This is a summary of Intro to Product and Market Research lecture from Dimas Radityo (PM and Ex-Research Team)
Hey, do you want some research?
well…
You after doing 8+ hours of research (be like)
What is research?
Research
any activities that provide more information (insight) on a specific subject
and research may already become a part of your daily activity such as…
reading tweets on Twitter about startups who release new features (sentiment analysis)
asking peers who are working in different industries to get some insight
reading reports published by institutions
What’s the benefit of doing research?
- Help to make a better decision
- Able to identify potential and new opportunity
- Understand the customer better
Research in Product Management
In the context of PM, research is divided into 2 types = market and product research.
Market Research
is a top-down approach, from the bigger standpoint of a market
Market research
understand the landscape, size, and cost/benefit of entering the market
The benefits of market research are
- Help to decide the right product-launch strategies
- Can provide a strategic edge
- Build continuous innovation
What to do in market research?
One of the common market research activities is addressing the market size.
Market Sizing
estimate the size of a market to determine the cost/benefit of entering
The idea is to decide if the market is big enough, worth it, or not to pursue after (enter).
Investors want to minimize risk and maximize return… the ROI
Market sizing will help to inform that.
to address the market size we can do an estimation
to get a rough number that can possibly be achieved in a market
or they call it “guesstimation”
remember tamsamsom? from this post 🎨The Lean Canvas
We can use TAMSAMSOM as the framework to define a market size.
the TAM should be the total demand for a product/service in the market
and the SAM will be the segment of the TAM that we can reach within our range
while the SOM is the portion of SAM that we can possibly capture in the market.
This number is still an estimation that may be inaccurate, to get more accurate, survey science is the way to go.
After we have done the market research
know the size of the market and if we decide to enter
now we can do a product research
Product Research
While market research is from the bigger standpoint,
product research is more on a narrow level that comes with a bottom-up approach.
It usually focuses on a specific, smaller sample of a user
Product Research
understand and uncover the user needs to build a better product
The benefits of product research are
- Understand the user better
- Develop a better product based on data
- And even can help to gain insight into competitor’s product
What to do in product research?
Define a user persona
User Persona
representation of a real user with similar characteristics
Some users will have similar patterns that can be grouped into a user persona.
They have unique personalities, demographic, and behaviors that can be found
A user persona is defined as a fictional representation that is based on the data
The information in the user persona can consist of
- Identity
- Tagline
- Demographic
- Channels / Information Consumption
- Goals
- Pain Points / Frustrations
- Behaviors of the user
After we define the user persona
we can map the user journey
User Journey
a path that the user will go through from start to finish while using (interacting with) our products
Mapping the user from how they know our products, to install, use, buy, and even review. It can be from the awareness or discovery phase until referral.
Different user personas may have different journeys.
Each stage or step of the journey may have different pain points specifically from what the user may encounter in that phase
The user journey can consist of
- The specific user persona
- The stage/step/phase
- User goals
- User' activity
- User touchpoints
- User emotions
- User pain points
- Suggestion/recommendation
To determine the steps in user journey,
we can refer to the golden path
The Golden Path
ideal (core) flow of the user to get the product’s value
The Golden Path should focus on the straight-forward use of the product and not the exception or errors that may be encountered by the user
Okay, that will be the overview of an introduction to market and product research in product management.
Now, how to do the research itself?
How to do the research?
The research start with a problem, signals, or hypothesis to test
The end-to-end research process
1. Signals | 2. Research Questions | 3. Methodology | 4. Respondent Criteria |
In overall, there are 2 Methodology of research
Quantitative
a number & sample-based
- Surveys
- Social Media Listening
- Experiments
- Data Analysis
Qualitative
a word & observation-based
- Interview
- Focus Group Discussion
- Ethnography
- Mystery Shopping
The Sample Size
It consists of the population, confidence level, and the margin of errors
Use these tools to calculate the sample size
The research report
The Findings
what we found in the research
The Problem or Hypotheses
which problem or hypotheses that we tested
The Next Steps
what’s the suggestion
Suggestion
- Define user persona from the customer segment in lean canvas
- More detailed next-step action from the research report