market research process
DESCRIPTION
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Market Research
Market research exists to guide your
business decisions by giving you insight into
your market, your competitors, your
products, your marketing and your
customers. By enabling you to make
informed choices, It will help you to develop
a successful marketing strategy.
Market research helps you to reduce risks
by getting product, price and promotion
right from the outset. It also helps you focus
your resources where they will be most
effective.
Market and marketing research
There are two main types of market research - quantitative research and qualitative research.
Quantitative research focuses on coming up with numbers: for example, what percentage of
the population buys a particular product. It is gathered using surveys and questionnaires. You
can do simple quantitative research yourself by talking to your customers. More in-depth
quantitative research can be used to identify markets and understand customer profiles - vital if
you're launching a new product.
Qualitative research gets behind the facts and figures to find out how people feel about
products and what prompts them to spend. Researchers use questionnaires and focus
groups to gather this intelligence, while interpreting the results is a skilled job.
You can also do desk research with existing surveys and business reports. Much information is
available online and from industry organizations, and some of it is free. This information
provides data on market size, sales trends, customer profiles and competitor activity. Your
customer records also provide a wealth of information, such as purchasing trends.
For forecasting, it can help you assess key trends to anticipate how the market may change.
This is a vital step towards identifying new market segments, developing new products and
choosing your target market.
Market research needs to be a regular planned part of your marketing. Even if you are an
established business, you need to stay in touch with your customers' needs as well as market
trends and your competitors. It measures the effectiveness of your own marketing, giving you
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information about attitudes to everything from packaging and advertising to brand name
awareness.
Planning your market research
Effective market research starts with knowing what you are trying to achieve and what
information you need - whether you do your own research or brief a professional.
On a tight budget, you can take a do-it-yourself approach to market research. For example, if
you are considering taking on a shop, you can check the levels of passing traffic at different
times. Taking time to talk to your customers or potential customers is invaluable, too - this free
market research can be very revealing.
However, to get the intelligence to make sound commercial decisions, you'll need a more
sophisticated approach. For instance, if you carry out a market research survey, you'll need to
plan the best way to conduct it and how to interpret the results. What customers tell you to
your face may not be what they do, while your ability to interpret results is likely to be
compromised by your own feelings.
For a truly balanced approach, you should work with a professional market researcher, such as
an agency or a freelance consultant. If you are looking for detailed quantitative work, you will
probably need to work with a company. However, a freelance market researcher can be cost-
effective for a survey or focus group. Professional market researchers are skilled in asking the
right questions and interpreting the results, producing objective results that you can act on with
confidence.