Health Product Market Research

When you’re looking to gain in-depth insight from potential customers, focus groups can often be the best technique to utilise. Particularly in the baby and supplements markets, focus groups represent an ideal way to find out about consumer views on the current market, and ultimately gain an idea of how to address any unmet needs. Or for those situations where you’d like to test out some new product concepts with a group of potential customers, allowing a level of breadth to suit the objectives of the research.

Our focus groups are often held in public venues in major cities including London, Bristol and Manchester, with participants drawn from our HRA Research Panel. Where there is an existing relationship, we are able to hold focus groups in supermarket training rooms. This allows us to take respondents down to the healthcare and baby care aisles and get feedback on their decision-making process in a real-life store environment.

We can also offer online focus groups when face to face isn’t an option. This method can be particularly useful in the health and baby sectors where specific sample criteria means participants can be fairly spread out geographically. This is an ideal technique when insight is needed quickly without compromising on depth. Online groups also allow clients to view the sessions remotely, providing guidance on further areas for exploration.

In the health and baby sectors, in-depth interviews can be an ideal way of gaining detailed insight from specific consumer groups. With vitamins and supplements often a personal experience, depth interviews allow consumers to open up and share their genuine views. Likewise, in the baby category, parents can be prone to being intimidated by other people in a group scenario which can prevent you getting their honest opinions. Therefore in these situations, in-depth interviews can be an ideal method.

Interviews can also be a great starting point for exploring customer views and pain points for clients using research to help in their Design Thinking process.

Interviews can be held face-to-face, on the telephone, or via Zoom where the ability to gather video clips of key quotes can be particularly insightful.

Vitamins, supplements and baby care are all categories where gaining consumer trust is key and therefore the in-store experience is central to consumer perceptions of brands. By using in-store intercepts, or ‘accompanied shopping’ we are able to gather in-store feedback on how your brand is being perceived amongst competitors. This method can provide valuable feedback on real-world brand perception that would be difficult to gain through any other method.

Workshops can be an ideal way to stimulate new thoughts and develop ideas. We can either run these with clients, customers or a mixture of both. Introducing people from outside of the business is often a great way of seeing a problem with fresh eyes and identifying new, unexplored opportunities.

Ideation Groups (or Innovation Sessions) are a particularly great method of starting off the market research process by highlighting areas for further exploration by really engaging with consumers, particularly exploring what they want category innovation to look like. This is especially important in the vitamin and supplement market where it is important to maintain an awareness of how consumer knowledge reflects emerging science and research.

Within the health and baby care categories, in-home placement is an important component of the research process. With products in these categories used primarily at home, it is important to understand how these products are actually being used in a ‘real world’ environment. This gives a much more reliable measure of genuine behaviour than simply asking consumers about their vitamin and supplement routines or experience with baby care products. This method is an ideal way of testing out new products and gaining rigorous and reliable feedback.

At HRA, we see video as an extremely valuable tool – sometimes able to convey more in a few seconds than a whole page of text. Ultimately, market research comes down to people, and watching people speak is the best way of really understanding what they mean.

With our in-house video production capabilities, we can pick out and distil the key video clips for you in an easily digestible format.

Gaining consumer trust is incredibly important in the health and baby care categories and therefore in-store presentation is key. The last thing you want is for your brand to be merchandised in a way you hadn’t intended. Using our national panel of fieldworkers we can check up on stores and help iron out any issues.

Market Research Online Communities (MROC) are a popular technique in the health and baby care markets. Gaining feedback on products over time is vital to the development and roll out of any successful brand. By logging on to an online platform, respondents are encouraged to upload images, videos and diary entries, and to participate in polls and group discussions. This highly interactive method is unique in that it allows us to gain rich insight into consumer views and determine the impact of various factors in their everyday lives.

By sending out samples to respondents, we can also gather feedback on taste, branding, packaging and usability. This allows consumers to try products in their home – something highly valuable in the health and baby care categories.

While qualitative research is highly valuable in providing rich and detailed insight, only through conducting quantitative research can we gather reliable data from a large enough sample to be able to make robust business decisions.

For these situations, we offer online surveys. Whether you are looking for a quick sense check or an extensive data set, we can design a bespoke survey to suit your needs. Utilising our proprietary panel, we are able to recruit a sample to mirror your target customer audience.

Our fast-growing proprietary panel of participants is made up of a broad range of consumers spread across the UK. Whether you’re looking for baby care experts or supplement early adopters, we can recruit a sample of consumers reflecting your specific requirements. Our panel is thoroughly screened to ensure our participants are always engaged in the research we conduct. We believe in paying respondents fairly and in return expect them to take the time to participate fully. This ensures our research is always delivered to a high standard and provides genuine insight.

One of the most valuable outputs of quantitative research is the ability to build consumer segments, all with their own wants, needs and habits. Using SPSS we can build statistically robust consumer segments from large-scale survey data. This segmentation modelling adds significant value to quantitative research and ensures you have a detailed image of your different customer segments, their thoughts and opinions.