Scientific journals provide a wealth of insights and useful ammunition that can boost nearly every facet of product development and commercialization processes. Unlike market research, which is based on stated information, scientific publications shed light on scientists’ actions.
That said, brand and application monitoring in journals isn’t a replacement for traditional market research. Instead, it presents you with another useful source of data that you can incorporate into your market strategy development and tactical execution.
In the spirit of the World Cup, let’s take a look at where each of these data sources scores.
Points for Market Research
- Great for getting researcher input. Sometimes it’s better to go right to the source
- Good way to obtain input for projecting future trends in markets, market share, and emerging markets
- Free form: You can ask anybody, anything
Points Against Market Research
- You get answers, but many factors can impact how good the answers are including:
o Survey questions
o Survey length
o Panel experience
- Often needs large volume of respondents, which can be challenging and expensive
Points for Brand Monitoring
- Tells you what researchers did (e.g. published successfully using a method) not what they thought they did, or somebody else in the lab was doing, or what they thought they might do someday.
- Generally there is a large volume of data available, making it easier to heavily segment and still have enough data to identify trends by region, institution, author and more.
Points Against Brand Monitoring
- Based on journal publications, which tells you about the recent past.
- Not as useful for market sectors that appear less frequently in journals (e.g. pharma)
- Does not provide a direct interaction with respondents
So Who’s the Winner?
The real winner is today’s marketer, market researcher, strategist and other key players in life science firms, because you have two great sources of data that really go well together.
Market research and peer-review monitoring provide unique insights that address the shortfalls of the other, plus when used together, they can really shine. Consider these scenarios that combine the two:
Using Peer Review to Pre-Segment Market Research Panels
Often market research panels are incentivized to participate in surveys. They might not be experts in the method, the field, or an authority regardless of their experience level.
What if you could pre-stock your panels with key researchers from Asia, who have published more than 20x in stem cell related work? Peer review can help target your market research to the right people.
Dive Into Publication Trends with Market Research
Monitoring your brand or method in peer review journals can yield invaluable insights into emerging trends, competitive dynamics, market share, and growth trajectories to name a few.
One thing this approach will not do though is answer why these trends are occurring. That’s where market research comes in. The good news is that you can dive into the specific trend of interest using the advanced segmented that peer review monitoring provides.
So, when you’re ready to add some depth to your market modeling, brand assessment, or just need another angle to evaluate a strategic opportunity, start listening to peer review, or better yet, contact us and we’ll brainstorm with you.