Agile market research guide: How to improve your marketing strategy

Agile has become one of the most popular market research methodologies across various industries, thanks to its numerous benefits. But what exactly is agile and how can it benefit your business?

The agile methodology streamlines the market research process, delivering insights more quickly. Unlike traditional methods, which can take weeks to gather feedback on a new product or advertisement concept, agile market research provides timely results, offering a more efficient and responsive approach.

Agile market research simplifies the traditional research process into smaller, manageable phases, often referred to as ‘sprints’. This methodology enables the collection of real-time, asynchronous feedback and rapid adjustments to respond swiftly to market changes.

A company that is concept testing a new product feature, for example, uses agile market research to gather customer feedback rapidly. Market research professionals utilise this feedback to inform iterative improvements and retest the product with updated A/B test variants or MaxDiff surveys over successive two-week cycles. This ensures that the product evolves based on continuous user validation, minimising risk and accelerating time to market.

Traditional market research methods tend to be linear and structured, with a set sequence of steps. In contrast, agile market research uses an iterative process with continuous feedback to adapt to real-time market changes.

A traditional research structure may look something like this:

Traditional market research aligns with many teams’ research goals and resources. However, other teams may require a more flexible approach, such as agile market research.

Agile’s short, collaborative research cycles allow teams to iterate on insights from each cycle, enabling rapid adaptation to new data.

Agile market research is widely used by marketing teams to gain comprehensive insights into consumer behaviour, but how do you know whether the agile market research method is suitable for your project or industry? Well, let’s review some of the top benefits to help you evaluate whether agile will be effective for your needs.

A key benefit of agile market research is its flexibility. Unlike rigid traditional methods, agile offers teams the freedom to innovate throughout the process, which is especially valuable in fast-changing industries such as technology.

Imagine a tech startup that is launching a new app. By using agile market research, they can test out its features on small groups and gather immediate feedback. This allows them to refine the app before its launch, ensuring that it aligns with customer needs.

Agile market research is designed for continuous improvement. It allows teams to consistently test and refine product prototypes, ad concepts and more in order to align them with consumer expectations. This approach ensures that decisions are based on the most up-to-date data and insights.

For example, a retail company might test messaging for a new campaign by conducting multiple rounds of agile research. After gathering feedback in each round, the company adjusts its messaging prior to retesting so that is resonates better with consumers. This process leads to a more targeted and effective marketing campaign.

This market research methodology is cost-effective as it focuses on smaller tasks that require fewer resources than traditional methods. By breaking down research into smaller parts, companies can avoid significant upfront expenses. This approach enables them to make adjustments before committing to costly research campaigns, which results in overall savings.

For example, a company might conduct regional product tests on smaller groups. This approach helps to identify which demographics resonate with their product, rather than running an expensive national survey. This agile approach saves money and allows the company to concentrate on demographics who have a demonstrated interest in their product.

Improved collaboration is another key benefit of agile. As marketing, product development and customer service teams collaborate to analyse research findings, they can make adjustments more effectively. Regular cross-team communication is essential to ensure alignment on project goals and to act on insights.

For example, a financial services company conducting agile research for a new product holds regular workshops with cross-functional teams. In these sessions, marketing, sales and product teams collaborate to analyse insights and refine the product.

Finally, agile market research enables teams to leverage real-time feedback for timely decision-making. Armed with immediate consumer insights, teams can make quicker decisions and seize spontaneous opportunities in dynamic markets.

For instance, a cosmetics brand launching a new product can quickly gather consumer feedback on packaging and design. This insight allows the brand to pivot rapidly, avoiding costly production losses and ensuring that the product appeals to customers.

Agile market research is not a brand-new concept, but it has spread rapidly.

With self-service research tools such as SurveyMonkey, teams can conduct market research without centralised insights teams or full-service agencies. This ensures that businesses always have the data they need for faster decision-making.

Below is SurveyMonkey’s agile market research framework. It visualises a cyclical approach to exploring, testing, validating and optimising strategies while continuously tracking progress.

This framework shortens lengthy research timelines by breaking them into manageable project sprints. Its versatility demonstrates how agile market research can support almost any challenge or project that you may face at work.

The first step is to explore market needs. This is a crucial stage in early product development or marketing planning.

Identify demographics who are interested in your brand by assessing market trends, analysing customer data and pinpointing pain points. This knowledge will help you to define the scope of your research and guide your marketing strategy.

The next stage is testing, where you ask, “Which ideas does my market prefer?” This can apply to a new product, features, ad copy or messaging.

Agile researchers rapidly test ideas via surveys, A/B testing and focus groups, gathering consumer feedback in short sprints to identify which concepts resonate most with the target market.

It’s essential to validate the potential success of any new idea. You should use market research feedback to answer the question “How successful will my idea be?”.

Data from the testing stage will confirm whether it’s likely that the product, feature, message or strategy will perform well.

Now it is time to iterate by asking, “What improvements will make my idea even better?”. Using your market research findings, adapt your product or idea to align it more closely with consumer needs. The agile methodology excels in this stage, enabling you to refine based on feedback.

Finally, you should track how your offerings or marketing strategy perform in real time. Ask “How is my idea performing?”. Use key performance indicators (KPIs) such as conversion rates, sales data or customer engagement to gauge the long-term impact of your research. A brand tracking survey is a valuable tool for measuring brand health and responding to current market sentiment.

The key takeaway is that research can be an activity any team can manage. However, it is essential to have a direction and plan to ensure that frequent research is strategic and actionable rather than random.

SurveyMonkey’s market research solutions are built for your success. Gain quick insights to drive better business decisions with AI-powered agile market research tools. SurveyMonkey empowers you and your team to stay competitive by monitoring purchasing behaviours, usage, attitudes and more.

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