5 Reasons Concept Testing is Crucial Before Going to Market

You’ve probably heard that the chances of a new product, advertisement, or marketing messaging being rejected by customers are pretty high. In fact, 89% of new products fail in the market within their first five years. How can you improve your company’s success rate? There’s a step of product, ad, or messaging development that’s absolutely essential – concept testing. With concept testing, you present a selected target audience with information about your new idea and then gather feedback from them.

Concept tests can utilize both quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative methods give you hard and fast data, such as concept testing surveys that ask customers yes or no questions or to rank your ideas on a 1 to 5 scale. On the other hand, qualitative methods, such as focus groups and interviews, delve deeper into customers’ thoughts and motivations, offering a more nuanced understanding of their perceptions and emotions.

This kind of market research allows you to discover exactly what your target audience thinks of your brand or latest offering before you invest significantly in going to market. The feedback, insights, and data collected during concept testing can help you refine your idea to become exactly what your customers want and need.

Here are five reasons why concept testing is crucial before you go to market:

1. Reducing Risk

Concept testing helps you identify potential flaws or gaps in your idea. Customer feedback also helps you discover any limitations in your product or idea. With clear data guiding development, your idea is more likely to satisfy your customers and less likely to fail.

2. Understanding Target Audience

With concept testing, you can ask your audience about the details of your idea. A concept test allows you to to gauge both what respondents expect from your product or brand and how they react to it. You can also find out about their purchase intent. With detailed data about customer preferences, you can optimize your idea to increase its appeal. Multiple rounds of concept testing help you design a product or campaign that will be in greater demand once it hits the market.

3. Saving Time and Money

While you need to allocate time and resources for concept testing, it offers a significant potential return on investment. Companies face financial losses and wasted time when they release new products or messaging to the market without conducting thorough testing. Longterm, these failures can impact a company’s reputation and even future sales.

4. Increasing Competitive Advantage

Comparison testing helps you understand how your idea will perform against competitors. A closer look at customer experience lets you formulate a product tailored to your audience’s needs. You can make data-driven decisions to fine-tune your product and position it as unique and innovative.

5. Enhancing Confidence

Concept testing helps build your belief in your product, brand, or idea and gives you strong data to get others on board. Insights gathered during concept testing can help you make strategic decisions as you move toward launch.