The Role of AI in Business Market Research: Why and How to Invest

• By Trevor Michael
• 23-11-2022
• Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a game changer in conducting business across company sizes and industries. For one, AI paved the way for advancing process automation. Gone are the days when employees had to carry out menial and repetitive tasks manually.

The technology also aided cognitive engagement among team members and customers, thanks to machine learning capabilities and intelligent chatbots.

Lastly, AI allowed the ease and convenience of big data analysis. Now, it's possible to glean a focused insight even from seemingly disparate sets of information. This compatibility with big data analysis makes AI a perfect tool for market research. Now, marketers have a reliable ally for identifying who they should sell to and how.

AI Benefits to Market Research

Marketers have their work cut out for them. That's most true in the market research stage, where there's a lot to take into account to ensure accurate findings. Thankfully, AI provides benefits that simplify the process for your marketing team.

Respondent assembly

When it comes to respondent assembly, it's not enough just to have a sufficient number of people. Even more important is finding the right people. After all, the practicality of the findings gleaned from market research hinges on the compatibility of the culled participants with the project's objectives. There's also timing to contend with.

To get the best results, the right respondents must be at their most amenable state to fully engage in the process. AI solves these challenges.

Efficient analysis of different data types

AI does not discriminate, meaning it can pore over both quantitative and qualitative data. As for the latter, open-ended text responses pose the biggest challenge for marketers. Just consider the struggle of manually perusing open-source survey answers, call center call logs, and social media posts and comments. These data points become more manageable through AI.

Report generation

Another time and brain cells consuming aspect of research for your target audience is report generation. Data has no use without findings and conclusions, which are the end goals of the process.

With the help of AI, your team of marketers can reach reasonable judgments and assumptions faster. Here, speed is essential. The last thing you want to happen is to come up with a market research finding that has already become outdated due to delayed delivery.

Real-time insights

Conducting market research does not have to be in the same linear fashion as before. With the help of AI, all stages of the process can happen at once. That is called real-time insight generation, made possible via constant data aggregation.

Assurance of data integrity

While AI fast-tracks data analysis and report generation, it does not compromise data integrity. In fact, that risk is more prevalent in manual data gathering and interpretation because of potential human error.

Increased automation and productivity

More people can focus on the more crucial stage of data analysis as opposed to, for instance, data gathering, which AI could help facilitate through automation.

Best Tools for AI Market Research

AI applications for market research run the gamut. Here are the most noteworthy uses of AI in your market research efforts.

Sales Forecasting

This aspect of business management is integral to envisioning long-term business growth and expansion. It's a key component of market research that can benefit from optimization via AI. Accurate sales forecasting owes to precise lead scoring. That's a job AI can pull off with ease and efficiency.

Digital Advertising Optimization

One way to ensure that quality leads get the most attention from your marketing staff is digital advertising optimization. That's another job suited for AI, which has the capacity to interpret data revealed by social profiles, keyword searches, and other online buyer persona indicators. Gathering and analyzing these data sets can result in well-informed digital marketing efforts.

Consumer Profiling

Profiling potential consumers is a crucial process in market research because it provides members of your marketing team with insights into consumer values and pain points. As such, you can tailor your messaging better so that it resonates stronger with the recipient.

Consumer Behavior Prediction

Data on customer experience is key to market research. It provides predictive insights on consumer behavior that may be useful for creating targeted messaging. AI-driven tools allow this type of analysis.

Facial Sentiment Analysis

Sure, it's in your best interest to trust what respondents write on surveys. But wouldn't it be better if a more sophisticated technology that could delve deeper into the customer's psyche existed? That's what facial sentiment analysis aspires to be. This AI-driven market research tool can read a survey respondent's micro-expressions as they watch content relevant to a study.

Best Practices in AI-driven Market Research

Businesses that are ready to integrate AI into market research need to be precise with the tool's application. Here are some best practices to get behind.

Exhaust diverse channels

AI can cater to massive data volumes from multiple sources. Maximize that potential by conducting market research through various channels.

Obtain more insights

Do not get limited to initial AI-powered market research findings. Use algorithms to determine possible follow-up questions that may be valuable for a secondary study, providing deeper market insights for your organization.

Maximize existing data

A specific objective guides every market research. Do not neglect existing data just because they already served their purpose. The same data might offer answers to new questions.

Focus on what matters to consumers

AI enables you to zero in on the most crucial aspects of digital marketing. Trust the technology to deliver its promise, and resist the urge to fall back to old habits of tedious manual processes.

Wrapping It Up

Marketing requires knowledge and expertise. And it pays to accept that even experts need a helping hand to do the job the best way possible. That's where integrating AI comes in.

Maximize the technology for market research, and reap rewarding findings that may translate to practical strategies. Here, the end goal is to increase the conversion rate.

Rest assured, with AI-driven market research, it's possible to determine how to deal with potential customers no matter where they are in the sales funnel. No data will ever get wasted again.