Market research is a broad term. It is essentially gathering information and understanding your audience better.

Traditionally, this is done through focus group discussions (FGDs), computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI) and other offline methods. Many marketers and public relations (PR) experts have been turning to online market research, especially when the world was forced to go online during the pandemic.

A good market research agency can suggest the best methodologies for your business needs, identify the right audiences, and provide holistic recommendations during the reporting stage.

That said, it takes two hands to clap. The best collaborations happen when both the PR team and market research agency are adaptable to changes that make sense to meet the overarching needs of the organization.

As a PR practitioner, what should you do first before starting any research?

Identify your target audiences

If you have existing data on your consumer segmentation, work off that and see if there are new gaps to fill. If this is your first time running a research, analyzing your customer database should give you a clear understanding of your audiences – demographics (age, gender, location) is a good place to begin. Go deeper if you are able to: Out of the whole database, how many are existing, lapsed, or potential customers?

Competitor analysis

Your market research agency will most likely ask for a list of top competitors in the local market. This is essential to paint a clear picture of your organization’s current standing in the market. A commonly used method for data visualization is by conducting a quadrant analysis, which involves implementing a scatter plot in a quadrant chart.

Know your objectives

Be clear about what this research data will be used for. If it is primarily for a media release, do some digging into what journalists in the field are looking for – tone of voice, content type they publish, and how you can cater to each journalist. A research study can also be used only for internal use, like campaign strategizing and brand audits. Make sure to let your agency know about these short- and long-term objectives before embarking on the project.

What can you expect from a PR market research study?

Consumer segmentation

A good market research agency will be able to validate your target audience segments, and even slice and dice them based on demographics, psychographics and other behavioral traits. Many organizations only learn upon running a research study that they had their idea of their customers all wrong the whole time, due to the lack of longitudinal data (e.g. only running research once every 5 years).

DID YOU KNOW? Milieu provides full end-to-end services from survey design to data reporting!‍

Brand perception and reputation management

Maintaining brand reputation is paramount, especially if your organization has been around for some time. What are you currently using to measure brand health? When running a brand health study for the first time, work with your market research partner to ensure all metrics are as simple, straightforward and seamless for respondents to answer as possible. This ensures a higher survey take-up rate, and future-proofs the questionnaire when re-running the survey down the road for data trending.

Content strategy and messaging

A beautiful marriage is this: A market research agency turning data into information, and a PR practitioner turning information into a compelling brand story. Ensure that your market research partner has the right tools for data reporting, reading, and analysis (i.e. online dashboard, cleaned up data tables). Fancy numbers aside, it is also important for PR practitioners to understand their customers’ media consumption habits, metrics and channels to create relevant, timely messaging – just like what Milieu Portraits has!

Campaign evaluation and optimization

Campaigns, activations… Did you know that market research can play a part in tracking their successes? By analyzing metrics like brand awareness, brand association and media channels, we can assess the impact of your campaigns using just 5-10 questions. PR practitioners use this method to readjust and optimize their strategies for the next activation, enhancing the campaign on the whole.

DID YOU KNOW? You can conduct cross-study analyses and significant testing on Milieu Canvas, allowing you to extract meaningful insights and read data across different campaign studies at a glance!