Revolutionising customer understanding: How Milieu is changing the game for market research

By Waritsara Juntarima - Head of Growth, Thailand

We all aspire to make bold decisions that change the market and propel the business forward. But behind every bold move you see – whether it’s a disruptive campaign or a new product innovation – you can be certain there were reliable insights that gave the business confidence to place a big bet.

“What are my customers looking for…How do I reach them?” 

I’ve worked with hundreds of marketers and brand leaders over the years, and these are common questions that always pop out, even if they may not say it out loud. The gap between brands and customers has always been tricky to navigate. Traditionally, identifying the needs of customers had been part experience, part guesswork. But data collection is set to change that. A lot of business success is determined by how well brands know their customers, and engaging them in a way that resonates on a deeper level can be what sets them apart. So, how can brands keep up with their customers?

Stay ahead with seamless processes 

Think about a data processing engine that runs  24/7 in the background, where brands can collect data about their customers  round the clock,  and access aggregated data within a very short time - by short, I mean days, or even hours. 

Yes, such agile market research tools make it easy to start new projects and consolidate your data in one place. Similarly, highly visual analytics allow you to quickly get a sense of your results when the pressure’s on (while simultaneously making it possible to access richer insights when you need to). 

Whether it’s testing a new ad, or measuring the effectiveness of a marketing campaign, or finding out how customers perceive a brand or for product development, moving fast in tempo with changing trends is critical. These are times when consumer research needs to be accessible and quick. By automating many of what used to be tedious, manual processes, Milieu is indeed setting new standards for the industry.

Milieu Insight’s one-stop platform Canvas is backed by a data processing engine that connects its data collection app (‘Milieu Surveys’) to its products: Portraits, a consumer profiling platform, and Studies, a research design and reporting platform. 

The data collected is aggregated and reported as charts on the Canvas platform, so you don’t even need to have any data visualisation software knowledge. There is also the flexibility to further segment the data by  consumer demographic of choice, with millions of the latest pre-collected consumer data points accessible straight from the platform.

Confidence in the results, every time

And this is what it all comes down to - Having the certainty that what you’re putting out into the market is the right thing for your consumer and puts you ahead of your competitors.

For brands, this is where things get tricky. Because sure, speed is important. Staying ahead of ever-evolving consumer trends and perspectives does matter. But what if the quest for agility compromises quality?

Milieu not only uses technology to synthesise data, but also to ensure high quality standards. Using automated checks for survey takers’ attention, poor quality responses and fraud detection, every survey goes through a thorough filtering process to remove anything that can compromise data quality.

Affordable cost for uncompromising quality

Now, you have speed and quality - how much is it going to cost? Traditionally, the cost of market research is driven up by the time and effort needed to reach demographics, collect samples, and a whole lot of manual work to process and report data. As an average across research companies, a fully customised research study can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars. Well, we know, it’s not the easiest mission to get budget requests approved. 

By automating parts of the data collection and synthesis process, Milieu effectively achieves more with less effort, thus pushing down the cost of an extensive research study for our clients. This is great news especially for smaller companies, who we can help leverage on studies to make informed business decisions. For example, a 10-question brand dipstick custom questionnaire can be as affordable  as $2,000 USD

Get in touch for your next research project 

Our comprehensive research solutions are designed to answer your questions with uncompromising speed, ease and quality. From instant access to thousands of consumer profiles across Southeast Asia, quick-launch studies to in-depth custom research studies, we're here to help you make data-driven decisions with unparalleled precision. Get it touch with us here.

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