Market research is one of the most useful tools available today, as it helps businesses with most of their operations. Yes, while many tools, whether physical or not, help businesses with one or two operations, market research is built differently. It can help businesses with almost any operation, which can be influenced by the market. One of these operations is launching a new product.

Launching a new product is something that not only comes with a lot of costs but also carries huge risks. According to Learn.g2, only 40% of the total developed products make it to the market. This single stat is enough to estimate how complex a product development and launch process can be.

That's why, before going to the market, you need information and insights so that you can reduce the risk of failing to as low as possible. And where do you get these insights and information from? Of course, through market research. So, this is how market research helps in new product launches. Now, let's discuss how market research works. In this blog, we will dive into the methods and strategies of market research to follow before a product launches. 

Types of Product Research Method

First, let's review the methods usually used in product market research. The research generally has many methods that can be categorized into two categories: primary and secondary market research. A few of these methods are used in product MR, which we will discuss while keeping them categorized in their respective categories. 

Primary Research Methods

● Surveys 

Surveys can be a great way to assess the views of your target audience about the product you want to launch. You can learn about the features that should be included in your product. Moreover, you can also do price research and many more with surveys. 

● One on one Interviews 

One-on-one interviews are also among the primary market research methods that you can use for product research. You can gauge your potential customers' thoughts, behaviors, and attitudes. Since you can use open-ended questions in one-on-one interviews, in-depth exploration can be done to understand customers' needs and preferences. 

● Focus Group Discussions 

If you want to have a detailed discussion about your product, then Focus Group Discussion is one of the best options. It will let you explore all the pros and cons of the product. It's a very effective research method because it involves the suggestions, criticism, and feedback of multiple people with different mindsets and thought processes. 

● Prototype Testing

To get the odds out of your product, you can use Prototype Testing. Let's say you are a game development company and developing a game. So, with beta testing, you can release the game for limited gamers and get feedback on improvements. The users may also appreciate your efforts, so it also comes as a motivational support. 

Secondary Research Methods 

● Literature Review

A literature review involves researching existing articles, studies, and publications about the product you are launching or the problem it solves. These studies and publications can help you understand customer preferences, market trends, and how customers react to a product launch. 

● Market Analysis

Market analysis refers to the analysis of overall market data, insights, and reports, which leads to understanding factors like market size and growth trends and identifying available opportunities in the market. 

● Competitive Analysis

While what opportunities are available to you are important to know before your product launch, many other factors must be considered. One of these factors is the risk association. And there's nothing wrong if we say it's one of the most important things to know before landing in the market. Competitive analysis can be done with the help of data released by your competitors, so it's not a very costly asset. Moreover, it helps you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. Competitive analysis is also important to position your product perfectly in the market. 

Six Strategies to Follow Before Launching a New Product

Let's look at some research strategies to help you launch a new product.

1. Market Size Analysis 

Do a Market size analysis to understand the potential of the market for your product. Here, you can look for the patterns of growth and trends that usually come with the launch of a similar product. With this analysis, you can learn about the sales and revenue that you can generate and benchmark them to determine whether your product will be successful or not. 

Also Read: Insight to Impact: The Power of Product Benchmarking

2. Target Audience Identification 

Identifying the target audience is also important for a new product launch. Without understanding who can buy your product, making it successful is impossible. It affects multiple aspects of a product launch. For example, if we need to launch a new product to target the young population, then related things like marketing the product should also be done to target the young. So, identifying the target audience is important to know who you can sell and for its marketing and other things like where to make it available, what price to keep, etc. 

3. Market Challenges Assessment 

No matter what market you are entering, there are always challenges. The worst part is that you don't control the challenges, so you never know when they will come and with how much intensity. However, with market research, you can do a market challenges assessment, which makes you aware of the potential challenges and lets you predict their timing. Moreover, you can also be ready for those undeniable challenges in any industry, like regulatory requirements and other considerations. 

4.  Competitor Analysis 

As we just read, competitor analysis is important; let's have a few details to answer exactly how it can help you in a new product launch. With a new product launch, you need to answer questions like what the price will be, how the delivery and distribution network will look, and how you will market the product. Competitor analysis can answer all this easily as your competition must have already developed all these things, like a distribution network. You can either get motivated by their strategies or if you find them wrongly implemented, you can improve them.

5. Area of Opportunity Identification 

When you have to launch your product in an already established market where prominent players are there, gap identification is helpful and important. Let's take a simple example. If you are a tech manufacturer who wants to develop a new product, then it's important to analyze if there's enough room for your product.

So, suppose your competitors are selling Bluetooth headphones in a budget segment, and you choose to add something similar to your portfolio. In that case, it is harder to get success if you are adding no value. That's what opportunity identification helps with. You will first need to identify what exactly is missing and then try to work and implement it. Here, your competitors may not be offering noise cancellation in their headphones, which you can add to yours and make your product stand out even in a competitive market. 

6. Go to Market Strategy Development

It refers to the strategy that considers everything right before the launch, from the positioning of the brand to its sales and distribution. For example, if you want your soft drink to be perceived as premium, then keeping the prices high is not good enough; you also need to know if its name and tagline make it feel premium. Similarly, how the product will be sold, how it will reach the market through distribution and anything that comes before the launch lies in the “go to market strategy”. 

Conclusion

To summarize, this is how you can use market research to make your new product launch successful. It's very important to plan for a product launch as deeply as possible because reports suggest that 95% of new products face failure as they don't meet the expected sales. So, to make sure that it doesn't happen with you, you must combine market research effectively with your product launch.