How 5 Major Companies Used Market Research to Grow Their Business (and Win Loyal Fans)

After your product has been released into the wild, it’s time to observe through market research. You’ve created something, but how does it work when people interact with it? Are customers satisfied with their experience? 

Smart companies use market research to grow their business. Based on what comes up in market research, many companies see new opportunities, solve problems, or gain an edge on their competitors thanks to new information.

Let’s look at how five different companies leveraged their market research results in innovative and profitable ways.

Industry:  Retail coffee and snacks store

Company: Starbucks

Starbucks uses market research in the form of customer feedback to guide their business. Back in 2008, Starbucks created “The Idea Platform” to gather customer suggestions. It was a wild success, which revealed a wealth of data about customer trends and preferences. The business still encourages customers to submit any ideas they have for new offerings, changes they’d like to see, requests to bring back old products, and more.

Industry: Lodging

Company: Airbnb 

Airbnb has a dedicated research group that compiles information on its customers. Rather than have a data team that works in a siloed environment crunching numbers alone, however, Airbnb’s data scientists regularly collaborate with other departments to leverage the community’s voice for business decisions.  By utilizing their rich datasets comprised of guest and host interactions, they have built a predictive search model to better serve customers. 

Industry: Fast food and quick service dining

Company: KFC

Studies show that more people want to eat health-conscious food. Fast food maker KFC has responded by teaming up with the producer of plant-based meat substitutes Beyond Meat. KFC launched an in-store consumer testing sale of Beyond Meat “fried chicken” in August 2019. The Beyond Fried Chicken sold out in 5 hours. By keeping on the pulse of changing market trends, KFC seized an opportunity to offer plant-based options and appeal to an emerging demographic.

Industry: Subscription services 

Company: Conscious Box

Conscious Box uses surveys to gather marketing research data and shares their customer feedback with manufacturers. Manufacturers and marketers use a custom online portal to see how Conscious Box subscribers rated each product. This gives both the company and its partners critical customer feedback. The use of monthly surveys drives which products are selected for future monthly subscriptions. 

Industry: Soaps & lotions

Company: Dove 

Dove’s award-winning #SpeakBeautiful campaign was inspired by the finding that women were two times as likely to say something negative about themselves on Twitter as they were to say something positive.

The soap brand partnered with Twitter in 2015 to launch the #SpeakBeautiful campaign, which relied heavily on social media market research. After launching in 2015, those 5 million negative tweets dropped to 3.4 million – a 36.8% decrease year over year. The hashtag was used more than 168,000 times and the campaign overall was a huge win for the brand.

Much like detective work, sometimes market research means going out and asking questions. Other times, it takes leveraging the information that’s all around you. Through one form or another of investigation, these companies were able to recognize changing trends and achieve success. 

Read about how market research can lead to business growth and save you money.