Market intelligence helps you focus on the customer, understand market demands, and consumer opinions, collect relevant data in real-time, increase your sales opportunities, reduce risks, capture greater market shares and provide an advantage. These benefits are crucial to the success of any business.
Gathering market information through surveys allows you to understand the market in depth. It will give you an idea of what the competition is doing, what the demand is, who your target audience will be, and much more.
The Analysis
The analysis of this information will allow you to evaluate your position in the market, develop strategies accordingly and make the right decisions. Market intelligence is a very broad field. Conducting surveys to collect competitive information is vital in today’s business environment.
Using such information, companies can modify their products as needed, understand the failures or successes of the competition, and design strategies based on the position of the competition.
Types of Market intelligence
Information gathering is a market research technique that can be time-consuming. In addition, it must be taken into account that there are both qualitative and quantitative techniques used by companies for this purpose. Next, we are going to explain the different methodologies used in market intelligence to define their rates.
Information Gathering
Surely, one of the fundamental methodologies is related to data collection for subsequent analysis in market intelligence.
Use of Surveys
One of the main research techniques is surveys. It basically consists of answering a series of interrelated questions for the purpose of collecting data. The information obtained through the surveys is designed to understand the target market and analyze it.
Depending on the volume of people surveyed, the results may be more or less reliable. It should also be borne in mind that conducting surveys is not always the same, since there are different types.
Online Surveys
This is probably one of the cheapest techniques for getting a data set quickly. Usually, the data is not entirely reliable, but with the help of different tools, it is one of the most popular techniques. For example, in the case of the launch of a new mobile phone, the target audience could be surveyed really well, because most of these users prefer online communication.
In-person Surveys
These are generally interviews with an individual character that are usually carried out in places with a lot of traffic of people, such as commercial surfaces. Since they require a large amount of data, it is much easier to do them in these types of places. One of the main advantages of this type of survey in market intelligence is that it makes it easier to show the product to the customer and get useful information quickly.
Telephone Surveys
Telephone surveys are usually cheaper than those performed in person. Although they are commonly used by companies related to telemarketing, users do not tend to like them too much. Despite its advantages, it is sometimes difficult to convince the user to participate in the survey. As a consequence of this, the response rate is reduced and so is the quality of the responses.
Mail Surveys
Mail survey is most likely the most economical option for doing this type of survey. It allows you to obtain information through a much wider audience without the need for so many resources. The enormous advance that technology has had in recent times, facilitates communication through email, but response rates do not usually exceed 15%.
However, there is a drawback since there are areas where technology coverage is not yet accessible. Next, we explain the different types of mail surveys used within market intelligence so that you know them.
The Use of the Forms
You may not know it, but the form is essential for the person collecting the market intelligence because it allows you to collect specific information on an issue.
The Use of Questionnaires
The questionnaire is a typical formula for asking a series of questions. It is used quite frequently in numerous quantitative and qualitative research because it allows the collection of data on huge audiences.
The Practice of Observation
Sometimes the user does not provide information that is reliable. In this type of situation, the observation methodology allows the researcher to know a series of habits about the client, consumer preference, and other aspects related, for example, to prices. Market intelligence makes it possible to analyze a market in real-time.
In addition, it enables customers and their behaviors to be understood taking into account current trends that matter most to them. The application of this advantage allows that a certain business can be more competitive and answer to the concerns of its target audience easily.
Understand Customers
Retaining customers is essential for any business. If a customer is dissatisfied, he can go directly to the competition. Through market intelligence, it is possible to analyze and provide information on those issues that improve customer needs. It is possible to retain them and add value to your product to achieve their satisfaction.
Conclusion
In conclusion, market intelligence is one of the fundamental keys when executing a marketing plan that seeks to increase sales and for a business to be prosperous. In so doing, you will get ahead of your competition. Netbase Quid has various tools and resources to do just that. You may want to learn more about this company that specializes in data analytics.