Can machine learning help B2B do better market research?
How to use machine learning methods in your B2B marketing research.
Market research is an important part of every marketing strategy. It helps your business stay informed and make smart decisions in marketing and beyond. Some areas that market research can influence include:
- Understanding the habits and preferences of your customer or audience base
- Giving insight into your competition
- Helping you understand the success of marketing campaigns and have a better grasp of your brand’s influence, reach, and recall in the marketplace
- Enabling you to set realistic goals based on market trends
- Understanding customer expectations
Traditionally, market research has taken many forms. Marketing research firms can analyze large swaths of customer data, including purchasing behavior, search history, average income, average spend, and other relevant demographics like age, location, and job title. This information is useful for helping to understand how to shape marketing (Where are customers shopping? Online or in store? Do they watch TV? If so, is commercial advertising a good idea?), price products (Do customers purchase other products in your price range?), and even decide on product production and launch (What’s been identified as a problem or something missing in the marketplace and is your business equipped to create a product or service to fill that gap?).
Because market research is such a data-heavy lift and so many insights can be gleaned from these data sets, machine learning in market research can make a significant influence. Here’s how to use AI and machine learning to get the most out of your market research and make the best possible decisions for your business strategy.
Prediction: One of the biggest benefits of machine learning is just that – the ability of these software and systems to learn from the data that they’re analyzing. AI and machine learning in market research allows the business to see trends faster and then make predictions based on these identified trends. For instance, if the data shows that customers often buy products or subscribe to services like yours around a certain time of year, it can help your business better manage inventory and staffing.
Personalization: Because AI and machine learning can analyze more data more efficiently and much faster than a market analyst behind a desk, it can make the use of details and create customization or personalization based on those details. This means that the research can be used to make real-world decisions based on these factors and help making marketing campaigns more successful. A more focused, more custom digital marketing campaign can connect the right person to the right product or service and help increase conversion rates.
Machine learning has a lot of potential in advancing the impact of market research for organizations. In addition to gathering data, it gives businesses a better sense of meaning from that data and helps businesses take steps to move the business forward. Machine learning makes sure that you can get the most out of the important (and often expensive) research data. Has your business used any AI or machine learning in your market research? Have you seen an impact on your business?
