What is Market Research? How to do Market Research?
Let us start with an example, shall we?
Sam owns a company “Sam Delights” and is planning to launch a product around Christmas time, the product is a cookie. How can Sam create awareness for his product?
This is when the “Marketing”, “Advertising”, “Promoting”, “Branding” team takes charge. Now, there is John, who similar to Sam also owns a company that has a very identical product, but he has been in the game way before Sam by which I mean- he has started promoting a long time ago. Now, how can Sam compete and make more sales than John?
Sam has to do his homework on what John does to promote his product and see if it is popular among people in the locality, who the consumers are, etc.
That “Homework” is what’s called “Market Research”.
Market Research
Market Research in simple words means, understanding the product/service that is yet to be launched i.e. its workability in the market by either conducting research work with potential customers or by understanding the competing company’s techniques of marketing their product.
Importance of market research
Market Research is significant before launching any product or service because it allows the company to understand the target market, collect opinions, and make informed decisions.
Marketing Research works can be done by the organization itself, or hire agencies who have expertise in the approach.
What are the various types of Market Research?
Each company and its product in the market have to be analyzed in a different way. There are several ways to conduct Market Research. Below are the two popular ways.
#1 Primary Market Research.
Primary market research is where the organization reaches out to third parties to collect data about the product or service in the market. This way is usually used to help you define a specific problem, by conducting interviews in which answers are called for from a small group of respondents.
#2. Secondary Market Research
This type of research usually outsources the information from public sources, commercial sources, etc. It is usually used to check the facts of the primary research by referring to public records like the business records in the public library.
Methods of market research
The primary type is the most tedious type of research but also yields the fruit and the type of research you choose for your organization depends upon the amount of money you can spend. The primary type can be implemented using many methods a few of which are listed below.
Focus Groups.
What are focus groups?
They are a bunch of people who help the organization help serve the consumer in a better way.
For example: From our example, John has more customers than Sam, and for Sam to increase his customers, he has to create a focus group and understand how he can improve his methods to sell the cookie.
Surveys.
Surveys are one of the best ways to know what and how a customer likes a product. It can be done both digitally and by visiting a few consumers asking for their opinions and a feedback form is a great way to collect the data for an organization to know how well-liked the product or service is.
Market observation
Market observation is the most popular and efficient way to gain insights on how customers receive the product of a company and what changes can be made to increase consumers. This technique is a live observation of customers reacting to a product/shop. For instance: Some people might like John’s cookies more because of the celebrity who is used to advertise the product.
When to do market research for your business?
The right time to do market research especially for a start-up would be before launching the business, like Sam who has to understand the expectations of the customer and observe the marketing techniques from John. After the first round of market research, the second round must be conducted after the launch of the products. Market research can never stop, it is a never-ending process and has to keep going.
Market research is not free of cost, is it?
Obviously not, therefore a company has to plan its budgets accordingly. There are two ways to go about it.
#1.Marketing project budget
A marketing project budget is a great way to go about creating a budget plan. Meaning, creating a budget, a particular amount of money for market research, development, and secondary research. It depends upon the number of market researches done by a company.
#2. Annual budget
The annual budget is a method that requires setting aside a particular amount of money each year for the marketing and development department to use on various branches of marketing.
It is also possible to conduct market research on a small budget.
Here’s how:-
#1. Make use of the free data
Many marketing reporters report on different industries on their blogs, using that lots of free information can be bought in. To be precise one can use websites like these:
#2. Observe
Observing various kinds of campaigns and ads can also help you gain insights into the techniques used by competing companies. Websites use cookies to observe what the customer searches for the most, similarly, observe what a potential customer looks for in a product/brand.
#3. Right questions
Learn to ask the right questions to the right people, ask direct yet subtle questions to people about well-known competing brands and products. Their views on a particular brand or product can be understood using this method.
#4 Trust your gut.
Many many businessmen and women say that they got to where they are by trusting their instinct, although it might not seem very scientific, it has worked out very well for a lot of people in the business field.
#5 Use social media
An active social media presence should be part of marketing for any company in this day and age. This way we can post questions, interact with the customers using question boxes or images. Let us not forget, this also helps figure out your potential client’s personality. Social media is a great way to reach your customers and receive feedback.
The most essential technique to be used to understand consumers. Learn more on different types of marketing here
- Anusha