It’s part of the everyday life of marketers like you: decide whether to use market or UX information to get the best quality information about a product you want to launch or improve.
It’s almost like having to choose between old and new, classic and novel. But are they really that far apart?
Using just one can identify and forecast the potential of a new product, but it’s no guarantee of 100 per cent commercial success of that product in a particular market segment.
The main reason for the commercial failure of many new products isn’t market research or the lack of it. Rather, the reason lies in not really understanding the end users of the product. Only 55% of companies do research from the user’s perspective, so the most important focus is lost: the customer.
So let’s dive into the scope and limitations of each and how the teams in charge of these tasks can collaborate to create the most complete experience for your company. Ready? Read on!
The focus of each research team
Market research is the systematic collection of data to gain a comprehensive understanding of the consumer and usually focuses on what the general public want, how big the market is and how a product or service is advertised to attract more customers
This type of research is about the product or service. The data obtained is usually quantitative and the samples required are usually large to get the desired results.
User research on the other hand is about studying and analysing people’s behaviour in relation to their interaction with the product. This type of research is all about the people’s needs and problems and what’s useful for them.
The results obtained focus on descriptive information, although quantitative data is also very important. The samples used are small groups of users to understand people’s behaviour and needs through observation.
The end result of each approach
It’s important you note that both types of research can work together in the design process and serve to have a global view of the users who consume your offering and to facilitate decision-making in order to drive all efforts where it’s necessary and urgent.
With market research you can:
- Make decisions about what to do to improve the promotion of the product
- Analyse trends to effectively generate more sales
- Know the buying habits and how your brand is perceived
On the other hand, why need to create a research plan in ux? So you can:
- Improve the product or service to be developed
- Know and measure how satisfied they truly are
- Validate new ideas to boost your business
- Know exactly what facilitates or frustrates the people who use your product
- Get users excited about it to keep them engaged
Now that you’ve got the concepts clear, we come to an important part: timing.
Time of application of the individual strategies
Implement go-to-market research in key aspects of the product growth phase, as it has a significant role in the first phases of its money-making potential.
You’ll need business information on:
- Market volume
- Latest updates and competitors
- Aspects of your product that people are interested in
After all of this, UX research takes over, looking at one of the areas of interest that you’ll want to learn more about. User research provides useful information for the development of an one of a kind product: it validates certain key design aspects and derives functions.
Once you’ve some great ideas to reach your users in an easy way, market research comes back again to assess which of those are likely to thrive successfully and also to determine the better pricing.
3 essential steps to integrate UX and numeric marketing
Now, both market and UX research play a crucial role in the success of a product from start to finish. Sometimes they come into play at different points in the product development phase, but not necessarily always.
Both approaches are used and reused once the product is on the market. This can provide insights to build on the other team’s knowledge and collaborate on research.
So what’re some examples of good practise that support and encourage collaboration between both teams?
1. Overview of front sidewalk: a central management platform
Set the stage for collaboration by ensuring that the marketing and UX teams know what each other is doing.
If each team knows the basics of the other’s research, how it’s conducted and what types of information it provides, each is better prepared and more likely to be able to draw on the other’s knowledge. And they can give advice in their respective areas of expertise.
A central knowledge management platform, sometimes called a research library or information engine, helps each team gain better insight into the other’s work so both teams can publish completed research reports and information about the methods and tools they use.
Team members can also comment on the platform and ask each other questions. This allows them to better understand what the other team is working on and discover new opportunities for collaboration.
2. Open and up-front communication
Maintaining routine communication between teams also promotes cooperation. Just as the product and marketing teams need to stay in touch, there’s great value in the market research and user research teams communicating with each other on a regular basis.
This ensures that important and relevant insights are shared and opportunities for collaboration in data collection are identified.
Market and UX research teams can also work together to create a research plan that can be published on your knowledge management platform. This reduces the risk of duplication and allows teams to identify projects where it makes sense to collaborate.
3. Combined analysis
Even if UX and market research are distinct sub-disciplines, they offer the right data so you can transform your business: time, technology and target subjects.
Often it’s time and/or budget constraints that dictate joint research design. However, if your teams have established communication guidelines and have a basic understanding of each other’s tasks, joint research can provide richer information and save time and money.
Effective collaboration occurs when people can easily discover and access the available knowledge that may be relevant to their needs.
When they can easily find and use the expertise of their colleagues and when there’s a place where interaction is encouraged through questions and answers and other conversations
By integrating a knowledge management platform into your infrastructure, your organisation can create these opportunities to get the most value from every research dollar invested.
There’s strength in unity, or at least for launching a successful product
Now that you know how these two methods work together throughout the product life cycle, be present with your departments to add real value to your products. So wrapping up:
- Market research and UX research seem fluid in their goals, but they shouldn’t be confused or used whenever: each has its own pace and right application
- Market research primarily provides a numeric and broad overview of people’s attitudes when it’s time to buy a product. This in turn serves as the basis for marketing decisions
- User research primarily provides in-depth and specific qualitative information about people’s behaviour and how they’d use a product. This in turn flows into design decisions
- Together, both types of research can help you make the all-time best decisions: they provide the right path for developing successful products in the long term
- They’re both as important as they’re different: think about what type of information you truly seek from your users and pick the one that will give you the answers you need if you decide to work them separately
To make the best decisions, you need to know when to use both methods. Both answer different inquiries and occur at different stages.
For the team members it’s important to know when each research is necessary. And most important, when you should complement them.
Now that you truly get how these methods interact and complement each other, give the right support to your marketing departments. This is key, so start a new integrative phase for your next projects now.
