How to conduct data collection in market research

Market research should be a critical part of every organization’s business strategy. It enables businesses to learn more about their target audience, what they look for in a product or service, what’s important to them, and how they want to engage with a business. 

When you’re conducting marketing research, you need to ensure that the data you gather is reliable and valid. Read on to learn about the importance of data collection in market research, different methods for collecting data, and software that makes market research data collection easy and effective.

Why data collection is important 

Collecting data is integral to conducting market research. Organizations connect with stakeholders — such as prospects, customers, competitors, investors, and employees — to learn more about their target market and how they can better serve them. The data an organization collects can steer its entire business strategy, so it’s vital for the data to be high- quality, secure, and relevant. 

“Data collection is the first and most-needed step to research the market,” says Daniela Sawyer, the founder of FindPeopleFast, a SaaS platform. “Product demand and the possible price are fixed after researching the market.”

Collecting data directly from a source (meaning firsthand feedback from your audiences, as opposed to secondhand data from other sources) ensures its accuracy. For example, if your business is considering going after a new target market, you may want to survey that audience to see whether they’re actually interested in the company’s offerings. 

If you use secondhand data, such as a report on a similar demographic, you may not achieve the same results. Because the data doesn’t apply to your company and its products/services specifically, it may not be as reliable for developing a successful business strategy.

Data collection methods for marketing teams

There are different ways to collect data in market research. Here are a few examples:

• Market survey: Sawyer notes this is one of the most effective methods of market research because you hear directly from the target audience about their level of interest in your product or service.
• Online forms: This is a quick and easy way to get information from website visitors, such as their contact information and preferences about what types of information they want to receive from your company.
• Customer service questionnaires: This is a great way for businesses to evaluate their customer service performance.
• Focus group surveys: “Direct interviews with the [product’s] users can give the most accurate data,” says Sawyer. This is a good way to get nuanced insights.

Depending on the goals of data collection, organizations may want to gather demographic data — such as age, income, location — from their prospects. If you want to improve your offerings, you may poll existing customers to learn more about their levels of engagement and satisfaction. Organizations can also conduct market research by surveying their employees and learning about their experiences with specific types of customers.

Better data collection with Jotform

Regardless of how an organization collects data for market research, it’s important to use the right software to ensure the process is seamless for both the company and its audience. 

Jotform offers market research teams a wide array of templates to enhance the data collection process, so organizations can learn more about their audience, what they want and don’t want, and how they can better serve them.

Examples of templates a marketing team can use include demographic surveys, subscribe forms, Net Promoter Score forms, pre-sales questionnaires, user experience surveys, and more. Each template is fully customizable, so you can add or change form fields based on your needs to gather the right kind of data. You can also add your own branding to the templates to create a consistent user experience.

So, you’ve learned about the importance of data collection in market research and the different ways to collect data. And now you know which software to use for gathering insights. There’s no better time to get started with your own market research efforts.