Are you harnessing the full power of research to fuel your marketing strategy and drive your company's growth? In this article, we'll delve into three key research areas - market trends, benchmarking, and customer feedback - and show you how to gather the right information and apply it strategically to support your marketing efforts.
Market Trends
Marketing research that identifies industry trends and market growth can help you plan where to invest your sales, marketing, and product development dollars. Most companies will utilize secondary research methods, in other words, existing data collected by others.
Market trend data may be freely accessible, or it may require a subscription or fee to access. Typically, the more specific the data is to a market or industry, the more likely it is there will be an associated cost.
Within packaging and processing, PMMI Business Intelligence reports are an excellent source of industry insights. All reports are free to access by any employee of PMMI member companies. These reports cover a wide range of topics, including trends in remote services & monitoring, analysis of the Mexico market, and the dairy industry. By leveraging the information in these reports and other industry resources, you can make informed decisions about entering new markets, setting growth goals, and targeting new customer segments.
Benchmarking
Benchmarking reports are a valuable tool for assessing your performance and identifying areas for improvement within your industry or a broader group. One way to start is by measuring your performance across different marketing channels. While it can be challenging to understand metrics without context, benchmark reports can provide insight into industry standards and help you gauge the effectiveness of your efforts.
To access benchmark reports, you can search for publicly available marketing channel benchmark reports specific that cover marketing as a whole or focus on a specific channel like email, social media, or websites. It's important to note that benchmark data may vary from source to source, so it's best to consistently use the same data source over time for accurate tracking.
To gain more specific insights and compare yourself to your competitors, consider investing in a PMMI Media Group custom research project. These projects can measure various aspects such as brand perception, perceived value, and product line awareness, providing you with valuable competitive insights. Another option is participating in Packaging World ad effectiveness study, where your ad will be included in a reader study measuring ad recall and interest against all participating ads.
In addition to marketing channel benchmarks, sales performance benchmarks are valuable for evaluating your market share and validating your return on investment. The annual State of the Industry report by PMMI segments data by product category, providing multi-year sales estimates that can help you make informed decisions about your investment strategies.
Overall, benchmarking reports serve as a valuable resource for measuring your successes and shortcomings, helping you identify areas for improvement and stay competitive in your industry.
Customer feedback
In addition to external benchmarking reports, don't forget to tap into the primary research available through your own customer database, website, and social media channels. Customers and prospects are often willing to share their feedback if they see value in it, and you strike the right balance in how often you request feedback.
When asking participants to complete longer surveys (10 questions or more), it's essential to offer something of value in exchange. This can be a small incentive for each participant or the first X number of participants, a raffle entry for a larger prize, or access to the survey results when published.
Another effective approach is to survey contacts more frequently with fewer questions. By making the survey requests easier for participants, you can ensure that your data remains fresh and relevant. You can integrate single-question surveys into your emails, ask for feedback via social media, or add to your website forms or pop-ups. Consider asking participants about recent promotions, their interest in specific products, or their plans to attend upcoming events.
By leveraging primary research and engaging with your audience directly, you can gather valuable insights, keep your data up to date, and make informed decisions for your business.
In conclusion, research-driven marketing is a powerful tool that can fuel your marketing strategy and drive your company's growth. By harnessing market trends, benchmarking data, and customer feedback, you can gather valuable insights and make informed decisions to support your marketing efforts. The key is to stay updated with industry insights, measure your performance against benchmarks, and engage with your audience directly for valuable feedback. With research as your foundation, you can unlock success and stay competitive in your industry.
