It’s essential to validate your product idea before investing resources into it; you need to feel confident its profitability will outweigh expenses. This is where it pays to hire a product researcher, as they’ll help you lay the foundations for a successful product launch (and continue to add value through your product lifecycle).
Tech giant Apple understands the value of this position well. Before launching the first iPhone in 2007, Apple conducted extensive market research to understand consumer preferences and identify gaps in the market. As a result, the iPhone revolutionized the mobile phone industry and propelled Apple to become one of the most valuable companies globally.
If you’re looking to future-proof your products, investing in product research is a must. In this article, I discuss the role of a product researcher and lay out nine arguments as to why you should add the role to your team.
What is a product researcher?
A product researcher is a specialist who carries out market research, examines data, and interprets customer feedback to guide product development and product marketing. They’re an important part of any product team and can work in a variety of industries, from tech to healthcare, retail, finance, and more.
Product researchers typically collaborate with product marketers, managers, engineers, and designers to identify market gaps, develop new products, and improve existing ones.
Specifically, product researchers:
- Consider potential product ideas
- Test concepts, products, and prices
- Conduct customer surveys and interviews
- Analyze and research market trends
Those are only some of the core tasks and responsibilities of a product researcher. However they do it, their primary goal is to ensure the product satisfies customer demands and preferences while also achieving your business goals.
They focus on optimizing the products launched to achieve that sweet spot between customer satisfaction and business success.
9 Compelling reasons you need to hire a product researcher
If you don’t know what your customers want, even your best product risks failure. Enter the product researcher. Their duty is to make sure your products succeed — and if they fail, they’ll find out why.
To convince you of their importance, here are nine powerful reasons why you should add a product researcher to your team.
1) Conduct unbiased data analysis
Data analysis is an essential part of product development. Your future products must be able to solve users’ key issues — but first, you need to determine what those problems are.
This is where product researchers excel.
A product researcher collects, analyzes, and interprets data from various sources. They use qualitative and quantitative research methods to gather accurate, unbiased information about your target customers, the product itself, and the wider market. These methods often include a mix of customer interviews, surveys, and industry reports, among other tactics.
Online tools can be especially helpful for automating segments of data analysis. Mixpanel and Amplitude are prime examples of tools product researchers can use to gather real-time product experience insights. However, there are lots of options available to choose from — all of which will enhance your data analysis efforts.
After evaluating the collected data, a product researcher identifies market trends, consumer preferences, and opportunities for improvement, providing rich insights to help you make informed product development decisions. Product research lets you understand your users’ problems and build solutions they need, want, and are willing to pay for.
2) Understand the competitive landscape
To stay at the forefront of your industry, you need to become familiar with your rivals. Product researchers can effectively examine your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, and current activities, as well as the market share and pricing tactics used within it.
Keeping a close eye on these metrics will give you a deeper understanding of the industry landscape and what changes you need to make to hone your competitive edge. As your product researcher digs into competitor analysis, they’ll be able to answer questions like:
- Do other companies have products offering similar solutions to ours?
- What are these companies doing that we aren’t?
- Do the other products available satisfy our target customers’ needs?
- How can we improve our product to make it a marketplace leader?
Once they’ve answered these questions, the product researcher can uncover any gaps in the market that your product can fill to secure a competitive advantage. They’ll also be able to inform you of your competitors’ positioning so you know how to improve your own going forward.
If, for example, your competitor sells a product at the same price as your company but at a lower quality, you can take advantage of this information to lean more heavily on the quality aspect in your product marketing. Alternatively, you internalize that revelation to improve your product quality for the next phase of product development.
Product research lets you analyze your competitor’s mistakes and capitalize on those insights. By understanding the competitive landscape, you can develop products that meet market needs and differentiate your company from others in your niche.
3) Validate your goals
Before investing time and money into developing a product, you need to be sure it aligns with your business goals, and an experienced product researcher can verify that.
Their research and analysis ensures the objectives set for your product meet your wider business aims and are realistic, and they’ll link any findings from their product analysis as well. Keeping product and business performance closely aligned will allow you to understand exactly how the product moves the needle for your company goals.
On the opposite side of the coin, product researchers can leverage this information to see where products fall short of business goals and make suggestions for improvement. As they analyze products, they’re able to grasp which product changes will have the greatest impact on your broader objectives.
By validating your product goals, product researchers can pinpoint the best ways to refine product performance and address any issues that could hinder progression toward your goals.
4) Tap into existing market research
Whatever industry you’re in, there’s bound to be a wealth of existing research (also known as secondary information) that can educate you about the market. Your products’ market is constantly evolving, whether it’s the emergence of new trends, advancing processes and technologies, or new product releases.
A strong product researcher will tap into existing market research to help you decide the best way forward for your development and marketing.
This secondary information is the result of third-party research and can take the form of:
- Government census data
- Trade association research reports
- Research published by another business in your market sector
A product researcher will help you identify new opportunities based on what has and hasn’t worked before. Historical background can also shine a light on innovative ways to collect customer feedback or test product features with better efficiency.
It’s also a great first step for validating a new idea without conducting your own research (which usually takes up many resources) straight away.
Existing market research can reveal any gaps in the market for your product idea. You can then build on that through your research and analysis.
5) Identify niche markets
Finding a niche market gives you the chance to create products with a specific group in mind. By performing in-depth audience studies and analysis, a product researcher can discover a valuable subcategory for your products.
Once you’ve identified a niche market, the product researcher can then help you understand the wants, needs, and preferences of that specific group. That enables you to assemble products that address the particular demands of your target market, while also fine-tuning your sales and marketing strategies. Dialing into a niche market is a sure way to set yourself apart from the competition.
One way to determine if there’s a product-market fit is by running paid campaigns. With the help of your researcher, product marketing teams can run targeted ad campaigns to “heat test” which audiences demonstrate an interest in your product.
Knowing who you’re targeting helps you write messages that connect with that audience, use language they understand, choose visuals they can identify with, and show up on the most suitable marketing channels.
6) Understand your audience’s JTBD
Understanding what makes your audience tick is critical to developing products that meet their needs and preferences.
A product researcher can hone in on their behavior, pain points, and what they use your product to achieve. They also continuously keep a pulse on your target audience by checking how your product resonates with them.
Gauging audience sentiment and interests is key to stay ahead of upcoming trends and subverting issues early on. It uncovers potential challenges and audience needs when brainstorming ideas for your next product or how to improve existing ones.
Product researchers can also perform social listening to learn what your targeted segment is talking about. Social listening is the process of monitoring web searches, social media channels, and other online resources to analyze what’s being said about your brand and any related topics, products, or companies.
Social listening tools like Sprout Social or Brandwatch help product researchers automate the process of collecting real-time customer data. These tools can keep an eye on live conversations about your brand across lots of online channels, including:
- Blogs
- News sites
- Review sites
- Podcasts
- Newsletters
- Forums
They can also track mentions of your brand name, keywords, phrases, or hashtags related to your company, products, or industry.
Knowing the pulse of your target audience is a powerful way to make sure your brand not only meets but exceeds customer expectations.
7) Analyze the market potential
Would you release a product if it had zero demand? Probably not. That’s why analyzing market potential is a crucial stage in product development. Product researchers measure the market size, demand, trends, and growth potential to determine whether there’s demand for your product idea.
This type of analysis is known as market opportunity analysis. It comprises several research components, including product demand evaluation, risk determination, and policies and regulations. Even simple adjustments can cause the market potential to change quickly, so product researchers have to stay on top of any updated policies and law enforcement that could affect your industry or products.
Source: Gartner
According to Garter, there are six macro factors that will impact new business opportunities over the next 10 years. These are:
- The threat of a recession
- Systemic mistrust
- Poor economic productivity
- Sustainability
- Talent shortage
- Emerging technologies
Companies that understand the effect of these factors can identify new market opportunities more easily. For example, SaaS companies could release a talent acquisition or retention tool to help organizations overcome issues related to employee shortages, thus leveraging the market potential of this factor.
Market potential is a dynamic factor that provides perspective. Its analysis enables you to determine the viability of your idea and its chances of success. Equipped with the right data, you can create products that are more likely to be profitable in the market.
8) Demonstrate product value to stakeholders
Obtaining buy-in from your team and investors is paramount to product longevity. The best person to convey your product value to stakeholders and board members is the one conducting the research and analysis behind it; your product researcher will have all the data to demonstrate your product’s potential impact and ROI.
A product researcher can join board meetings to pitch the chosen product’s benefits and explain how it meets customers’ needs. They can clearly show the potential profit opportunities and how you plan to mitigate identified risks. The product researcher can also provide insights into market trends and the competitive landscape to display why your product is unique and valuable.
By demonstrating your idea’s value, a product researcher can help you secure funding and support for product development.
9) Reduce unnecessary costs
If you develop a product that doesn’t meet customers’ needs, it can cost you dearly. By conducting research though, a product researcher helps you avoid unnecessary expenses.
They can show you what has the potential to work and guide product development toward that solution. This will validate your idea before investing your resources into it and prevent you from chasing a dead end.
A product researcher can also identify potential risks and challenges that may arise during the development process, which saves you time and money in the long run. They’ll conduct a cost-benefit analysis as well to verify the potential gains of product development or marketing activities outweigh their investments.
When it comes to lowering expenses, product researchers also offer useful advice. In a McKinsey & Co survey, “only 34% of respondents said that their organization made [cost-cutting] decisions that were both good and timely.” Bringing a product researcher on board could give you the data you need to make effective cost-cutting decisions — and fast.
Wrapping up — Realize your products’ full potential with a product researcher
Product researchers can help you tap into insightful information to future-proof your products. With the help of expert-led research, your company can gain a competitive edge, introduce innovative creations, and earn sustained market success.
A product researcher will carry out valuable and unbiased data analyses, learn the competitive landscape, validate your goals, draw on existing market research, identify a niche market, and gauge the pulse of your target market. They can also help you demonstrate product value to stakeholders and reduce costs.
If you want to take your business to the next level, invest in a skilled and experienced product researcher.