You should proactively use product research whenever you launch a new product. Because your customers want that: A perfectly tailored product – designed to fit the needs and wishes of its target customers. This gives you a perfect competitive edge.

What is product research?

Research is one of the tools that you can use in achieving this competitive advantage and customer loyalty. Often carried out at the beginning of the product life cycle, product research is a way of pre-testing your product. As well as identifying key factors in its appeal and potential uses that help you to refine and market the product later. Product research is usually carried out with panels. Where a dedicated team of respondents answers the questions you have set on your product research questionnaire.

Product research is a helpful exercise to determine how you should set up potential marketing initiatives or if there are any openings for optimising your product or service.

The questions you are aiming to answer with your product research may include some of the following:

Who is your target market? – Meaning who is most likely to buy the product. These people may not be the end-users of the products, as many products are bought with the aim of giving them to others.

Who is the end-user of the product? – This question may be equally as important as the buyer of the product. You need to be able to create demand for the product that can be communicated by the user to the buyer of the product. For example, a child sees a toy advertised and asks their parents to buy it.

Who are your competitors? – If anyone is already making a similar product you need to carefully analyse their strengths and weaknesses in order to try and steal some of their market shares, or carve a niche for yourself.

What are the main benefits of your product? – You can use this information to angle your product and plan marketing campaigns.

What are the secondary benefits of your product? – If your product has more than one use or may appeal to more than one market, you need to know in order to fully exploit these new opportunities. A small modification (for example, creating a version with a more feminine colour scheme) may open up a new market.

Whatever your main goal, your product research questionnaire can be easily administered via the internet. An online form can be sent to various target audiences all over the world and has the advantages of being quick, convenient and returning data that is easy to process.

Find out how Netigate could help you carry out product research and answer your vital questions.