In today’s fast-paced digital economy, long-term success is not a given. It demands constant innovation, agility, and a willingness to adapt. For product managers, every decision matters and cannot be left to chance alone – great products are created using data-backed decisions. In this article, we will discuss why using data is essential for decision-making and how market research data, in particular, can help you find success.
Why data is essential for decision-making
While intuition can go a long way for a successful product manager, using a data-driven strategy can help provide clarity on what truly works and what does not. By conducting market research to analyse trends and understand the needs of your customers, you can remove the guesswork from the equation.
Let us consider a scenario where your internal stakeholders want to change a staple feature of your product. Rolling out such a change without validating it with your customers may lead to detrimental results for your product. However, if you test this update with a small subset of your customers and monitor the impact of this change, you can minimise unnecessary risk and make informed decisions.
Before committing to a new feature for your product, it is a good idea to first gather evidence that demonstrates its potential value. Depending on the situation, this may be done through a small survey of your target audience, asking your current customers about their thoughts, or even testing out this feature with a small subset of your current users. However, using data to make informed decisions goes beyond that. It involves analysing broader market trends, benchmarking your product against its competitors, and so much more.
Remove the guesswork by validating product changes through small-scale testing.
In general, whether you are about to launch a new product or looking to improve your current one, using the right market research data can maximise your chances of success. With this in mind, let us now have a look at some of the challenges you may face as a product manager and the different types of market research data you can use to make informed decisions.
Understanding your customers through market research
As a product manager, ensuring that your products meet the real needs of your users is one of the most critical aspects of your role. Overlooking the critical pain points of your customers or focusing on features that do not resonate with them can lead to poorly received products.
A great product is one that addresses the real needs of its customers, not assumptions.
By sending surveys to your customers and asking the right questions, you can generate quantitative insights about their likes and dislikes, identify missing features, and pinpoint where you can improve. Alternatively, you may wish to take a qualitative approach by conducting interviews and focus groups. These methods help you dive deeper into your customers’ motivations, behaviours, and preferences, providing rich insights that go beyond numbers.
We can help you understand your customers and their needs. Find out more about our services.
Prioritising features
Building a successful product requires significant resource allocation, meaning that prioritising the wrong features can be very costly. On top of this, dealing with competing demands from stakeholders can make it difficult to know which features to prioritise. Luckily, market research offers plenty of solutions that solve a large variety of problems.
One such solution is A/B testing, which uses randomised controlled experiments to compare two versions of something like a product feature or a marketing strategy to figure out which one is better than the other. For example, you may hypothesise that sending out notifications to the users of your application twice as often will boost engagement. However, this may not be the right choice for your application. This is where A/B testing comes in handy. You can roll out this feature to a randomly selected group of users and test its effects on your engagement metrics of choice.
A/B testing turns hypotheses into actionable insights, reducing the risks of costly missteps.
In more complex scenarios, methods like MaxDiff and conjoint analysis can also provide detailed insights. MaxDiff can help you figure out which features to prioritise by asking your customers to identify the most and the least important features in a series of questions. On the other hand, conjoint analysis can be used to determine which feature combinations appeal most to your customers. This can be done by simulating a series of real-world choices and asking your customers which ones they prefer.
Advanced methods like MaxDiff and conjoint analysis reveal what users value most, enabling smarter prioritisation.
Price optimisation
Another challenge product managers face is figuring out how much to charge customers in a way that maximises revenue. While conjoint analysis can be helpful in performing price optimisation alongside feature sets, more specialised techniques may be more useful when your product's features are already decided.
For example, Van Westendorp’s price sensitivity meter can be used to identify a price range for your product by asking your target audience at which prices your product would feel too cheap, provide good value, or be too expensive. On the other hand, the Gabor-Granger method directly asks customers whether they would purchase your product at certain price points. This approach pinpoints the price that maximises revenue by assessing actual purchase intent at different price levels.
Effective pricing strategies balance perceived value and purchase intent. Van Westendorp reveals the optimal price range, while Gabor-Granger pinpoints the price that maximises revenue.
Identifying market opportunities
Approaching product management without first understanding market trends can lead to roadmaps that do not align with what the market needs. In turn, this can result in wasted efforts in pursuing stagnant or declining opportunities.
One way to combat this is by performing a competitive market analysis, which can help you better understand the space and discover where to focus your efforts. Analysing market trends can extend this a step further by monitoring shifts in the behaviour patterns of your customers and identifying things such as emerging technologies. In addition to this, it can be highly beneficial to perform market sizing research. With this, you can assess the size of your addressable market and, if an opportunity is worth pursuing, how much to invest in it.
Monitoring post-launch performance
While launching a product can be challenging in itself, it is only the first step on a long journey towards long-term success. To achieve this, you must monitor how well your product performs and address user feedback throughout its lifetime. However, failing to do so can lead to severe consequences, including customer churn and a damaged reputation for your company.
By leveraging existing industry reports or commissioning custom surveys, you can gather valuable insights to ensure that your product remains relevant and meets the expectations of your customers. For instance, fielding a survey with a representative sample of your target audience can help you understand your product’s standing in awareness and adoption.
To identify what works well for your customers and what needs to be improved, you can also measure how satisfied they are with your product, including its specific attributes. Similarly, asking users of your product about how likely they are to recommend it to others can help you measure customer loyalty. For this, well-established metrics such as customer satisfaction (CSAT) and the net promoter score (NPS) can provide valuable insights. Beyond this, you may also wish to explore things like user engagement rates or supplement your research with some qualitative interviews to build a comprehensive picture of how well your product is performing.
Success does not stop upon launching a product. It is sustained by continually listening to your customers and evolving your product to meet their needs.
How we can help
As a product manager, you will face a wide array of challenges, ranging from understanding what your customers need, to finding ways to stay ahead of your competitors. Market research provides the tools and insights you need to make smarter decisions, reduce risk, and deliver products that resonate with users and drive business success.
At SlashData, we specialise in delivering tailored research solutions for product leaders like you. Whether you are exploring a new market, refining your product roadmap, optimising pricing strategies, or assessing which features to prioritise, our expertise ensures you have the insights you need to succeed. Contact us today to discuss how our custom research solutions can empower your team and fuel your product’s success!
About the author
Nikita Solodkov, Senior Market Research Analyst
Nikita is a multidisciplinary researcher with a particular interest in using data-driven insights to solve real-world problems. He holds a PhD in Physics and has over five years of experience in data analytics and research design.