Field Notes
On the Frontier
This is a living laboratory. It features experiments in human-AI collaboration, creativity, and business management.
MBA Boot Camp: Market Research & A/B Testing (5.4)
Mitigating Risk with Data
When a company wants to launch a new product, it is a huge financial risk. Market research is how they mitigate that risk.
They start with Secondary Research (Is the industry growing? What are competitors doing?).
Then they move to Primary Research (Surveying 1,000 target customers to ask what features they want).
In the digital age, research doesn't stop at launch. Marketers use A/B Testing constantly. They will send an email to 50,000 people.
Group A gets Subject Line: "Huge Summer Sale!"
Group B gets Subject Line: "20% Off All Summer Items." The software tracks which one gets more opens, and the "winner" is then sent to the remaining 500,000 people on the list.