some time to collect. On the other hand, surveys and online feedback are easy to collect and lack necessary details. 

Secondary Market Research For The Finance Industry

The following is the list of the best secondary market resources on important data and insights on the finance industry.

It offers a general overview of the financial services industry, from money management to digital banking technologies. Also, it outlines all the major trends, topics, and behaviors needed for companies to climb up the ladder in the financial sector. 

Includes reports on the latest financial market research and provides analytical data on different financial subjects such as insurance management and consumer spending/saving patterns.

Compiled by IBIS World, this website is a massive database of thousands of industries. It presents useful information on economic changes, demographic data and helps organizations make better financial decisions. 

This website provides press releases, publications, and reports on banking and financial services. Given the devastating impact of the pandemic on the financial sector, the reports on MarketsAndMarkets also offer strategic, tactical advice on using financial services to help companies recover from their losses. 

The Business Research Company is the most authentic report on the internet that provides detailed reports on different industries in the market. It presents past trends and how markets have changed in the past decade and predicts statistical information on financial services providers. 

Financial market research enables the finance industry to gain meaningful insights into different products and services. This increases sales opportunities and offers businesses all the information they need to design effective financial strategies. 

Carrying Out Effective Research in the Financial Sector 

Financial market research enables the finance industry to gain meaningful insights into different products and services. This increases sales opportunities and offers businesses all the information they need to design effective financial strategies. 

Online surveys are the most convenient method for collecting data owing to their accessibility and accuracy. This is why financial services providers need to leverage the power of an online survey platform or market research experts so that they can target a vast audience base and generate reliable survey responses.

To improve data quality, advanced online surveys leverage machine-learning to highlight and eliminate poor quality responses. AI in market research reduces the chances of error and eliminates duplicate entries of data that might result in outdated information and poor data quality. 

These online surveys are then used in random device engagement sampling (RDE)to engage a huge customer base on devices they are already using. Whether these surveys are posted on mobile apps or gaming interfaces, they are placed where the business’s audience can easily respond to them. This way, they can tap into unique and high-quality market research data that drives their decision-making process. 

Frequently asked questions

What is financial market research?

Financial market research offers useful insights into financial trends and strategies and gives statistical information on the leading finance companies. It also provides actionable insights regarding various financial instruments like portfolio pricing, risk management, etc.

Why do businesses need to conduct financial market research?

Financial market research minimizes the risk for financial services providers and identifies new business opportunities for them. It also gives them insights into market trends, identifies problem areas in the market and untapped resources.

How can an online survey platform help businesses with financial market research?

Online surveys are a reliable way of getting insights directly from consumers. They are also affordable and require minimal to no investment.

What are some of the resources to find secondary research on the finance market?

Secondary market research sources include the web, media sources, industry reports, case studies, press releases, publications, and company compiled data.

Do businesses need a financial advisor?

Even though many business owners choose to conduct their research, financial advisors can offer a solid, strategic plan that takes all their previous, present, and future investments into account and provide them with the most feasible plan. Moreover, financial advisors are experienced in their job and know a lot more about financial market trends than business owners that can help in effective decision making.

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