Why Research is Necessary When Launching a Brand

06 Dec 2016

Why Research is Necessary When Launching a Brand

Written by: Rachael Ryan

In Why Secondary Research is so Important When Launching a Successful Brand, we spoke about the importance of this type of research in launching a new product or service or even when relaunching an already existing brand. In order to launch a successful brand, market research is a crucial aspect of the process.

That research is twofold. The first part is utilizing secondary research. Secondary research is best to describe as research that is already out there. It gives you the basics of what you need to know, it explains the state of the market today, who are your competitors and a basic understanding of your prospects and current customers.

Once you’ve done some background secondary research – now jump into doing primary research and start analyzing the original, fresh, new data to determine what is best for your brand. Primary research can take many shapes and sizes, some examples include surveys, interviews, focus groups, etc.

Primary research can help with several aspects of a brand launch:

Segmentation research – determining who is your high-value customer
Naming research – evaluate the best name or logo design for your brand
Claims test – assess the message or combination of messages that resonate with your target audience
Package testing – find the ideal design and message for your product
Ad concept testing – discover the perfect advertising campaign for your brand. Using an advertising optimizer is an ideal way to do that. Provoke Insights to offer an Ad Optimizer.

Next, you need to determine what sort of primary research you want. Are you looking to do qualitative or quantitative research? Do you want to know the opinions, needs and wants of just a select few? Or are you interested in gaining knowledge and intelligence on as many potential customers as possible? Surely, you want to know what a large majority of your target audience wants? In most cases, people want to sell to a lot of people – in this case, the most fruitful form of research will be to conduct surveys.

What do surveys achieve?

Through survey data, we can gain information on a lot of people and then make calculated and educated projections of what the large majority of your target audience wants.
Conducting surveys will keep your brand launch consumer-focused and it means that you will stay on track to having the most lucrative product/service you can have. It will also reduce your risks.
Your communication will be more effective and efficient. Instead of using trial and error to see what resonates with your audience you can ask them what they want to see and hear. This way your communication with them will work from the get-go.
Most importantly you’ll be relevant to those who matter the most.

Surveys are not an easy task and there are a lot of hurdles that you can possibly fall down on, for more information about conducting a successful survey, have a look at Provoke Insight’s blog on what to watch out for when writing your survey. Once you have all of the data that the surveys will generate, your brand will be in the best possible position to launch or relaunch.