When it comes to expanding the operations of an organization, entering new markets is a step that requires careful planning. As such, before companies launch into new markets, they must carry out market research. The discoveries they make during this process will equip them with the reliable information and insights necessary to achieve success.
These days, technology plays a vital role in market research. There are trends that many companies are adopting to enable them to get the right insights. In this article, we’ll look at some of these technology trends and how they are impacting this industry.
Social Targeting
It is estimated the over 4.95 billion people use social media all over the world. You can visit https://www.statista.com/ for more social media statistics. This means that there is a great marketing opportunity for businesses via these platforms.
One of the greatest features of some of these platforms that advertisers can take advantage of is social targeting. This practice refers to the process of advertising or posting a type of content that is aimed at reaching a particular type of audience. The advertiser can choose the audience niches based on interests, demographics, languages, gender, interest, behaviors, and products they use at the time.
Companies can even carry out social sampling to get customers that are looking for a particular product or service. This type of market research is done to find people who are already interested in something similar to what the company is selling. This surveying allows the firm to focus on niches that care about or are interested in the service or product. As a result, the possibility of getting responses is increased.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI refers to the capacity of machines especially computer systems to simulate human intelligence. In other words, it refers to computer-controlled machines or computers having the ability to carry out tasks that only humans or intelligent beings can perform. Market researchers have found a gold mine in AI thanks to its ability to generate unstructured data in large amounts.
Usually, artificial intelligence and traditional methods are used together. The intention of marketers when using this combination includes the discovery of consumer behavior, influencing marketing tactics, and offering service solutions. With AI, you can automate tasks, increase efficiency, get better insights from the generated data, and get a better understanding of the data when you enable the AI to make use of NLP (natural language processing).
Surveys which are part of traditional methods of research can be done online with the aid of AI. There are AI tools that sound very human and can conduct voice surveys for online participants. You can check here for a list of 60 AI tools for voice surveys. The data obtained from the responses is then collected by the AI and then made available for the researcher to make use of.Â
Internet of Things (IoT)
IoT is a network of interrelated devices that connect and exchange data with other IoT devices and the cloud. You can check out https://www.weforum.org/ for the source of the above definition and to learn more about the Internet of Things.
These connected devices usually have embedded sensors that allow them to collect data. The collected data can then be exchanged between these devices instantaneously.
These devices are part of the everyday life of many individuals. As such, they are treasure chests with vast amounts of data that companies can benefit from. For instance, if a company wants to find out the distance folks within a community travel with their cars in a year, they can get the data from those cars that are equipped with sensors that collect such data. However, they must get the permission of each person before they can use such data.
Eye-tracking
This technology is something that looks like it belongs only to sci-fi movies but interestingly is now a reality in our world. With eye-tracking, the direction where an individual looks can be measured. This can then be interpreted to give an insight into what the person is thinking.
The devices used for capturing these eye interactions include high-resolution cameras and infrared light. As people look at things in front and around them, the eye interactions are recorded. Furthermore, it can be used to track stimuli response by observing eye movements.
This gives market researchers insight into what a person is thinking, their emotions in real-time, and their reactions. All these provide valuable quantifiable and insightful data that can help a researcher tailor their marketing strategy to meet these consumer behaviors (thoughts, emotions, and reactions).
You can read this article to learn how to build a marketing strategy based on consumer behavior. This, in turn, can lead to better sales during product or service promotion.
Conclusion
Technology is changing our world with each passing day and how we do business. Market researchers understand this change and have taken advantage of a lot of these technology trends. In this article, we’ve shared 4 technology trends used in market research.
