Knowing what your target customers like and want is essential to improving your products and services, so they choose you before others. And performing market research will give you in-depth insights into your customers, competitors, and existing products. Using these insights, you can prepare a solid marketing campaign that can translate into better sales and revenue. This is why market research is important for organizations to make informed business decisions. To help data scientists perform efficient market analysis and research, many tools are available in the market. Let’s quickly understand market research before talking about the best analytics and research tools for data scientists.
What is Market Research?
Market research involves collecting and analyzing valuable data about a business’s target customers, competitors, existing products and services, and the industry. Performing market research will give you an idea:
Whether or not the customers will like your product How they feel about itWhen and where customers purchase similar productsLearn the ways to connect to your customersYour position in the marketHow to plan effective next steps.
Not only does market research help after product launch but also during the development, planning, deployment, and marketing phase.
Types of Market Research
Market research is of different types based on the kind of insights you want to get. Some of them are:
Consumer researchCompetitor researchBrand researchCustomer segmentation researchCampaign effectivenessProduct development
The main types of market research are: Qualitative research: This type of market research focuses on facts and figures to understand your customers’ sentiments, preferences, and opinions regarding your products or services. It will also help you learn the factors affecting customers’ purchasing decisions. Qualitative research is done with the help of focus groups, surveys, and polls to collect data and analyze it. Quantitative research: This type of market research focuses on numbers to understand how much your products or services impact your customers. For example, the number of people reading your blog post or the percentage of people buying your products or services from a particular region. Quantitative research is done using questionnaires and surveys. You can also do it by just talking to your target audience and observing their answers. You can also perform detailed quantitative research to discover potential markets and customer profiles when you launch a new service or product. Primary research: Primary research is also called field research, where you collect fresh data which has not been collected before. Secondary research: Also known as desk research, secondary research involves collecting data that is already organized and compiled. It can be reports, textbooks, stats, historical data, studies, etc.
Market Research vs. Marketing Research
Although they may sound similar, market research and marketing research are two different terms. Market research is done to identify and understand a given target. It is a narrow term that focuses on that target and its group to figure out its behavior and purchasing motivations. On the other hand, marketing research is a broader term that deals with a company’s complete marketing process instead of just the target.
Why should you do market research for your business?
Some of the benefits of performing market research and analysis for businesses are:
To know your customers
If you want to run and grow your business successfully, you must understand your customers’ likes and dislikes, preferences, desires, and pain points. This knowledge will help you craft and offer such a product or service to the target audience that can address their concerns, is valuable to them, and motivates them into buying your offerings.
Create effective plans
Using the insights gained from collected and analyzed data, data scientists can create effective marketing plans that can cater to the customers better. It will also help during product planning and development, apart from improving your marketing efforts. This way, you can serve your customers well and continue reaping more and more profits.
Monitoring competition
Knowing about your competitors and existing products and services in your industry is crucial. And when you perform market research, you do exactly that. Market research will bring more profound insights into your competitors, their marketing campaigns, and other relevant data. It will also help you determine your market positioning so you can keep on improving.
Identifying potential risks
The economy affects every business. Market research will help you monitor business environments regularly so that you can spot potential economic growth or slowdowns. It will give you a direction towards which you can mold your business and scale it accordingly. This will ensure your business is future-proof and help you prepare for bad days that may lie ahead in order to minimize disruption.
Grab opportunities
Opportunities can knock on your door any time, and when they do, you must be available to grab them, or others will do it. Performing market research consistently will help you find areas of potential growth so that you can take your business to the next level. You can connect more to customers, vendors, and partners, communicate with them on time to seal the deal, and improve your bottom line. To achieve all the above benefits, you must do thorough market research and analysis. And doing all this with the help of analytics and research tools will save you time and effort. Interestingly, many such tools are available, such as the very popular Atlas.ti. Most people find it perfect for their needs, but it is not the only tool available. It has its pros and cons, and thus, people look for other alternatives. Some of the best analytics and research tools available today are as follows.
Delve
Get a simple to use analytics and research solution for your qualitative research with Delve and turn transcripts into faster insights. You don’t need any training course to understand the tool; start researching within minutes. To analyze qualitative data, find themes in documents, descriptions, diary accounts, observations, case studies, and transcripts. Delve provides various qualitative methodologies, such as narrative analysis, content analysis, grounded theory, and thematic analysis. You can also use a hierarchical and flexible coding system to practice in-depth analysis. Organize your codes into categories and themes, see the analysis update of collaborators live, and share your projects quickly. Delve works on any computer to help you research wherever you are. It keeps your research data secure, private, and safe by following industry best practices. You can access online courses, guides, videos, and webinars to learn qualitative analysis deeper. Delve always stays on the top in the case of GDPR compliance to ensure best practices. You can even share, export, or delete your data anytime. Start your 14-day free trial today and work with the advanced, unpredictable research schedule. Code your data with easy-to-learn and intuitive software starting at $50/user/month.
Stata
Explore, visualize, and get better insights to make a difference in your research with Stata. Its stats include tables, Bayesian econometrics, Bayesian VAR, Panel-data multinominal logit, Galbraith plots, PyStata, DID, JDBC, Java integration, and a lot more. This statistical software for data scientists will help you master your data with a broad suite of statistical features and quality graphics. Stata integrates with Python, H2O, and Java to offer better reproducible research. It is easy to use and automate for your research work. Stata provides advanced programming options, automatic multicore support, world-class technical teams, cross-platform, comprehensive resources, software for your research, and more. You can even use Stata for your data science project for education, epidemiology to time series, reporting, data manipulations, and survival analysis.
jamovi
Bridge the gap between statisticians and researchers with jamovi – the open-source statistical software that is free to use. jamovi’s 3rd generation statistical spreadsheet is designed from the ground up to make statistics simple. The platform is easy to use and works as a good alternative to expensive statistical products, including SAS and SPSS. jamovi is built on R statistical language, giving you access to the broadest community. If you need R code for your research and analysis work, jamovi will provide that for you. It is made by scientific communities for scientific communities. Get a complete suite of analyses for the social sciences, such as regression, correlation, non-parametric tests, contingency tables, ANOVAs, t-tests, factor analysis, reliability, and more. jamovi has a fully-functional spreadsheet optimized for statistical data. Its advanced features ensure learners receive real-time research tools and data, analyses, options, and results are safe in one file. You can also back up the file or share it with your colleagues. It is easy for R programmers to develop their analysis and publish it. jamovi supports various operating systems, such as macOS, Windows, and Linux ChromeOS.
NVivo
Check valuable insights from your data with NVivo– The best qualitative data research and analysis software. It helps you find more from your mixed and qualitative methods data. Uncover the evidence for your defensible and articulated findings from the richer insights you discover in your data. With NVivo, you can work efficiently, conduct research from the source, and defend your discoveries. You can even import and analyze data from any source with an advanced query, visualization tools, and management. Additionally, ask critical questions about data to draw final conclusions, identify themes, and achieve robust research and analysis results quickly. NVivo offers best-in-class features for researchers to save their time and boost productivity by finding evidence-based insights and common themes faster. Deeper insights will bring connections and patterns that are impossible manually. You can also gain a complete picture when evaluating impacts and articulating outcomes. It presents defensible and valid conclusions to generate effective outcomes. Select your industry and operating system and mention for whom you are purchasing, and NVivo is all yours. Get it started with your free trial option.
Provalis Research
Provalis Research offers QDA Miner, a qualitative methods software with unparalleled analysis, report writing capabilities, and computer-assisted coding. QDA Miner is a simple and easy-to-use qualitative analysis software for coding, organization, retrieving, annotating, and analyzing data collections. The qualitative data analysis tool focuses on or analyzes group transcripts, speeches, journal articles, legal documents, entire books, drawings, paintings, and other documents. You will also get computer assistance for the coding. The tool allows you to analyze and code documents quickly and do the task reliably. It also Integrates with WordStat and SimStat to provide unbelievable flexibility to analyze the data and relate it to structured information, such as categorical and numerical data. Furthermore, you can import data from any source, such as Excel, SPSS, NVivo, PDFs, Stata, HTML, Word, and more. In addition, import from social media, web survey platforms, Factiva, LexisNexis, and reference management tools by connecting with these platforms. You can perform on-screen text coding, link and annotate qualitative data, achieve faster coding, analyze, visualize, explore, locate events through time tagging and GIS mapping, and track changes.
MAXQDA Analytics Pro
MAXQDA Analytics Pro is a statistical analysis and qualitative research tool for data scientists. It adds the Stats module to MAXQDA Standard and MAXQDA Plus qualitative analysis features. MAXQDA Analytics Pro quantifies the qualitative data seamlessly and makes it better with plausibility and evidence. It helps you statistically analyze the qualitative data and import and connect it with data sets in the SPSS or Excel format. With MAXQDA project data, you can use the Stats module in order to run statistical calculations. In addition, analyze code frequencies statistically across your documents and create data groups based on statistical results. Compare percentages and frequencies for codes or variables by creating simple charts. You can also create customizable graphs and charts for the results and copy them inside the output viewer or reports and presentations. Use a wide range of methods to examine relationships between variables in the MAXQDA Analytics Pro. Crosstabs is one variable that is easy to customize and provides valuable insights. Another variable is highlighting options that interpret the results quickly and easily. Use the test for correlations procedure to find relationships within the data. Calculate the most common correlation coefficients with the Stats module. You can also measure the dimensions properly by creating your scale and variables according to your use. Try MAXQDA for 14-days for your Mac or Windows.
KNIME
KNIME offers stunning software that creates and productionizes data science via an intuitive and easy environment. It enables every stakeholder in the process to focus on the best. KNIME helps you:
Merge, transform, and access all the data to build and transform. Visualize the data that makes sense with the tools you know. Support enterprise-based data science practices to deploy and manage. Give you proper insights brought from the data.
KNIME is open-source and free software for the data scientist that helps in understanding the data and designing your data science workflows. You can use a drag and drop graphical interface to create visuals without coding. Model every step of the data analysis, ensure the current work, and control the data flow. You will also get blend tools from various domains through KNIME native nodes, including scripting in Python and R, machine learning, and connectors to Apache Spark. KNIME can shape your data by leveraging AI and machine learning to help you discover insights and scale execution and demands. You will also get frameworks and better security.
RapidMiner Studio
Get a comprehensive platform for data science with full automation and visual workflow design with RapidMiner Studio. The tool helps improve productivity across the complete data science team by automating and speeding up the creation of the predictive models in a drag and drop visual interface. You will get the best models for your use from the rich library of over 1500 functions and algorithms. Find the pre-built templates for normal use cases, including fraud detection, predictive maintenance, customer churn, and more. You will also receive proactive recommendations in each step that help beginners proceed. Connect with any data source instantly and create click+point connections to an enterprise data warehouse, cloud storage, social media, business applications, and databases. Re-use any connections at any time and share them with the one who needs access. Run ETL and data prep inside the databases to keep the data optimized for advanced analytics. You can retrieve and query data without the need for complex SQL. In addition, RapidMiner supports PostgreSQL, Google BigQuery, and MySQL. Evaluate data completeness, quality, and health by understanding trends, distributions, and patterns with line charts, box plots, parallel coordinates, histograms, and scatter plots. You can also fix the data quality problems quickly, along with outliers and missing values. Moreover, RapidMiner reduces the time for:
Preparing data for modeling Creating machine learning models Understanding the true performanceCreating data science workflows Deploying scalable codeCollaborating with coders and non-codersTurning predictive insights into the business impact.
Download the free version if you are a student or a professor in an educational institution. Request a quote by filling in the details and receive the best quote for your enterprise.
Conclusion
Market research provides deeper insights into your consumers, competitors, and industry so you can shape your products and services. It will help you cater to your customers more and take your business to the next level with better strategies. Thus, choose the best analytics and research tool based on your preference and witness improvements in your business. Here are some resources to learn R and become a data scientist.
