While many may only recall correlation analysis from the days of high school and college statistics classes, market research professionals will recognize this as a staple of their analysis toolbox. 

Yet, as popular as correlation analysis may be, correlations are often misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misused. So we’ve put together a helpful guide on the basics of correlation analysis. 

 

What is Correlation Analysis? 

Correlation analysis is a statistical technique used to determine whether there is a relationship between two variables. When applied to market research, it is a popular way to identify patterns and uncover trends in a data set. 

Now, as the saying goes, it’s important to remember that correlation DOES NOT equal causation. Technically, the two can exist simultaneously. But, correlation is not an implication of causation. A correlation simply means there is a relationship between two variables, so that when one changes the other also changes. While causation means that one variable directly causes the other to change. 

A great example to illustrate this difference is the correlation between sunburns and ice cream sales. The two events are related, but neither event technically causes the other. But hot weather causes both sunburns and ice cream sales to rise. 

 

How to Measure Correlation

A correlation between two variables can either be positive or negative. To measure the degree to which two variables are correlated, we use a correlation coefficient known as Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient. The value of the coefficient is always between -1 and 1. 

Positive Correlations 

For positive correlations, both variables will either increase or decrease at the same time. For example, when an hourly employee works more hours, the amount of money they earn will also increase. 

In terms of coefficients, a positive correlation is a value between 0.01 and 1, with 1 being the strongest positive correlation. On a graph this will be displayed as a scatter plot with points that are close together, showing a positive slope (up and to the right).

 

Negative Correlations 

On the other hand, for negative correlations the relationship is inverse. Meaning that if one variable increases, the other must decrease- or vice versa. For example, the more money you spend, the less you will have. 

 

Why Use Correlation Analysis?

Uncover Patterns and Relationships You Might Have Missed

You can use correlation analysis to better understand the degree, strength, and direction of the association between two variables in your research. By analyzing your research data, correlation analysis investigates variables in their natural setting, potentially bringing patterns and trends to light that you could have otherwise missed. 

 

Source Topics for Future Research

When applied to your survey and experiment data, correlation analysis searches for naturally occurring relationships between variables. Identifying positive or negative correlations gives you a solid foundation for a follow-up study, exploring the relationships you’ve discovered. For example, if you discover a correlation between age and likelihood to purchase, you may want to consider investigating this further in a future study. 

 

How to Use Correlation Analysis

In the SightX platform, you can find Correlation Analysis within the Analyze section of the platform. This tool automatically scans each question in your survey, comparing each question (or variable) with every other question (or variable). The result? Something like the table below: 

Green and red stand for positive and negative correlations. The darker the box, the stronger the correlation. And when hovered over, each box shows the variables being tested and Pearson’s coefficient value. 

 

 

Correlation Analysis with SightX

The SightX platform is the only tool you'll ever need for market research: a single, unified solution for consumer engagement, data collection, advanced analysis, and reporting. While powerful enough for insights teams at Fortune 500 companies, the user-friendly interface makes it simple for anyone to start, optimize, and scale their research. 

And with our new Generative AI consultant, Ada, you can harness the power of OpenAI’s GPT to transform your marketing research and insights. Collaborating with Ada is like having an expert researcher, brilliant statistician, and ace marketer on your team, helping you ask the right questions, choose the best experiments, pick out key insights, and seamlessly apply them to your business. 

In marketing, success isn't just about creating memorable campaigns or crafting witty taglines. In reality, the truth is much less sexy. It’s about deeply understanding the audience you’re talking to. 

As a marketer, your audience is (or should be) your north star. The constant force that guides your efforts. And in our digital era of fleeting attention spans and viral micro-trends, the ability to grasp your audience's intricate web of wants, needs, and preferences can feel like a herculean task. 

That’s where marketing research comes in. 

Marketing research isn't just a tool; it's the key that unlocks the door to the minds and hearts of those you aim to captivate.

Today, we'll explore the techniques and tools that transform vague notions into concrete insights, allowing marketers to speak directly to the soul of their audience. It's time to decode the enigma, demystify the process, and embrace the profound impact that market research can have on your ability to truly resonate with those who matter most. 

 

What is Marketing Research

Marketing research is simply market research applied to your marketing. It is a technique used to collect audience feedback that can later be used to inform your marketing, advertising, and messaging strategy. 

The purpose of conducting marketing research is to up your marketing engagement and ROI by better understanding your audience. 

 

How Can I Use Marketing Research? 

 

Create Accurate Personas

If you want to deliver marketing campaigns that actually catch people’s attention and garner meaningful engagement, you’ll need to deeply understand your audience. Creating robust buyer personas based on data straight from your target market is the best way to start! 

Using market segmentation tools (like those found on SightX), you can use data about your audience’s preferences, sentiments, behaviors, and more to better understand how they make their decisions, where they shop, and what they are looking for in a product. 

 

Optimize Your Ads

Ad testing is one of the most popular use cases in marketing research, and for good reason! It allows you to pre-screen your ads- entire ads or just sections like copy or graphics- with your target audience before you launch your campaign. 

Not only does this help you publish more engaging ads, but it also ups your advertising ROI. 

 

Develop Better Brand & Product Messaging

While your organization may use certain words and  phrases to discuss your brand or products, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the same language used by your audience. By testing your messaging, you can break out of your internal echo chamber and evaluate the natural language that surrounds your industry, brand, and products.

 

Build a Winning Content Strategy 

The goal of any good content strategy is to create pieces that entice and engage your target audience. Sure, you can plan your content strategy around popular industry topics and themes covered by your competitors. But, if you’re doing what everyone else is doing, it will be pretty difficult to stand out. 

So, what’s the best way to give your readers exactly what they want? By asking them! 

You can use marketing research to better understand the types of content your audience is looking for, the formats they prefer, the topics that interest them, and the distribution channels that will reach them. 

 

What are the Benefits of Using Marketing Research? 

 

Improve Your ROI

It’s no secret that marketing and advertising can be a costly endeavor. Market research gives you the opportunity to screen your ideas, ad concepts, messages, or imagery with your target market to mitigate your risks before launching.

 

Understand Your Market Segments

Discover what messaging and creative resonates best with each of your target market segments for higher levels of engagement. 

 

Gain a Competitive Advantage

Use consumer insights to create marketing assets that help you stand out from the crowd. 

 

Iterate at Speed

Agile market research empowers you to make data-driven decisions in real time, leading to more efficient business outcomes across your marketing efforts.

 

Tools for Marketing Research

 

Concept Testing 

Get direct feedback from your audience on your ad concepts to perfect your design and hone in on a messaging strategy. Eliminate poor-quality ideas and move forward with those that engage your audience to launch your campaigns with confidence. 

 

Heat Mapping

Test which types of advertisements and messaging garner the most positive or frequent interactions, and which drive users to engage with your Call-to-Action. Visualized feedback from your audience makes it simple to understand what consumers like or dislike, what catches their eye, and (most importantly) why. 

 

Automated Conjoint Analysis

Use data on consumer preferences to optimize your product and brand messaging. Better understand what your audience values most about your brand, product, or service to create powerful messaging and advertisements. 

 

Text Highlighter

Share your text, select the metrics that matter most to you, and let respondents leave detailed feedback on ways to perfect your copy. 

 

Marketing Research with SightX

The SightX platform is the only tool you'll ever need for market research: a single, unified solution for consumer engagement, data collection, advanced analysis, and reporting. While powerful enough for insights teams at Fortune 500 companies, the user-friendly interface makes it simple for anyone to start, optimize, and scale their research. 

And with our new Generative AI consultant, Ada, you can harness the power of OpenAI’s GPT to transform your marketing research and insights. Collaborating with Ada is like having an expert researcher, brilliant statistician, and ace marketer on your team, helping you ask the right questions, choose the best experiments, pick out key insights, and seamlessly apply them to your business. 

If you're ready to dive in click the button below to get started for free!

 

 

 

Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in 2022, Generative AI has promised to transform the way we work. And many companies have taken note. 

As more and more organizations plan to integrate this technology into their operations, it’s clear that generative AI's popularity will only continue to grow in the business sector. 

One industry that is especially poised to reap the benefits of these recent advancements is market research. For most insights and research professionals, embracing this new technology isn't merely an option; it will be the key to unlocking a new realm of possibilities. 

So as generative AI becomes more ubiquitous in our industry, those who understand how and when to use it will find success. That's why we are sharing tips and best practices from our very own AI experts: 

 

What is Generative AI? 

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence designed to generate new content, like text, images, audio, or video. Unlike traditional AI systems that rely on explicit programming and rule-based logic, generative AI leverages advanced machine learning techniques to understand and mimic patterns in the data it's trained on.

In the context of language models like GPT-3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3), generative AI is capable of generating coherent and contextually relevant text based on the input it receives. It can understand context, follow the structure of language, and produce human-like responses. While image models like DALL-E are able to develop images from scratch based on the text descriptions you give them. 

This technology has great potential to automate tasks, enhance creativity, and assist in complex problem-solving scenarios. 

 

 

How to Use Generative AI in Market Research

Using Generative AI tools built specifically for market research, like SightX’s Ada, can help you unlock a new realm of possibilities. Some of the most common uses include: 

 

Strategic Research Recommendations 

Not sure where to start? Share your challenges, objectives, and long-term goals with Ada. She’ll sift through SightX's extensive experiment and template library to find the tests and tools perfectly tailored to your needs. 
 

AI-Designed Surveys 

Not sure what questions to ask or how to ask them? Give Ada some context and she will use the power of generative AI to build custom surveys that give you the answers you need to meet your goals. 

 

Launch Studies Effortlessly 

Selecting the correct sample size is crucial to the precision and accuracy of your data. If your sample is too small, you will undermine the accuracy of your results. But, on the other hand, small differences can quickly morph into (seemingly) significant insights when your sample is too large. So it's time to gather responses, collaborate with Ada to receive custom recommendations for the ideal sample size for your unique research project. 

 

Data Deep-Dive

Have questions about your research data? Just ask! From audience segmentation to sentiment analysis and complex pivot table insights, Ada will bring you the answers you need instantly. 

 

Snapshot Summaries & Key Insights for Executives

Don't get caught up in the data deluge; get straight to the insights that matter. Let Ada skillfully condense your insights into high-level summaries that equip decision-makers with the information they need to make better product, marketing, pricing, and brand decisions. 

 

Transform Feedback into Marketing Assets

Applying your new-found insights to your business is the most important step in any study. And with Ada, it's become simpler than ever. Let Ada take the feedback you collected and use it to create custom marketing materials perfectly tailored to your audience. Be it helpful blog posts or standout social campaigns, Ada uses a data-driven approach to develop assets your audience will actually want to interact with. 

 

 

4 Tips for Using Generative AI for Your Market Research 

 

1. Be Clear and Detailed in Your Prompts 

To get the best results when working with Generative AI, be as specific as possible about what you need and share context about your business, challenges, and goals. 

You should also keep in mind that you don’t need to get everything into your first prompt. You can build off of previous prompts in a conversational way by sharing additional details or adding context in subsequent messages.

 

2. Look for Placeholder Information

After Ada has generated a test for you, take a moment to check through all of the questions and answer choices to find and replace any placeholder information. You’ll need to fill in specific details like brand, product, or competitor names before launching your survey!

 

3. Check the Formatting and Add Any Needed Logic 

Next, you’ll want to check the formatting and flow of your survey. For multiple-choice questions, answer options should be randomized where applicable. For questions that include details about a respondent’s past selections, you will need to confirm that survey logic has been set up and is working correctly. 

 

4. Test your survey

This one might seem simple, but we’ve included it for a reason. 

Before you send your survey off to hundreds (or thousands) of people, make sure to test it yourself. When viewing it from a respondent’s point of view, you may catch issues you would have otherwise missed. So don't dismiss the power of a good practice run! 

 

 

Generative AI with SightX

At SightX, we have always pushed the boundaries of market research. Our powerful tools, advanced methodologies, and automated systems have made our client’s lives easier for years. 

But with our new Generative AI research consultant Ada, we are changing the game. 

By harnessing the power of OpenAI’s GPT, Ada is ready to transform your marketing research and insights workflows. Collaborating with Ada is like having an expert researcher, brilliant statistician, and ace marketer on your team; helping you ask the right questions, choose the best experiments, pick out key insights, and seamlessly apply them to your business. 

If you’re ready to give Ada a try, sign up for a free Lite account: 

 

 

 

It’s been said that around 95% of all new product ideas fail. 

Now- to be fair- the validity of this exact figure remains to be seen. But that doesn't diminish the sentiment; product development is riddled with trial and error, with very few products rising to the top.

If you want to mitigate risks and give your product a fighting chance, research should play a key role in your development process. 

 

What is Product Development Research? 

Put simply, product development research is the process of applying market research tactics to your product development journey. 

Whether you are updating an existing product, extending a product line, or launching an entirely new product- the development cycle can be a long one. While some people might consider research as just another step, in reality, it is so much more. 

Research should be your north star; guiding you throughout your journey and informing your designs, pricing, features, and messaging. All in the name of crafting a product your market will obsess over. 

Product development research gives you the gift of feedback directly from the people you want to buy your product. Not only does it allow you to screen every aspect of your product with consumers, but you can also use it to better understand your competitors, and find gaps within your market. 

 

Why Does Market Research Matter in Product Development? 

Using market research during the product development cycle is a great way to minimize your risks. But that isn’t the only benefit! Here are a few of the biggest upsides: 

Open Space for Innovation

In the early stages of product development, research allows you to discover gaps within your market and unmet needs your competitors could be missing. Not only will this make your product more unique, but it will also give you a competitive advantage. 

Get to Know Your Market

While it might seem simple, getting to know your market is crucial for your success as an organization. If you don’t understand what your ideal customers are looking for in a product, how they make their purchasing decisions, and what brands they are already loyal to, you’ll be dead in the water. 

 

Maximize Product Revenue

Forget gut feelings or best guesses, and go directly to the source. Use insights from your target market to find a price range for your product or pinpoint a price point that maximizes your revenue without comprising consumer demand. 

Nail Your Marketing & Advertising

No matter how great your product is, without marketing and advertising it’s unlikely anyone will ever hear about it. Research will help you uncover the messaging that resonates with your audience, the graphics that catch their attention, and the platforms you can reach them on. 

Arrive to Launch Day with Confidence 

It’s no secret, when you infuse insights into every stage of your product development cycle you’ll arrive at launch day with confidence. 

 

 

Tools for Product Market Research

 

Concept Testing

Eliminate low-potential product concepts, perfect high-quality concepts, and discover your product’s most promising market segments. 

 

Heat Mapping

Get visualized feedback on your assets to understand what consumers like/dislike, what catches their eye, and (most importantly) why. 

 

Automated Conjoint Analysis

Measure the value consumers place on your product's packaged features to optimize your product, predict adoption, and project market share. 

 

Automated MaxDiff Analysis

Measure the level of importance that consumers place on each of your product features to optimize your product and messaging. 

 

TURF Analysis

Maximize the reach of your products by finding an optimal mix of features that appeals to the largest audience. 

 

Van Westendorp

Gauge the price sensitivity in your market and find a range of acceptable prices for your product. 

 

Gabor-Granger

Pinpoint a revenue-maximizing price and investigate the relationship between price and demand for your product. 

 

Key Driver Analysis 

Identify the factors that influence consumer behavior and impact metrics like customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, or purchase intent.

 

 

 

When to Conduct Product Development Research

 

Ideation 

The ideation phase is the initial stage in which companies evaluate whitespace opportunities and work to source new product ideas to fill that space, selecting the idea with the highest potential. This is a great time to survey your audience to look for gaps in the market and needs that haven't been met by competitor products. 

 

Prototyping

During the prototyping phase, companies begin to design and physically build their minimum viable product (MVP). In this stage, you will create your user interface or customer experience, possibly the most crucial aspect of your product. Tools like concept tests, heat maps, and conjoint analysis will enable you to build an MVP that gets your market excited. 

 

Pricing

Setting your product's price is a crucial developmental milestone. During this time, you will identify an optimal price for your offering, taking into account market positioning, demand elasticity, and cost factors.  Tools like Van Westendorp's Price Sensitivity Meter and Gabor-Granger will be invaluable here. 

 

Messaging

The messaging you choose can majorly impact your sales, marketing, and advertising efforts. So nailing down the right positioning can be a huge win across the board. To refine and perfect your messaging, you can use tools like concept tests early in the process to screen different options with your audience.

Similarly, conjoint and maxdiff analysis will tell you which aspects of your product matter most to consumers, which will inform the basis of your marketing. While tools like TURF analysis are useful when searching for messaging points that resonate with the largest market. 

 

Post-Launch Enhancements

The product development work doesn’t always stop after launch day. For digital offerings especially, ongoing enhancements, post-launch updates, and additional content are a standard way of attracting new customers and keeping the ones you have. In this stage, any and every market research tool can be beneficial depending on your goals. For UX/UI updates, concept testing and heat mapping will be your best friend. While tools like key driver analysis can be used to better understand the factors your customers like most about your offering, and what you can improve to keep them coming back for more. 

 

 

Product Development Research with SightX

The SightX platform is the only tool you'll ever need for market research: a single, unified solution for consumer engagement, data collection, advanced analysis, and reporting. While powerful enough for insights teams at Fortune 500 companies, the user-friendly interface makes it simple for anyone to start, optimize, and scale their research. 

Plus, with SightX's research team, you can gain access to the best thinking in the insights field. Our in-house experts will guide you through every step in the market research process, from survey scripting to analysis support, and everything in between. 

If you're ready to dive into market research, click the button below to get started for free!

 

 

 

In a world overflowing with information, we are all constant consumers of text and copy. 

From the moment we wake up and check our smartphones to the countless billboards, social media posts, product labels, and websites we encounter throughout the day, text surrounds us like an invisible ocean. Whether we realize it or not, we are navigating this sea of words, making countless decisions based on the information we encounter.

Now, think about the last time you felt captivated by an advertisement, compelled by a blog post, or simply couldn't resist clicking on a link. 

What made those words stand out? What was it about the text that convinced you to take action? 

The answer lies in the art of perfecting copy, a craft that extends far beyond the realm of marketing. It's a skill that everyone who uses words to connect, inform, persuade, and engage should master. 

Enter the Text Highlighter question type, a powerful tool that unlocks the secrets of effective communication.

Today, we’ll explore how to use this question type to craft more compelling copy. So, whether you're a seasoned content marketer, a product manager drafting instructions, or a market researcher supporting a variety of copy-producing teams, fasten your seatbelt, because text highlighting is about to transform the way you approach words and wield their influence.

 

What is a Text Highlighter Question? 

A text highlighter question allows respondents to provide granular feedback on a piece of content or snippets of text. The type of feedback they provide is entirely up to you! 

You can have respondents highlight snippets of text based on the clarity, quality, truthfulness, or even the emotions it elicits.

 

 

Each question is highly customizable, so you can collect the exact type of audience feedback you need on any type of text- whether it be a full blog article or snippets of ad copy for your next campaign. 

 

When Can I Use a Text Highlighter Question? 

Text highlighter questions are useful for anyone needing to evaluate text. Some popular use case areas include:

 

Content Marketing

Analyze blog posts, articles, or social media content to see which copy engages your audience most. Understand the exact words and phrases that best convey your message and drive engagement.

 

Ad Campaigns

Assess the effectiveness of the copy in your advertising campaigns by having respondents evaluate the text elements of your ads. Understand which aspects resonate with your audience and drive positive interactions for improved ROI. 

 

Product Descriptions and Packaging

Gather feedback on product descriptions, labels, and packaging. Learn which words and phrases capture the interest of potential customers and whether they convey the desired product attributes.

 

Website and User Interface (UI)

Evaluate the user-friendliness and effectiveness of website content and UI elements. Have users highlight the website copy they find most appealing or the text they find confusing to identify areas for improvement.  

 

Messaging and Taglines 

Test different messaging options, slogans, or taglines by having respondents highlight the elements they find most compelling. This can help refine brand messaging and positioning.

 

Educational Materials

Assess educational materials, textbooks, or e-learning content to determine which sections are most engaging and informative for learners.

 

Competitor Analysis

Compare your marketing content with those of competitors. Ask respondents to highlight elements they prefer to better understand how you stack up against your competition and find ways to gain a competitive advantage. 

 

Event Promotions

Evaluate promotional materials for events, conferences, or seminars. Identify elements that encourage attendance and effectively convey event information.

 

What are the Benefits of Using a Text Highlighter Question? 

 

Reveal In-Depth Insights

Text Highlighter questions allow you to gather detailed, qualitative insights into how respondents engage with and react to your copy. It goes beyond simple ratings or comparisons and provides a deeper understanding of the specific text elements that resonate most with your target audience.

 

Increase Emotional Engagement

Text Highlighter questions can shed light on the emotional responses to your copy. You can identify which parts of the text evoke positive or negative emotions, allowing you to fine-tune your messaging according to your intent.

 

Personalize Your Content

Insights from Text Highlighter questions can inform content personalization efforts, allowing you to tailor messaging and recommendations to specific buyer personas. 

 

Align Your Content Strategy

Ensure that your copy aligns with your overall content strategy and brand messaging by focusing on elements that get attention, capture interest, and drive engagement. 

 

Clarify Your Messaging

Evaluate whether your copy effectively conveys your intended message. Have respondents highlight sections of text they find difficult to understand so that you can ensure your intended message makes it through. 

 

Identify Key the Elements of Success 

With text highlighter questions you can easily identify the words and phrases in your copy that capture the most attention. This helps you pinpoint the most compelling and effective parts of your content.

 

Iterative Improvement

Feedback from Text Highlighter questions enables iterative content improvement. You can make data-driven adjustments to your copy, messaging, or design elements based on audience preferences and reactions.

 

 

Get Better Content Insights with SightX

The SightX platform is the only tool you'll ever need for market research: a single, unified solution for consumer engagement, data collection, advanced analysis, and reporting. While powerful enough for insights teams at Fortune 500 companies, the user-friendly interface makes it simple for anyone to start, optimize, and scale their research. 

Plus, with SightX's research team, you can gain access to the best thinking in the insights field. Our in-house experts will guide you through every step in the market research process, from survey scripting to analysis support, and everything in-between. 

If you're ready to dive into market research, get started today for free!

 

 

Whether you're launching a marketing campaign or releasing a new product, targeting the right market is essential for success. 

If your aim is too broad, you'll waste your time and budget on people who would never be likely to buy from you in the first place. But, if your aim is too narrow, you may end up missing out on an audience receptive to your brand or products. 

That’s where market segmentation comes into play. 

Market segmentation helps you to identify and target the right audience for your brand. Here's how: 

 

What is Market Segmentation? 

Market segmentation is the dividing of a broad market into smaller, targeted groups based on shared characteristics, preferences, or behaviors. The purpose is to identify distinct groups of consumers who have similar needs, wants, or behaviors.  

For example, let's say you run a beverage company specializing in powdered electrolyte drinks. Your primary product and marketing focus has been on consumers in the health and wellness space, specifically those looking for workout hydration supplements. 

 But running a market segmentation study would show you something you had missed. It turns out that a significant portion of your customers actually buy your product for music festivals and hangovers. This insight will allow you to begin marketing your product to a whole new audience segment, growing your brand and revenue. (If that sounds familiar, it's because this actually happened to Pedialyte!) 

 

The 5 Types of Market Segmentation and How to Use Them

Demographic Segmentation

Demographic segmentation divides your audience based on various demographic factors like age, gender, income, education, occupation, marital status, family size, or ethnicity. For example, a company selling luxury watches might target high-income individuals aged 35-55. 

 

Geographic Segmentation

With geographic segmentation, your market is separated based on geographic variables like region, country, city, climate, or urban/rural areas. This allows you to modify your marketing efforts based on the specific customer needs and preferences in different geographic locations. For instance, a beverage company might promote hot beverages in colder regions and cold beverages in warmer climates.

 

Psychographic Segmentation

Psychographic segmentation divides your market based on variables like lifestyles, personality traits, interests, values, or opinions. This approach helps you better understand the emotional and psychological factors that influence consumer decision-making. For example, an outdoor apparel company might want to target consumers who consider themselves adventure seekers and environmentalists. 

 

Behavioral Segmentation

Behavioral segmentation categorizes your customers based on their behaviors. This can include factors like product usage, shopping habits, the benefits they seek from products, and more. For instance, an airline might share different promotional offers to frequent flyers and first-time travelers. 

 

Firmographic

Firmographic segmentation is used within the B2B space to organize customers based on shared company or organization attributes. Factors often include industry, company size, job titles, annual revenue, or company structure. This practice will guide marketing, advertising, and sales strategies for organizations that target a B2B audience.  

 

What are the Benefits of Market Segmentation? 

Better Understand Your Customers

Your customer base may be far more diverse than you realize. Market segmentation allows you to get acquainted with each persona (segment) within your target market, allowing you to better cater your strategy to their needs and preferences. 

 

Upgrade Your Marketing

By understanding what your customers want and how they spend their time , you can craft expertly targeted messaging and choose the right platforms for your marketing. Not only does this help you avoid wasting resources on irrelevant marketing efforts, but it enables you to direct your budget toward the personas most likely to convert- improving your ROI. 

 

Improve Customer Satisfaction

When you center the unique needs of your customer segments, you’ll be much more likely to deliver products, services, and experiences that actually align with their wants and needs. In turn, you'll see higher rates of satisfaction, loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth. 

 

Increase Your Sales and Revenue

Product and marketing strategies that target the right audience with the right messaging at the right time drive higher engagement and conversion rates. In turn, this will translate to significant growth in your revenue. 

 

Gain a Competitive Advantage

Your target market isn't yours alone. All of the players in your space are also competing for consumers' attention and money. Using market segmentation to deeply understand your audience's wants, needs, preferences, and intentions will help you find gaps within your market and ways your brand can fill them. 

 

 

Market Segmentation Tips 

While each segmentation technique listed above has an appropriate use case, we do have our preferences. 

We live in a post-demographic world. 

What does this mean? Well, it means consumers have changed. 

But this shouldn't be news to anyone. The way we interact with brands has evolved considerably in the last decade. And that evolution seems to be ongoing. 

Consumers continually construct and reconstruct their identities, rebelling against top-down-driven norms handed to them by the advertisements of old. 

The clear delineations between people based on age, gender, income, education, or ethnicity are not as useful as they once seemed. 

Take, for example, a young woman working in finance with a high level of disposable income and a middle-aged man working in education with a lower level of disposable income. From the outside, it might seem that these two wouldn’t have much in common. However, you may find they share more of the same values, interests, and behaviors than the demographic data alone would suggest. 

In this world, where commonality is not defined by demographics, the ramifications of sub-standard consumer segmentation are massive; ultimately leading to mediocre brand messaging, marketing campaigns, and advertising.

If you're interested in digging into this topic further, check out our piece Consumer Segmentation: Maybe You Could Be Doing It Better. 

 

Market Segmentation with SightX

The SightX platform is the only tool you'll ever need for market research: a single, unified solution for consumer engagement, data collection, advanced analysis, and reporting. While powerful enough for insights teams at Fortune 500 companies, the user-friendly interface makes it simple for anyone to start, optimize, and scale their research. 

Plus, with SightX's research team, you can gain access to the best thinking in the insights field. Our in-house experts will guide you through every step in the market research process, from survey scripting to analysis support, and everything in between. 

If you're ready to dive in, click the button below to get started for free!

 

 

 

In the market research industry, online panels are one of the most popular ways to gather data.

And it’s easy to see why; they provide organizations with a quick and efficient way to engage directly with their target market. 

But how exactly do online research panels work? Can the data be trusted? And how can you use panels in your research? Our guide below covers this and more:

 

What are Online Panels? 

Online panels refer to a group of individuals who have agreed to participate in online research, like surveys and digital focus groups. 

These panels are run by providers whose goal is to build extensive networks of diverse survey participants for brands and research agencies to work with for their studies. 

 

Where do Respondents Come From and How are They Vetted? 

Survey panelists are recruited by panel providers through ads, social media, word of mouth, referrals, and even mail campaigns. 

The vetting process usually begins at the initial registration, where information is collected on the respondent's age, gender, occupation, income, consumer behaviors, and more. 

In recent years, most panels have adopted digital fingerprinting technology. This creates a profile of each respondent based on metadata from their browsing history. Respondents who are flagged for being potentially fraudulent based on their fingerprints are not sent to surveys. 

Additionally, many of these providers utilize third-party databases to track IP addresses associated with fraudulent activity in online surveys and use this data to further scrub respondents from their panels.

 

What are the Benefits of Using Panels? 

Building customer lists and recruiting respondents on your own takes a lot of time and effort. 

An online research panel gives you instant access to a large group of people who have already opted-in to participate in studies like yours. Which makes it incredibly quick and cost-effective to gather responses at scale.

You can also collect feedback from the same audience more than once. Having panelists take the same survey at different intervals is an easy way to track trends and changes over time. And because it’s the same pre-screened and qualified survey panel, you can be confident that the samples represent a like-for-like comparison.

 

SightX Audiences 

SightX Audiences gives you direct access to over 100MM consumers worldwide. 

Aside from working with only top-tier, vetted panel partners, we've added multiple extra layers of scrutiny to minimize the likelihood of low-quality responses. These include: 

 

ReCAPTCHAs to screen out potential bots. 

Optional attention-checking questions between the screening questions and survey. 

The ability to track time-to-complete data and remove respondents with unrealistic completion times. 

Automated data cleaning to scan for duplicate IP addresses or responses. 

Automatic screen out of any respondent that uses the copy/paste function in open-ended questions. 

 

You can access SightX Audiences in any project by creating a SightX Audiences campaign instead of a classic campaign.

 

 

Then you’ll simply define the audience you’re looking for using a standard set of profiling demographics, like age, gender, or income. From there, we’ll let you know how much your audience will cost and you're ready for launch!

 

 

When you set your campaign live, it will be instantly distributed to the audience you’re looking for. We’ll email you when your campaign has filled or alert you if there’s an issue that needs your attention.

 

Online Market Research with SightX

The SightX platform is the only tool you'll ever need for market research: a single, unified solution for consumer engagement, data collection, advanced analysis, and reporting. While powerful enough for insights teams at Fortune 500 companies, the user-friendly interface makes it simple for anyone to start, optimize, and scale their research. 

Plus, with SightX's research team, you can gain access to the best thinking in the insights field. Our in-house experts will guide you through every step in the market research process, from survey scripting to analysis support, and everything in-between. 

If you're ready to dive into market research, click the button below to get started for free!

 

 

 

No matter the size or stage of your organization, brand awareness is essential. 

Why? It's pretty difficult to sell a product or service if no one knows your brand. Especially in the era of online shopping. 

While businesses frequently spend ad budgets on brand awareness campaigns, most struggle to effectively measure the tangible success of their efforts. 

That is where brand awareness surveys come into play...

 

What is Brand Awareness

Before we dive into the nitty- gritty, let's take a look at brand awareness as a metric.

In market research, brand awareness refers to how familiar consumers are with your brand and how well they can recognize or recall it. When measuring brand awareness, there are two main types: 

 

Unaided / Top-of-Mind Awareness

Unaided awareness refers to the brand that first comes to mind when a consumer is asked about a specific product or category. It indicates a high level of brand recall and is often a significant factor in purchase decisions.

 

Aided Awareness

Aided awareness measures the extent to which consumers can recognize or recall a brand when provided with its name or visual cues. For example, in a survey, respondents may be shown a list of brands and asked which they are familiar with. 

 

 

Why is Brand Awareness Important? 

You can have a well thought-out marketing strategy, advertise heavily, and frequently post on social media.  But at the end of the day, nothing beats being top of mind for potential customers when they are shopping for products like yours. 

Building brand awareness familiarizes people with your offering and begins the process of differentiating your brand from competitors in your space. 

But more importantly, brand awareness opens the door for trust. 

In a world where consumers have nearly unlimited choice in every category, brand trust is everything. And brand awareness is the first step. Once consumers get to know your brand they are much more likely to purchase (and keep purchasing) from you. 

But this begs the question; how do you measure something that often feels intangible? Here’s how: 

 

How to Measure Brand Awareness

Brands can use several methods to measure and track their brand awareness. Here are some common approaches:

 

Surveys

Conducting simple one-off surveys with a representative sample is a quick and effective way to get insights into brand awareness. These surveys might include questions surrounding recall (unaided and aided), recognition, and level of familiarity. 

 

Brand Tracking Studies

Brand tracking studies involve regular monitoring of brand metrics over time. These studies use frequent surveys to track changes in brand awareness. By comparing results from different periods, brands can assess whether their awareness levels have increased or decreased. This method can be especially useful when looking to measure the ROI of your marketing and branding efforts. 

 

Brand Recognition Testing

Brand recognition tests involve showing respondents visual cues or brand elements, such as logos or taglines, and assessing their ability to correctly identify the brand. These tests can provide you with solid quantitative data on brand recognition levels.

 

Brand Awareness Survey Template

Whether you are running a one-off survey or a brand tracking study, you’ll need to ask respondent’s the right questions if you want actionable data. A few key areas to focus on would include: 

Overall awareness of your brand compared to others in the category. 
Perceptions consumers hold about your brand
Experiences consumers have had with your brand. 

 

Thankfully, we made it simple. Use the button to get a free survey template developed by the pros on SightX's research team!

 

 

 

Benefits of Measuring Brand Awareness

Measuring brand awareness offers many benefits. Some of the most notable are: 

 

Strategy Development

Measuring your brand awareness provides valuable insights that can inform strategic decision-making. By understanding your current level of brand awareness, you can develop strategies to increase visibility and recognition with your target audience.

 

Performance Evaluation

Measuring brand awareness allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. By tracking awareness over time, you can assess the impact of different marketing initiatives and identify which strategies are driving results. This evaluation helps optimize marketing budgets and resources by focusing on activities that generate the highest return on investment.

 

Competitive Advantage

Benchmark your brand awareness against key competitors to identify areas of competitive advantage and areas that need improvement. This knowledge allows you to differentiate your brand, refine your messaging, and gain a stronger foothold in the market.

 

Targeted Marketing

Analyze brand awareness levels among specific customer segments to better tailor your messaging and channels. This targeted approach enhances brand relevance and increases the likelihood of capturing the attention and loyalty of specific customer groups. 

 

Brand Equity

Brand awareness is a key component of brand equity (the intangible value and strength of a brand). Measuring brand awareness helps businesses understand the relationship between awareness levels and brand perception, loyalty, and customer preferences. By monitoring and improving brand awareness, companies can enhance brand equity and its positive impact on business performance.

 

Growth Opportunities

If you have been considering a new product launch or market expansion, assessing your brand awareness is crucial. By measuring the awareness levels in your target market, your can gauge market readiness and identify opportunities and challenges. 

 

Measure Your Brand Awareness with SightX

The SightX platform is the only tool you'll ever need for market research: a single, unified solution for consumer engagement, data collection, advanced analysis, and reporting. While powerful enough for insights teams at Fortune 500 companies, the user-friendly interface makes it simple for anyone to start, optimize, and scale their research. 

Plus, with SightX's research team, you can gain access to the best thinking in the insights field. Our in-house experts will guide you through every step in the market research process, from survey scripting to analysis support, and everything in-between. 

If you're ready to dive into market research, get started today for free!

 

What influences customers to buy your products? How can you drive higher rates of customer loyalty? And what will attract new customers? 

Answering these questions is crucial to the long-term success of any organization. But when it comes to metrics like customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, or purchase intent you've got to understand not only which factors play a role but also their degree of impact. 

This is why many companies use Key Driver Analysis (KDA) to better understand how different elements influence customer behavior and brand performance. Here's how it works: 

 

What are Drivers?

Before we get too deep into the "analysis" portion of a key driver analysis, let's examine the drivers themselves. 

Drivers are the factors that can potentially impact your organization's performance. And the factors that have the most meaningful impact on performance are known as key drivers. 

Your specific drivers (and key drivers) will be entirely dependent on your category and use case. For example, if you're trying to better understand your customer satisfaction score (CSAT), then the drivers you might want to investigate would be pricing, customer service, quality, or customer experience. However, if you’re evaluating your new website, you may want to look at drivers like overall design, user experience, or speed. 

While all of the drivers you investigate will likely matter in some shape or form to your customers, their level of significance may vary. This leads us to the analysis portion... 

 

What is Key Driver Analysis? 

Key driver analysis (KDA) is a technique used in market research to identify the key drivers that influence a specific outcome or behavior. It does this by evaluating a group of drivers- like quality, product design, customer experience, or price- and weighs their relative importance in predicting an outcome. 

For example, let's say you just received data from a customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey, but the numbers weren't quite what you'd hoped for. While you recognize that you'll need to change something to improve your CSAT score, you're not quite sure which factors influenced this downturn in the first place. 

This is where key driver analysis comes into play. 

Using this technique you can survey respondents to evaluate all of the potential factors involved to understand which are the most important to your customers and how they would rate your performance on each. 

From the data, you can quickly see which areas are most impactful for your target market, where you're already succeeding, and what you can do to improve. 

But key driver analysis doesn’t just help with customer satisfaction, it can also help you answer questions like:
What can we do to grow brand loyalty? 
How can we increase purchase intent for a specific market segment? 
Should we focus on reducing prices or enhancing the quality of our products to improve sales? 

 

What Are the Benefits of Using Key Driver Analysis? 

With so many brands competing for attention, your success is based on how much you really know about your ideal customer. 

Unfortunately, asking people directly what motivates them to purchase your products, or why their loyalty is fading isn't very effective. In fact, most consumer behavior is subconscious, making it difficult for most to accurately explain their purchase behavior. 

Key driver analysis enables organizations to understand the "whys" behind the metrics that matter most and how different factors contribute to their ultimate success (or failure). With these insights, you can better understand which levers you can pull to positively impact the metrics most important to you.

 

How to Use Key Driver Analysis 

With SightX, assessing your key drivers has never been simpler.

After selecting “Key Driver Analysis” from the add-item menu, the experiment will immediately populate, giving you the space to add a description of your product.

 

Beneath that you will see pre-populated questions.

The first question is a CSAT question where you can choose between a standard likert scale or slider for rating. The next question you will see is an optional churn question asking respondents how likely they are to use a different product next time they make a purchase. 

After that, you’ll see your key driver questions. Here you can input the drivers you want to investigate- like price, customer service, product design, or experience- and choose the phrasing of your question. You can also choose to display these questions individually or as a matrix.

 

 

After your study is complete, you’ll have a graph similar to this: 

 

 

You’ll immediately notice the chart is broken into 4 clear quadrants: 
Drivers in the Green Quadrant have high performance scores and a high level of importance to customers. You will definitely want to take note of the drivers in this quadrant as you can leverage your success in these areas to keep customers satisfied with a relatively low lift. 
Drivers in the Red Quadrant have low performance scores but carry a high level of importance for customers. This quadrant highlights which elements of your business you should improve to drive the greatest impact. 
Drivers in the Purple Quadrant have low performance scores and low importance scores. While you shouldn’t ignore them entirely, you can likely leave these on the back burner without much of an impact on your business. 
Drivers in the Yellow Quadrant have high performance scores but are of low importance to consumers. While it is good to understand all of the areas you are succeeding in, these drivers don’t necessarily need your focus. 

Looking at the sample data above, you can see that our company scored high in credibility- which is also highly important to consumers. This means that we can (and should) leverage our credibility in our messaging. 

On the other hand, we scored quite low in enjoyment- which is also important to consumers. With this data, we can create a follow-up survey to better understand what we can change about our product or experience to make it a bit more enjoyable for customers. 

 

Key Driver Analysis with SightX

If you’re ready to discover the key drivers behind your most important KPI’s, we’ve got the tools to make it simple. 

The SightX platform is the next generation of market research tools: a single unified solution for consumer engagement, understanding, advanced analysis, and reporting.

But, SightX isn’t just great tech. Our Research Services team knows all of the best practices, along with some pro tips and tricks for getting the best data out of your surveys and experiments.

Reach out to our team to get started today!

Whether you're a retail behemoth or a smaller brand making its first foray into the retail landscape, understanding your target market is crucial for success. 

But trying to find the perfect match between customers, products, and prices is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

This is precisely why so many retail brands turn to market research. 

By collecting insights on consumer preferences, competitors, and industry trends, retailers can gain valuable insights that help them drive growth and create their own competitive advantage. 

 

What is Market Research? 

Before we dive into the details, let's cover the basics. 

While there are many types of market research, today we'll focus on primary market research- the process of collecting and analyzing consumer data, commonly through surveys and experiments. 

Its purpose is to examine the market and perceptions surrounding a product, service, or brand. Ultimately providing the insights needed to perfect products, tailor marketing campaigns, and drive positive customer experiences. 

By conducting market research, retailers can gain valuable insights into their target market, which can be used to improve product offerings, customer service, and marketing strategies.

 

What are the Benefits of Market Research for Retail?

From new products to emerging trends, the retail industry is ever-evolving.  

To thrive in a competitive environment, you'll need to understand the market. Specifically, what consumers are actually looking for, what your competitors are offering, and how you can stand out. 

Market research can act as the connector between you and your target market- showing you who your customers are, what they want, where they shop, and (most importantly) why. 

Here are just a few of the perks:

Find your target market

No matter how multi-faceted your retail brand might be, it's impossible to appeal to every type of consumer. Instead, you'll need to target an audience receptive to your brand and products. Using data points on interests, preferences, purchase intent, shopping behavior, and more- you can create an accurate profile of your ideal consumer and uncover ways to reach them effectively.  

Enhance customer experience

The best way to understand your customers' experiences is by asking them directly. By collecting customer feedback through surveys, you can quickly identify areas for improvement. 

Identify emerging trends

Things can change quickly in the retail sector. By keeping in close contact with your target market through surveys and tracking studies, you can spot trends early- helping you stay one step ahead of your competitors. 

Improve your marketing

Through market research, you can gain a better understanding of what their customers want, what motivates their purchasing decisions, and what factors ultimately drive brand engagement. Allowing you to craft expertly-targeted marketing campaigns that drive ROI. 

Increase revenue

By understanding what customers are willing to pay for products, retailers can optimize their pricing strategies to maximize revenue without compromising their demand. 

 

Ways to Use Market Research in Retail

 

Product Development

Retail companies can use market research to determine what types of products consumers are looking for, what features matter most, and new opportunities for innovation. Tools like concept tests, conjoint analysis, TURF, and MaxDiff can help retailers when developing new products, or modifying existing ones to better meet customer needs. 

 

Pricing Strategy

Research shows that even a 1% improvement if your pricing can increase profits by 11%. Using pricing studies like Van Westendorp or Gabor-Granger will give you an optimal price point that maximizes revenue without compromising demand. 

 

Customer Profiling

Segmentation analysis helps you better understand the buyer personas in your category, giving you insights into their purchasing behavior and preferences. These insights can help you improve everything from customer experience to advertising campaigns. 

 

Customer Satisfaction

Keeping customers happy isn’t always easy. But by using tools like Key Driver Analysis you can find ways to improve their experience, drive loyalty, and raise retention rates. 

 

Brand Perception

Your brand is one of your most valuable assets, so you can't just leave its health up to chance! Using brand tracking studies, you can discover how people perceive your brand and where you are positioned compared to the competition. The insights can be used to enhance your brand messaging, packaging, and advertising campaigns to better resonate with your audience.

 

Retail Market Research with SightX

The SightX platform is the only tool you'll ever need for market research: a single, unified solution for consumer engagement, data collection, advanced analysis, and reporting. While powerful enough for insights teams at Fortune 500 companies, the user-friendly interface makes it simple for anyone to start, optimize, and scale their research. 

Plus, with SightX's research team, you can gain access to the best thinking in the insights field. Our in-house experts will guide you through every step in the market research process, from survey scripting to analysis support, and everything in-between. 

If you're ready to dive into market research, get started today for free!