Five Market Research Mistakes to Avoid

Conducting market research may seem relatively simple, but there are a multitude of ways it can go wrong.

It’s no secret that conducting market research is the key to successful product innovation. However, it’s not just about gathering survey data and drawing some broad conclusions, but capturing close-to-market insights that can guide your marketing tactics and predict a product’s success. As a market research company, we wanted to raise awareness of five common mistakes to avoid when doing market research. 

#1 Not knowing your research objectives

Defining clear research objectives is crucial in market research. Indeed, not having a well-defined goal and specific business questions to answer will result in irrelevant and non-actionable research outcomes. Knowing what you want to achieve from the research allows you and the project team to stay focused on what truly matters to your innovation goals. This is why, at Veylinx, we make sure we understand our client’s objectives so we can design the optimal research setup and deliver insightful reporting. 

#2 Not paying enough attention to the sample 

Determining the target population and sample size is important to getting closer to your market and capturing reliable insights. People are very different, and assuming uniformity in their preferences, purchasing power, and behaviors across different demographic segments is a big mistake when you are doing research to decide which new product to launch or how to price it. Accordingly, the sample needs to comprise all relevant audience segments to be sufficiently representative of the real market for your product. This lets you make broad inferences about the overall audience, as well as learn about individual market segments that can be addressed with more targeted messaging, pricing, distribution, and more.

#3 Using a poorly designed survey—or relying on survey data alone 

Generic or poorly designed surveys can lead to unreliable results. Most companies conduct important studies to make decisions on strategic topics such as when to launch a product, in which market, at what price, to whom, etc. Therefore, the survey itself must be carefully designed using very specific questions to capture the desired insights—while avoiding biases and including sufficient profiling questions spanning across demographics, behavior, and psychographics to segment the data and deliver actionable insights. In fact, relying solely on survey data is a critical mistake in itself, as this makes the results subject to hypothetical bias. Instead, whenever possible you should combine a well-designed survey with a behavioral methodology that captures what consumers do instead of just what they say.

#4 Not including a benchmark in the study 

To accurately evaluate whether a product shows true promise or not, you need to test it against a benchmark to contextualize the results. This provides a direct comparison against an in-market version or variation of the product tested in the same conditions. For instance, if you are testing a Peanut Butter Protein Bar concept, you should test it against your existing Chocolate Protein Bar product to determine if the new concept’s demand compares favorably—and why or why not. It is also advisable to test new concepts against competitive products to gain as complete a picture as possible of your innovation’s market potential, limitations, opportunities, and more. These benchmarks can also be used to understand the demand incrementality of a new product within your own portfolio or even across a category.

#5 Misinterpreting the data

Thoughtful and rigorous interpretation of the data is what ultimately makes a market study useful. Using inappropriate statistical methods, ignoring non-responders, or not using the data entirely can lead to wrong conclusions. It is also very important to choose the analysis that is appropriate for the data structure and to understand the limitations of the statistical findings while taking into account sample size, effect size, and confidence levels. This is why it is essential to work with experienced vendors and agencies who have a track record of executing complex research projects across categories and markets.

To learn more about how Veylinx conducts market research to capture real behavioral insights and close-to-market data, check out our homepage or request a demo!