What Defines Market Research?

Market research is the procedure of determining the feasibility of a new service or product through research which is conducted directly with prospective customers. Market research gives a company the opportunity to discover the target market in addition to getting opinions and other feedback from consumers about their interest in the product or service.

Precise and thorough information is the basis of all successful business ventures as it provides a wealth of information about prospective and existing customers, the competition as well as the industry in general. It gives business owners the opportunity to determine the feasibility of a business before committing substantial resources to the venture.

What Are The Key Aims Of Market Research?

A market research project may often have different types of aims.

Administrative

Assisting a company or business development through appropriate planning, organisation as well as both human and material resources control. Thus, all specific needs within the market, at the right time, are satisfied.

Social

Satisfy customer’s specific needs through a needed product or service. The product or service needs to comply with the requirements as well as preferences of a customer when it’s consumed.

Economical

Determine the economical degree of success or failure a company can have while being new to the market, or otherwise introducing new products or services, and thus providing certainty to all actions to be implemented.

How Is Market Research Information Gathered?

Market research involves of a combination of primary information (or what has been gathered by the company or by a person hired by the company) as well as secondary information, or what has been assembled by an outside source.

Primary Information                       

Primary information is the data which the company has collected directly or which has been collected by a person or business who has been hired to conduct the research. This kind of information usually falls into two categories: exploratory and specific research:

• Exploratory research is a less defined option and also functions via more open-ended questions. This type of results in questions or issues being given that the organisation may need to address. Particular research finds answers to earlier identified issues which are often brought to attention by exploratory research.
• Specific research is more pinpointed and is used to solve the problems that are identified by exploratory research.

Secondary Information

Secondary information is data which an outside entity has already collected. This may include population information from government census data, trade association research reports, or presented research from another business operating within the same market sector.

After identifying the source as well as the type of information that you need, you can begin to collect it.

It is important not to let your opinions or preferences to affect your market research. Having a pre-defined idea of the results will bias your research and also provide false information. Remain open minded and be prepared for results which you haven’t anticipated.

When processing data, make sure that you:

• Keep your market research aims in mind;
• Categorise data according to what is most important for your business, don’t become side-tracked by information which is just interesting;
• Collate your data by utilising tables or lists to make it easier to identify certain trends as well as themes.
• Collect additional information if your results are not conclusive.
• Analyse the data should allow you to draw some conclusions regarding your initial objectives.
• Update your business and marketing plans with the information collected from your market research.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Do you want to learn about market research? If you do then you need to do our Market Research Course. For more information, please follow this link.