Market Research (Copy)
- Market research focuses on determining the needs and wants of people and how to fulfill these demands profitably.
- Including aspects like what a customer would buy and at what price, the products that are most liked or disliked, and the strength of the competition.
- Product-oriented businesses
- These business first create a product and then try to sell it.
- Here, the focus is on creating the product and then creating a market for it.
- Market-oriented businesses
- These businesses will focus on first determining the customer requirements and then creating products that can meet the market’s requirements.
- For this purpose, a marketing budget is required.
- Desires of the customers are identified
- Such business can generally be more successful.
- Market Research Methods
- Quantitative Information
- Information that can be counted numerically
- Qualitative Information
- Information that is in-depth, detailed and subjective to each person.
- Primary research
- Also called field research
- Here, the business collects first hand data or original data.
- It will involve direct contact with potential or existing customers
- Benefits
- It is up to date
- Data is relevant
- Planned
- It is first hand
- Effective to gather information for specific issue
- Not available to the competition
- Problems
- Expensive
- Takes time to collect
- Methods
- Questionnaires
- Conducted face to face, online, telephone or by post.
- Questions can be closed
- Limited choices
- Or can be open-ended
- Anything can be said in response, no fixed choices
- Benefits
- Detailed information and qualitative information can be collected
- Opinions can be asked
- Can be done online
- People will be encouraged to fill the questionnaire
- Problems
- Questions that are not proper can lead to inappropriate answers
- A lot of time and money required
- Analysis can be time taking
- Surveys
- Online specialized websites
- Email to people can also be done
- Benefits
- Fast and quick
- Cheaper than some other methods
- Completion is easy
- Data collection and analysis done through IT
- Problems
- No one present to explain the questions
- People with internet can’t do them
- Fraud may occur as people may just fill anything to get the benefit of completing the survey
- Interviews
- A person will asl the questions
- Interviewer, the person who asks the questions
- Interviewee, the person being asked the questions
- Benefits
- Questions can be explained
- Detailed information can be taken
- Problems
- Interviewer bias
- Time consuming and expensive
- A person will asl the questions
- Focus Groups
- People will do group discussion with researcher
- For testing new products for example
- Benefits
- Detailed information can be gained
- Reasons behind opinions can be determined
- Quick and cheap compared to individual interviews
- Problems
- Specialist marketing agency can be expensive and time consuming
- Discussion can be biased on the panel and can influence people’s opinion
- Some people may dominate the entire discussion
- Questionnaires
- Process
- Purpose decided
- Most suitable method decided
- Sample requirements decided
- Research conducted
- Data collected and analyzed
- Report is produced on the findings
- Sampling
- It means taking a small part of the total target population to ensure that the research can be done at low cost and fast
- Two main methods
- Random- everyone has equal chance of being selected
- Quota sampling- specific number of people with specific types of characteristics.
- Secondary Research
- Desk research
- Uses data already collected by others
- Benefits
- Cheaper way to gather information
- Total market size can be determined
- Newspapers can have vital information like forecasts
- Quicker than primary research in most cases
- Problems
- Data can be old and out of date
- Available to all businesses
- May not be fully relevant.
- Internal sources of secondary data
- Sales department records
- Opinions of team members
- Finance department records
- Details from customer service department
- External sources
- Statistics published by the government such as census data
- Newspapers regarding new trends
- Trade Association where information for the businesses in a specific industry is provided
- Market Research Agencies that can conduct research on companies’ behalf and then publish it
- Online sources such as websites, or opinion blogs etc.
- Who does market research
- Business can do it themselves
- Or they can pay outside agencies to do it.
- Expensive
- Quantitative Information
- What affects the accuracy of the market research?
- Sample representativeness
- Honesty in answers
- Size of the sample
- Question wording
- Who conducted the research
- Bias in the research
- How old is the information
- How questionnaire designed
- Determining the questions
- Write the questions
- Make sure they are short and clear
- Not ask too much questions
- Give choice groups
- Avoid open ended questions too much
- Question’s order is important as well.
- Then carry out the questionnaire
- How many people to ask
- What will influence their decisions
- Time when it will be done
- Presentation of Market Research
- It will use a table or tally chart
- A graph or chart
