After weighing up all of your options, you’ve decided on your preferred medical market research company to partner with. You plan to commission them to do market research in the healthcare industry, but does your medical market research company really know the industry they’re going to do market research in? Knowledge of the territory is essential, and here are some ways to make sure that they do know the terrain:
1. The medical market research firm understands your research objectives
If the company really knows and has conducted extensive medical market research in the past, they will know the context of what you’re asking them to do and have a good grasp of what you need and what the research activities could entail. Choose a research company that really understands your objectives for your medical market research plan.
2. The company has a track record of delivering great medical market research reports
A sign of a company that knows what they’re doing are good reports. Some companies only provide “banner runs”, or just raw data. A good firm knows how to contextualize your data, present the most valuable findings in an easily-understandable way, and provide relevant, “actionable” recommendations (more on this below). The best firms can give insight on what the data really implies for their clients. To gauge this, ask for previous reports in order to give you an idea of the report quality you can expect.
3. They research with “action in mind”
Aside from presenting only the most important and relevant data, a good medical market research firm should be able to give you ideas on what to do with the results. If not, you will end up paying for a lot of information, and just information that you don’t know what to do with. You really need a solid plan in place to take your company toward the exactly what you envisioned when you commissioned the medical market research in the first place. Firms should know how to identify the problem before even formulating the methodology and designing the research. A good way to see that a company has action in mind is to see if they ask for evidence of recent work completed.
4. They are highly-experienced
This might seem obvious for medical market research, but this is so vital that it doesn’t hurt to reinforce the point and it’s certainly worthy of a place on this list. Experience is key, and not just any experience, but experience in the particular sector you’re looking to do market research in.
Look for a firm that has had experience dealing with companies similar to yours. Ask for a list of their previous clients. Do they have experience that is relevant to what you’re looking for? Do their analytics team members have relevant experience? Thoroughly investigate their background.
With all this in mind you also need to make sure you get the most out of their expertise by thoroughly briefing them on what your company needs. Let’s say you’ve chosen the medical market research company you want to partner with and you’re ready to conduct some market research. Healthcare is an intricate industry, so it’s still important for you to give them your specific context. You can do this using a market research brief. Here’s an example:
Background:
In a nutshell, tell them about yourself. Introduce them to your company for them to understand your individual needs. Some questions: Why are you doing the medical market research? What are the aims of your business? How does this project fit into your overall strategy?
Medical market research objectives:
What are you looking to get from the research? What do you want to achieve? What outcomes are you searching for?
Business objectives:
These are the objectives of the overall marketing project—market research into healthcare—the research is only a part of, and of the overall strategy.
Target audience:
Who is your target market? What demographic of research participants will give you the best picture of your consumers?
Timing and Budget:
When do you need the results? How much have you allocated in your budget to market research activities?
