Product research helps create products that consumers demand like a road plan. It helps companies determine what their customers want and need as well as how to create unique items. This study is helpful at every stage, from ideation to evaluating a product’s performance following launch. This article will discuss the value of product research, its several phases, and some best practices for conducting it.
Product Research: Definition, Importance, and Stages
What is Product Research?
Product research in product management is a type of marketing research that gathers data on the features and attributes that potential buyers are hoping to see in a product, primarily before the product’s release and availability. Product research enables businesses to learn what their customers want, enabling them to customize their offerings to meet their demands. Both fresh product concepts and already-available items can be improved with the use of this study.
Importance of Product Research:
Product research is a crucial step in the creation of new products and can be done at various phases of the process. Product research assists a company in producing goods that consumers want. Gaining a competitive edge and a dominant position in the market is facilitated by this.
A thoroughly thought-out product will far more effectively satisfy the needs of the buyer. When releasing a product in a market with several competitors, product research becomes even more crucial. Gaining insight into the features and traits that customers value can be quite helpful in developing a solution that addresses problems with competing offerings.
Why and How do different Product Teams do different types of Product Research?
Even the most creative idea runs the danger of failing if you don’t know what your customers want from your product. You may better connect your product concepts with customer needs by conducting product research.
- Recognise consumer demands and pain spots. Your product should address the most important problems that customers are facing, but how can it do so if you don’t know what those problems are? Product research aids in the collection of information and behavioural insights that you need to comprehend user problems and develop the necessary solutions.
- Align user demands with business objectives: Developing a product roadmap that benefits both users and your business requires an awareness of consumers’ needs and how they relate to your product and business objectives
- Greater room for accuracy and innovation: You can create products that your clients will enjoy and find creative solutions to their challenges when you know exactly what they need.
- Obtain a competitive advantage by studying your rivals. This will help you determine what features to develop and how to set your product apart from the competition.
- Prioritisation made simpler and more effective: With product research, your team as a whole knows exactly how to rank efforts in order to satisfy customers, which makes managing your product backlog easier.
Why does Product Research matter for Product Teams?
Even the most creative idea runs the danger of failing if you don’t know what your customers want from your product. You may better connect your product concepts with customer needs by conducting product research.
- Recognise consumer demands and pain spots. Your product should address the most important problems that customers are facing, but how can it do so if you don’t know what those problems are? Product research aids in the collection of information and behavioural insights that you need to comprehend user problems and develop the necessary solutions.
- Align user demands with business objectives: Developing a product roadmap that benefits both users and your business requires an awareness of consumers’ needs and how they relate to your product and business objectives.
- Greater room for accuracy and innovation: You can create products that your clients will enjoy and find creative solutions to their challenges when you know exactly what they need.
- Obtain a competitive advantage by studying your rivals. This will help you determine what features to develop and how to set your product apart from the competition.
- Prioritisation made simpler and more effective: With product research, your team as a whole knows exactly how to rank efforts in order to satisfy customers, which makes managing your product backlog easier.
According to our 2023 Continuous Product Discovery Report, most teams conduct research at problem discovery (59%) and problem validation (57%), with only 36% researching post-launch.
The consensus is that product teams don’t think that’s enough—78% think they could research more often: which means there’s a big opportunity for you to implement regular research at all stages of the product research process.
Here’s when to conduct research on your product:
- Formulating a hypothesis at the problem discovery stage, based on user insights
- In the process of validating your idea through problems
- In the process of developing concepts and coming up with solutions, assess your progress.
- While you’re sorting through many concepts to determine which ones your users appreciate most,
- Early wireframes should be tested during solution definition and after you have your first design.
- Following the creation of a prototype, evaluate its direction and usefulness.
- Examine modifications made to earlier prototypes during validation and testing.
- Following development and launch to gather input and organise your next moves
- Prior to releasing a new feature or optimising a product, find out what people think.
Product Research Stages:
The process of conducting product research involves several stages:
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Product Research Stages:
1. Prior to Research Launch:
Product research can be used in the early phases to find and evaluate fresh concepts. By eliminating product development expenses in the ideas that are dismissed, this testing will contribute to cost reduction.
Product research can assist businesses in later phases of product development by determining which features should be kept and which ones can be dropped.
2. Evaluation and Input:
Customers are also tested on a recently developed product to find out what has to be changed, such as the packaging. Research requires a great deal of testing. Even with thorough research, a poorly tested product may still not work out. Testing can be conducted internally or with real clients through trials, offers, small groups, etc.
3. Soft Launch Research:
Before being introduced to the target audiences, the majority of the items undergo a soft launch. The purpose of the soft launch is to get input from prospective consumers and make beneficial adjustments to the product. Small groups or regions are the target of test marketing, and the results are verified. A product may need to be reevaluated and put through another round of study if the soft launch is unsuccessful.
4. Research After Launch:
The product is released onto the market after everything is finished. Even though test marketing is carried out, outcomes may alter when it is introduced to a wider audience. Therefore, it is crucial to observe and comprehend how customers behave and react to the recently released product or its variety. Following the product’s debut, customer satisfaction is evaluated. The most often utilised methods in product research are surveys, interviews, and focus groups. The product’s next steps can be planned based on this feedback.
Choosing a product research methodology:
Product development and research involve some work. You can conduct two different kinds of study, and each has advantages.
- Primary research
- Secondary research
Primary research:
Primary research is the initial kind of product research; it involves your organization gathering information directly from potential consumers. Research falls into two categories: qualitative and quantitative research.
- Qualitative research: Investigating the features of the product is made easier with the use of qualitative research. Asking questions about a customer’s motives and behaviors can help you understand why they utilize a product. You can use some kind of focus group or perform an open-ended product research poll to do this.
- quantitative research: Statistics from online surveys, polls, and other data are used in quantitative research since they help determine how well consumers would like a product. Statistics and numerical results will show how much or how little they like the product.
Secondary Research:
It is secondary research that yields information on buyer groups. Public resources, such as the Bureau of Labour Statistics or private research papers, can aid in your understanding of your industry. Additionally, your business might have useful internal data from marketing, finance, or accounting that can be used to better understand your target market’s preferences for certain items. When you polish your product ideas into something that consumers will actually want to buy, primary and secondary research will provide you with insights that will save you time and money.
Elements of Successful Product Research:
Product research is essential to prevent poor decisions being made throughout the development process, to spot possible problems with your product, and to gain a comprehensive understanding of your target market. You may develop a well-thought-out plan for developing a product that customers will adore with the aid of this research.
However, in order for your research to be successful, you must take the following proactive measures:
1. Employ impartial and precise data collection techniques:
Your research’s main objective is to gather precise information about how your target market uses your product, including what they like and dislike, what they need and want, and what problems they run into. However, employing shaky data collection techniques will render your research inapplicable or non-actionable. The best way to make sure the information you gather is impartial and correct is to use dependable techniques like as customer interviews, surveys, and tools that offer consistent real-time insights into the product experience (like Hotjar!). Making truly customer-centric decisions to create the best product is only possible with reliable data.
2. Perform in-depth comparative and competitive analysis:
Product research is essential for understanding your competitors and your place in the market, in addition to being useful for researching clients and their demands. Analyse the products, target market, and operational procedures of your rivals in great detail. This will assist you in determining what your audience finds effective, where there are gaps in your offering, and how to improve and streamline your product for your clients. Comparative analysis is a useful tool to supplement your research efforts when determining what you are missing out on. Examine your rivals’ offerings and determine what sets them apart from you in terms of features. This will highlight your areas of weakness and assist you in developing an optimisation strategy for improved performance and client satisfaction.
3. Utilise already published study findings:
Trade and market studies, which are analysis reports from institutions and organisations in your industry, can provide you with useful information about how companies have improved their product processes over time and show shifts in consumer patterns. This gives your research a historical perspective in addition to your first-hand knowledge, allowing you to find new product opportunities by drawing inspiration from past successes and/or lessons learned from failures. For instance, you might discover a creative approach to get input from customers or a productive way to test features of a product that you had not considered. Historical data can be used to investigate this concept.
4. Divide results according to corporate objectives:
If you can’t use the results of your product research to improve your product and make better judgements, it’s useless. Now for segmentation: grouping your study results according to company objectives helps to ensure that data is not mistranslated or lost. In order to help the members of the product team make informed decisions, you can also record your findings. Moreover, segmentation can assist you in coordinating your immediate and long-term objectives to increase the research’s future value.
How to measure the success of your Product Research?
It might be difficult to determine the efficacy of your research approach at the outset, as concrete product results are only apparent after you have received feedback on the final product.
Adding Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to your product at the outset will help you understand how research is being used to benefit your consumers and business.
Conclusion: Product Research
Product research is necessary to develop effective, client-focused solutions. It entails being aware of market trends, industry standards, and rivalry at different phases of growth. Using objective data collecting, doing a detailed competitive analysis, and utilising previous research are essential to success. Businesses can acquire a competitive advantage, guarantee long-term profitability, and match their offerings with client needs by giving research first priority. Every stage of the development process is informed by regular research, which helps organisations stay flexible in the face of changing market conditions and produce products that appeal to their target market.
FAQs: Product Research
What is a product research?
Product research is a type of marketing research that gathers data on the features and attributes that potential buyers are hoping to see in a product, primarily before the product’s release and availability.
What stages does product research go through?
In product research, theories are developed during problem discovery, concepts are validated through issues, concept development progress is monitored, early wireframes are tested, prototypes are assessed, and post-launch assessments are carried out.
What is a tool for product research?
In order to support well-informed decision-making in product creation, a product research tool is a tool or piece of software that helps collect and analyse data about consumer preferences, market trends, and competitive environments.
Which four categories of new product research exist?
The pre-launch research, customer evaluation and input, soft launch research prior to wide distribution, and post-launch research to collect customer feedback are the four categories of new product research.
What benefits can product research offer?
Product research has several benefits, such as averting bad choices during development, seeing possible problems, getting a thorough grasp of the target market, coordinating user needs with corporate goals, and eventually producing goods that satisfy consumers and differentiate themselves in the market.
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