How Businesses Use Market Research To Help Solve Problems

Many business challenges—like low demand, competitive pressure, missed opportunities, and wasted marketing spend—stem from not fully understanding the market or your customer. Market research helps solve these problems by shining a light on customer needs and the competitive landscape you operate in. The good news? It doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. Market research is a practical, everyday tool for smarter decision-making.

Let’s explore how businesses use market research to tackle some common business problems.

Why should businesses use market research?

To start, what exactly is market research? At its core, it’s about understanding your customers, your competitors, and the trends shaping your industry. It’s not just for big corporations. In fact, small businesses often benefit the most—because even small insights can unlock big solutions.

Customers drive your business. By understanding who they are and how they interact with your product or service, you gain insights that lead to better decisions, fewer costly mistakes, and stronger growth.

Market research also clarifies your competitive landscape. Your true competition isn’t always obvious, but your customers know who they compare you to. Understanding this allows you to adjust your strategies and stand out more effectively.

But let’s start with this - do you know what the problem is?

If sales are declining or demand isn’t where you want it, do you know why?  Too often, businesses jump to solutions before diagnosing the real issue.

Think of it like a car breaking down. The fact that it stopped running is obvious—but why did it happen? Was it out of gas, a flat tire, or an overheated engine? Each cause requires a different fix. The same goes for business problems: identifying the real “why” is the first step to finding the right solution.

Quick fixes like new packaging or advertising may feel productive, but if they don’t address the true problem, they won’t move the needle. That’s why it’s critical to “look under the hood” and uncover what’s really driving performance. Market research helps you do just that - whether the issue lies in your product, pricing, marketing, or messaging.

Let’s take a look at each one of these and how applying market research can help.

Using market research to uncover a product or service issue

The first question to ask: is your product or service meeting customer needs? You can have the best marketing in the world, but if the product doesn’t perform, sales won’t follow.

Also consider the competition—have they improved their offering in ways that now make yours less attractive? Customers may be switching simply because they see better value elsewhere.

Here are some research methods to explore product performance:

• User experience surveys

• Customer interviews (your own or competitors’)

• Call center surveys for inbound customer feedback

• Post-purchase surveys or checkout interview invitations

• Customer satisfaction surveys

• Competitive analysis to benchmark against others in your category

Market research can help determine pricing

Having a profitable business is not just about keeping costs down but also pricing your product/service right so it delivers the value customers are seeking.  And “value” is in the eye of the beholder – your customers.  Your price can’t be too high, negatively impacting demand, or too low, negatively affecting profitability, for what you are offering.  But how do you know if you’re leaving money on the table or turning customers away with your price?

But figuring out the right price can’t easily be done by just asking your customer what they’re willing to pay.  Customers often have a hard time truly estimating what they would pay when it’s out of context.  Market research will help you put it into context, so you get more actionable direction.

Here are some market research methods to find out the right price for your product/service.

Test it in market.  Depending on what you offer and where, you can split your market so that one segment gets one price and the other segment gets another price, then compare the two.  Just make sure each of the segments are similar on everything else.  Or simply run it at one price for several weeks, then run it at another price after that and compare.  Facebook is a great place to do A/B testing since you can make everything the same except the price variable.

Run a concept test at different price points and see what the response is.  A concept test is a survey that asks customers for their opinion on an idea (concept.)

On-line platforms (for a fee) offer price elasticity surveys and models to find the optimal price point.

How market research helps with customer acquisition

Acquiring customers relies heavily on marketing.  But effective marketing relies heavily on knowing who your customer is and whether you’ve identified the right audience.  A great product won’t sell if it’s to the wrong audience.

Here’s a simple example: if you’re the maker of Depends, which sells incontinence underwear, you don’t want an audience of 20-30 year olds who don’t have an incontinence problem.

Below are some research methods to help uncover who your audience is:

• Conduct customer interviews

• Collect demographics of your customers through simple forms at check-out or follow-up surveys via email.

• Look at those who follow you on social media or send a survey through your social media.

• Analyze existing customer data if you have it.

The importance of understanding customer retention

An issue with customer retention is that your product or brand may no longer be relevant to your audience because of overall consumer trends.  It’s important to use market research to stay on top of trends that may impact how your customers view or use your product or service.  There are several mostly free ways to do this.

• Internet searches: this will probably yield a combination of free and paid reports, but many of the paid reports are not that expensive.

• Many market research companies offer free reports or have information on their sites which will probably appear through a Google search.

• Google trends (trends.google.com/trends) – here you can pick a topic or category and see what people have been searching.  For instance, if your business is in the wedding industry you can see what types of weddings, dresses, rings, etc. are being searched.

Positioning benefits greatly by using research

How you are positioned in the market may also impact your customer acquisition.  Do you know what your point of difference is relative to competition?  And is that consistent with how your customers view you?  If you don’t stand out in your category, then you may have a problem with how you’re positioned.  These methods can give you insights to help clarify your strategy.

• Customer interviews – both your customers and your competitors if possible

• Surveys to your email list or on social media

• Competitive assessment by looking at competitor’s websites and reviewing their social media

Lastly, is your communication relevant and compelling to your audience?  You might be positioned well but if you can’t communicate that effectively, customers won’t acknowledge it.  Here are several ways to tackle that:

• Message testing – understand what’s working and not working with different messages

• A/B testing – put different messages in front of customers (current and potential) to see which one works the best (as mentioned earlier Facebook can be an inexpensive way to do this.)

• Customer feedback surveys

The take away: using market research is a good first step to solving business problems

These are just some of the business issues market research can help with.   Market research isn’t just a one-time project—it’s an ongoing tool for solving everyday business problems.  Regularly checking in with your customers and keeping an eye on your market can help you spot issues early, refine your strategies, and grow with confidence.