MRFGR helps you understand the people you need to reach: who they are, what matters to them and how they make decisions. We use interviews, focus groups and surveys to explore their needs, behaviour and preferences. The findings can inform your products, services, messages and choice of marketing channels.
Audience research is a crucial component of effective marketing and communication strategies. It involves collecting and analysing information about the demographics, behaviours, and preferences of your target audience. This research helps businesses tailor their products, services, and messaging to meet the specific needs and desires of their customers, ensuring that marketing efforts are focused and effective.
Planning audience research
Understand the characteristics, behaviours and preferences that distinguish the people you want to reach.
Explore motivations and barriers, then use the findings to shape communication and targeting.
Use audience evidence to inform product, service or campaign decisions. Agree the audience groups and reporting needs in the brief.
Tell us which audience you need to understand, the decision you are making and what you already know.
Audience research offers direct insights into the heart of your target market. By understanding who your customers are and what they value, you can create marketing campaigns that resonate deeply, increasing engagement and loyalty. This method is not just about gathering data; it's about connecting on a personal level, ensuring your message is not only heard but also appreciated and acted upon. Whether you’re launching a new product or refining an existing service, audience research confirms that your efforts align with customer expectations and market demand.
There are several methodologies for conducting audience research, each with its strengths. Qualitative techniques like focus groups and in-depth interviews provide a deep understanding of consumer motivations and attitudes, while quantitative methods like surveys and polls offer measurable insights into consumer behaviours and preferences. Combining these approaches gives a comprehensive view of your audience, allowing for more targeted and effective marketing strategies.
To conduct effective audience research, start by clearly defining your objectives and the information you need to achieve them. This clarity will guide the design of your research, helping you choose the right questions and the appropriate methodology. It’s also crucial to ensure that your research reaches the correct audience segments to gather relevant and actionable insights. This might mean segmenting by demographics, behaviours, or even consumer attitudes.
Audience research is an invaluable tool that not only provides deep insights but also empowers your business to stay agile and responsive in a dynamic market. Embracing the challenges of audience research, such as ensuring data relevance, avoiding sampling bias, and maintaining engagement, transforms these potential hurdles into opportunities for refinement and growth. By consistently applying the latest techniques and approaches, your business can obtain high-quality insights that lead to more effective strategies and robust outcomes.
Moreover, the necessity for ongoing audience research is an advantage, keeping your business at the forefront of market trends and consumer preferences. This continuous cycle of feedback and adaptation helps ensure that your services remain compelling and competitive, allowing you to effectively meet the evolving needs of your customers.
Project examples
A global pet technology brand needed more than celebrity recognition to guide ambassador selection. MRFGR gathered consumer ratings of familiarity, trust and credibility across eight markets, delivering structured raw data for the client’s own analysis.
Read case studyMRFGR clients
These organisations and the feedback below relate to MRFGR projects across our services.
Client feedback
Feedback from other MRFGR projects.
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Over the past year, we have had the pleasure of working with MRFGR on multiple projects, and we cannot recommend them highly enough.
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Their communication throughout our engagements has been excellent, always prompt and clear, which has greatly facilitated our processes.
The team at MRFGR, although small, is exceptionally knowledgeable and dedicated. Their expertise is evident in their ability to obtain high sample sizes and deliver well-published results. What sets them apart is how easily their findings are translated into actionable insights, ensuring that we can swiftly and effectively utilise the data.
Their speed of delivery is truly impressive. We consistently receive results in good time, which is crucial for our fast-paced operations. MRFGR has proven to be an invaluable partner, and their service has consistently exceeded our expectations.
For anyone in need of reliable, efficient, and insightful research services, MRFGR comes highly recommended.
MRFGR have been absolutely brilliant! The videos we have received from their respondents have been perfect - they clearly brief their people really well and you can tell from the content we receive. They give clear communication & are on hand to help at all times. We give them some crazy tight timelines and they turn things around for us so quickly and without stress - even when the respondents are coming from multiple countries.
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I highly recommend Matthew & Paul - they're fab!
When I phoned Matthew at MRFGR I was in a bit of a pickle. I needed to recruit 25 consultant paediatricians for telephone interviews (with minimal incentive) across 8 countries, two of which were non-English speaking. Oh, and I needed to have recruited and completed the interviews in 12 working days. Surprisingly, Matthew wasn't taken aback by this and set about the task with enthusiasm. Even against these challenging timescales, Matthew was able to deliver all 25 consultants - a phenomenal effort.
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I was extremely happy. And, more importantly, so was my client.
MRFGR were not the cheapest firm who pitched for our work, but I am happy that I decided to go with them. I feel that their database is extensive and this combined with their excellent client service means that they offer a higher degree of reassurance and peace of mind than other recruitment agencies we have worked with in the past. When we had a problem to resolve at short notice they did this very quickly. I would happily work with them again.
Hi Stephen Both groups went very well - a key client attended the first and was very pleased. Very articulate groups, really impressed especially considering it was such a difficult recruit (recruiting Somalis). The hotel was great too, incidentally, a nice place to do groups. Many thanks for your hard work on this - hope you feel it was worthwhile!
MRFGR recruited four focus groups for our research across a variety of settings, including socio- economically deprived urban communities and very small rural communities. Despite the significant challenges these settings posed MRFGR ensured that all our focus groups were fully attended, and with a minimum of fuss. I would have no hesitation in recommending them for recruitment work.
It's always a pleasure to work with MRFGR. They are a great partner who consistently recruit high calibre respondents to take part in our research projects and workshops. Always professional and very reliable.
Our organisation, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, has used MRFGR to support our recruitment requirements for focus groups and public events and we have always found their service and achievements to be excellent. They have demonstrated a commitment to meet last-minute requirements in a calm and professional manner and we would not hesitate to recommend them.
I would like to take this opportunity to express our appreciation for the work that you recently carried out for us. Stephen Essex and MRFGR were recommended to me by a colleague. It was important for us to find a company who could understand and deliver our brief on a very tight schedule. Stephen demonstrated a level of knowledge and professionalism that gave us the assurance that this would be achieved.
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The result was a report that clearly met the objectives of our brief, was presented in a professional manner, which then enabled us to present the findings to our customer with confidence. We would not hesitate to recommend or use Stephen again.
The groups in Chipping Norton went really well thank you. We had a full turn out to both of them. I would just like to say that we have been very impressed with the number of participants you have managed to recruit to these groups, your regular updates on the recruitment progress, and your follow up contact. We have also had very positive feedback from the participants about their contact with you. We will definitely consider MRFGR in future when wishing to recruit participants to similar groups.
We have used MRFGR to recruit participants for multiple research projects with varied samples sizes and sometimes challenging recruitment criteria. They have a calm and professional manner, providing us with regular updates in the lead up to and on the day of research projects. Multiple touch points with participants approaching the study date ensures drop-out rates are extremely low with replacements usually being found very quickly if necessary. I look forward to working with MRFGR in the future.
MRFGR is the first external company we have used for sourcing focus group attendees. Although we have organised many groups previously I would definitely use MRFGR again. The costs were reasonable and the attendees we have received have been exactly the right target groups. The level of communication has been satisfactory too with regular updates leading up to each focus group. Matthew has managed all of the groups we have requested and there has been no issues. I would recommend trying MRFGR.
Common questions
Selected answers for planning this kind of research. Browse the complete knowledge centre for related methods, audiences and delivery questions.
Audience research identifies who your audiences are, their behaviours, preferences, and how best to reach them.
Open FAQYes. We measure TV, digital, print, and radio usage to inform media planning.
Open FAQAudience research delivers clear understanding of target groups, improving targeting and engagement.
Open FAQYes. We run projects across countries with cultural adaptation for comparability.
Open FAQIt should be updated regularly to reflect changing behaviours and new media channels.
Open FAQIt ensures marketing strategies are based on evidence, not assumptions, improving effectiveness.
Open FAQYes. We research both consumer and professional audiences across multiple industries.
Open FAQIt is valuable in media, entertainment, retail, and public sector campaigns.
Open FAQRelated services
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Find out moreStart a research brief
Share what you need to understand, the audience, market, product, brand or campaign context, plus any existing data or deadlines.