Crash course in consumer market research

As a marketing or insights professional for a brand who needs to make a splash in the market, how do you follow consumer trends when they’re just that—trends? Consumer preferences are changing, and keeping up means you need to know what’s driving these shifts? Unless you’re a mind reader, consumer market research (and a bit of creativity) is your best bet.  

And while less than 40% of marketers are using consumer research to drive business decisions, that doesn’t mean you have to follow that trend.

In this article, we'll deliver a crash course in consumer market research, covering what consumer market research is, the benefits of it, tools to get it done, and examples of consumer research done well.

Consumer market research is the process of gathering information about consumer desires through surveys, interviews or observation. This type of research is typically conducted by businesses who want to release a new offering into the market or generate more interest in existing offerings.

For example, say a big CPG snack brand wants to release a new flavor for one of their hit popcorn snacks. Instead of making a decision in a vacuum, they can conduct consumer market research to see which types of flavors their target consumer prefers and which ones to stay away from. By conducting this research, they can get a pulse check directly from their consumer as they develop the idea and release it with more confidence once it's ready for the market. 

But that’s just one example. Let’s dive deeper into some more benefits to using consumer market research.

The benefits of consumer market research

Consumer market research helps businesses make smarter decisions, but the specific benefits include: 

1. Nailing your next ad or innovation 

Whether you’re launching a new product or a blockbuster ad, conducting consumer market research keeps your brand from falling flat, or worse, getting negative press from the campaign.

And by getting that information straight from the source, there leaves little question about whether you’re on the right track or if your ad or innovation is going to resonate well once it hits the market. 

2. Launching with greater confidence

Which leads us to our next benefit: Eliminating the risk involved in launching your new product, ad or experience. 

If you don’t conduct this research ahead of time you’ll likely find yourself wondering: What if the ad falls flat? What if it offends our audience somehow? What if they simply hate it? And since you chose not to run it by your consumer, any of those may very well occur. 

By choosing to conduct consumer market research ahead of time, you’ll instead gain greater confidence in your idea as you gather feedback from your consumer, with more opportunities to make adjustments that better resonate with them and be a sure success in-market.

3. Saving the business time and money

Is there anything more horrifying for brands than receiving social backlash on its latest advertisement? Or being bashed on Twitter (X) for releasing a disgusting new snack flavor? 

By running consumer market research to better understand your consumer and eliminate risk, you’re also saving the business time and money. Time that would’ve had to be spent handling a PR nightmare or going back to the drawing board, and money wasted on an idea that was a total flop. 

“I think there's a perception that research takes too long and is super expensive. And it's not true, especially if we compare the cost of producing an ad that ends up being quite subpar and the media spend on top of that. So the cost of an extra round of research, it’s nothing."

- Bianca Johnston, Integrated Campaigns Lead at Shopify

In addition to avoiding issues like the above, simply using consumer market research on a consistent basis saves your business time and money. In a study conducted by Hinge Marketing, they found that a company who runs systematic, structured research on their target audience becomes more profitable and grows faster.

Their graph above indicates that professional services firms (the area they decided to focus on) that conduct frequent research grow faster and become more profitable than those that do occasional or no research.

So whether you’re trying to avoid unexpected (and costly) backlash or simply trying to grow your business, conducting consumer market research is a great solution. 

Now that we’ve gone over some of the main benefits, here’s a list of several types of consumer market research. 

There are two main types of research used to obtain consumer insights as well as two main formats to choose from. The two main types are: 

1. Qualitative consumer research - This involves collecting descriptive data (not numbers or statistics) to understand the “why” behind behaviors, beliefs and motivations.

2. Quantitative consumer research - This involves numerical data to come to a conclusion or hypothesis and typically includes surveys, experiments and questionnaires. 

To learn more about consumer research methods, check out  in our article on consumer insights.

• Demographic insights: How people of a certain gender, religion, age group, ethnic background, etc. respond to stimuli. 

• Brand perception insights: How your brand is perceived or viewed by a specific demographic or consumer.  

• Deep human understanding: Uncovering real truths of human nature and behaviors. 

• Pulse check insights: How to get a quick read on a situation or specific question on the fly. 

The main formats you can use to collect insights on consumers can also be done through traditional or software-based market research.  

• Traditional consumer market research - This type of research has been around for a while and typically uses focus groups, interviews or ethnography to gather consumer information and falls under qualitative research. This can also include full-service market research companies that run everything for you.   

• Software-based consumer market research - This type is more modern and uses an online platform to gather information through surveys, questionnaires, etc. and falls under quantitative and sometimes qualitative research as well.   

Naturally, traditional consumer market research can be more time consuming, and since the automation revolution, software-based research platforms have taken the industry by storm. 

Next, let’s dive into some recommendations for choosing a market research company that's right for your business.

Choosing a consumer market research company ultimately depends on your business needs, but there are several criteria to keep top-of-mind when starting your search. 

1. Data quality 

Look for a reputable company that uses quality data and has a proven track record. 

After all, if you can’t fully trust the data and results you receive, then why bother running the research in the first place? 

💡Zappi tip: Market research companies should be transparent about how they collect, analyze, and interpret their data. If you can’t get a clear read on how they gather and use their data, it may be worth exploring other options. Insight Platforms offers a wonderful directory to help with this. 

2. Industry and research method expertise

The company you choose should offer the research methods to collect the data you’re looking for.

For example, say you work for a QSR brand that’s looking to run research on brand perception. In your search, you find a top-notch market research agency that is known for their data quality and has already worked with a number of QSR brands, but when you look into their solutions, their social listening tool is only in the Beta stage. While you can keep them in mind for other opportunities, you should probably consider looking into more established options for the brand perception research.       

💡Zappi tip: Read through customer testimonials and case studies to see other companies’ experiences with the research partner. A good case study will provide you with a clear picture of the problem the customer was trying to solve, how the research partner not only helped to solve it, but an in-depth overview of the results and why it was deemed a success, like this one.

3. Advanced technology

Don’t let technology shift under your feet. The company you’re looking into should be:

1. Regularly innovating and advancing their use of technology

2. Fast enough to serve your needs

3. Offering the right methodologies for your queries 

4. Transparent about all of the above      

Based on this criteria, what are some of the best consumer market research tools out there? Read on for a list of some of our favorite consumer market research solutions.

Did you know that there are more than 1,300 consumer insights vendors on the market today? That said, there’s certainly not a lack of options to choose from. But if you know what you’re trying to accomplish, it can be easier to sift through to find the right tools for your brand.

Here, we’ll focus on the top three tools you’ll need for three types of insights: pre launch, pulse checks, and deeper human understanding.

1. Zappi Ad and Innovation Systems 

Offering solutions for both advertising and innovation consumer market research, Zappi is a platform-based market research solution that helps businesses collect and analyze consumer data in the early stages of their ideas to optimize it to its fullest potential. 

So if you’re in the process of developing an ad about new menu items or a blockbuster brand awareness ad, or even some of those new snack flavors we talked about before, Zappi can help you get those ideas in front of your target consumers at the earliest stage so you can iterate based on your consumers’ reaction, saving time and resources.    

“I always call it getting a head start. It's going to make your outcome better. No one's going to care that you got to a great outcome because you used what people did previously and it wasn't all new to the world thinking. No one cares. They just care about the outcome. Give yourself the head start.” 

- Matt Cahill, Senior Director, Consumer Insights Activation at McDonald's

Zappi’s agile online platform runs all of your consumer research and securely stores that data right in the platform, getting you insights in less than a day. The platform is also very easy to use, providing charts as your data comes in, relevant themes seen across responses, consumer verbatims, and direct comparisons of key metrics by country, category, brand and other relevant benchmarks. 

"Zappi is a very efficient platform for agile learning. It has struck the right balance of technical simplicity and flexible customization as well as being really easy to handle reporting."

- Jessica Cao, Global Consumer Insights, Centrum innovation lead, GSK Consumer Healthcare

In addition to helping you create a better product or ad, Zappi is the only agile market research platform that allows you to quickly and easily look across your research to learn what typically works for you and what doesn’t, making you smarter the more you use it.

"In short, every time we test an ad, the whole of PepsiCo gets smarter."

- Stephan Gans, SVP, Chief Insights and Analytics Officer at PepsiCo

And as an added bonus, Zappi has recently released an AI-powered concept optimization feature on Activate It, part of the Innovation System. This tool takes verbatim feedback from consumers and key performance indicators to revise your concept, giving you new versions of what your concept might look like if the feedback from your survey was applied directly. 

🔍 Request pricing on Zappi solutions

2. Suzy

Another common solution businesses look for is the opportunity to simply get a quick pulse check on something by asking a single question or two to get a read on a situation. When those situations come up, tools like Suzy offer a great option.

Suzy’s platform allows you to create short and user-friendly surveys to get quick answers from your consumer. Simple as that! With this type of information, you can better inform a decision around an upcoming event, better understand a consumer attitude, react to something unexpected in market or simply answer a quick question they may have about their consumers on the fly.

3. Voxpopme

Alternatively, there are times where businesses may want to go much deeper into human understanding. So instead of that quick pulse check, you may be looking to uncover real truths of human nature within specific cultures, regions, etc.

Typically, this is uncovered through traditional consumer research (think in-person focus groups), but Voxpopme offers a refreshing take on this through their online platform. Their solutions allow you to have deep, real-time conversations and connect with individual respondents, as well as screen and schedule respondents, gain nuanced insights and build individual stories around your research studies.

Their online focus groups and one-on-one interviews will help you dive into an individual’s experiences, perceptions, and thoughts on specific topics, products, or services. All of which will help you to regularly offer insightful information to your organization about how to meet consumer needs because you now have a deeper understanding of them.

Consumer market research is no longer the time consuming, costly process it used to be. There are many new solutions on the market today that offer fast, reliable, online tools that can help your business gain a greater understanding of their consumer. 

By running consumer market research to better understand your consumer, businesses will save time and money and have significantly more confidence in whatever ad, innovation or experience they’re looking to bring to market. 

If you’re currently exploring consumer market research solutions, feel free to refer back to these tips and recommendations to help you narrow down your search. And be sure to check out our newsletter for more content like this.