What is the marketing research?
Marketing is the beginning of everything. Under the circumstances of a constant development of the market, it is highly important for all the firms to understand their clients’ needs, the scale of their market, the way of promoting of their product, the scales of product manufacture and so on. It used to be hard to find the answers to all of these questions. But nowadays, all firms are able to do that with marketing research.
Marketing research (MR) is sociological research that is focused on the study of the current market situation, as well as on the exploration of desires and behavior of customers and other players. It consists of the system search and gathering data with its analysis in order to make the right administrative decisions concerning producing and selling the company’s goods
The final goal of each research is shaping the strategy and the tactics of the enterprise with taking into account real factors and circumstances, as well as the place of this firm and the possible perspectives of its growth. One of the main ideas of this research is to eliminate the level of uncertainty of the market situation, especially when constructing long-term predictions. Basing on the fundamental research a firm can receive a possibility to reduce the level of risks and possible losses.
So, when do you need to conduct the MR?
It can give you the data about the current situation of the market, about the capability of the enterprise’s goods promotion. It can also help you to choose the right strategy of promotion and the possible ways of developing your product.
These studies are necessary for making key administrative decisions. Primarily they are crucial for gathering the objective facts about the market situation when the company has just released new large-scale projects or has just appeared at the market. In case of conducting MR, specialists are evaluating a market, analyzing competitors, exploring the channels and methods of promotion.
Moreover, during MR company workers are developing new goods or services. In this case, the task of the MR lies in the search for new ideas, insights and unsatisfied needs to be able to understand the effectiveness of the outfit. Sometimes companies are conducting researches when their business is in trouble: sales rates are falling, customers stop using their services, competitors are constantly attacking them. Thus, researches are also needed to develop anti-crisis strategies.
Why do you need to conduct the MR?
Let’s start with telling that these studies are very beneficial. Thus, conducting MR has a lot of pros.
- First of all, you will figure out who are your potential clients. Having analyzed your current client base, you will understand what kind of people can be your clients. Thus, you will not disperse your attention and focus on this target group.
- Using this tool can help set goals for developing your outfit. Having analyzed the data about your clients, you can to construct important aims for the development of your company.
- Moreover, conducting the MR can help you understand what kind of strategy you should use for developing your product. Statistics can clearly show you the figures. Thus, you can make logical assumptions concerning the desirable scale of sales, or the effectiveness of your promotions etc.
- Conducting this kind of study is crucial to solving the biggest problem that you are facing. This can be done due to finding the roots of this challenge. When you can realize what are the particular causes of some dilemma, you can solve it.
To cut a long story short, you need to conduct the MR if you want to understand the possibility of mass producing of your goods or services; to set the hierarchy of distinguishing characteristics of your product that can provide successful sales; to conduct the analysis of types and motivations of your current and potential client base; to set the prices and conditions of sales.
Thus, we can tell MR is a complex study of producing and selling of products and services. It is focused on the satisfaction of your clients’ needs and receiving the profit based on the understanding of the current market situation and creating the predictions for its future development.
What are the market research tools?
Conducting the MR can bring only benefits to your outfit. But what kinds of tools should you use to conduct it? Let us have a look!
- Conduct a survey! Conducting a study can bring you crucial information about your clients. You can gather the opinions of your clients and compare the outcomes of the conducted surveys. Thus, it is easier for you to figure out what are the exact things that should be changed in your strategies. Moreover, you can identify the scales of your market and the target group of people who you should focus on.
- Establish focus groups! Focus groups are a great tool to conduct the MR. It is the way of performing the research by using the opinions of real people. They are discussing the products and rendered services of your enterprise and trying to figure out the means to upgrade them.
- One more interesting and useful method is doing case studies. To understand this method, try to remind your last visit to the website of some big enterprise. Usually, you can see the feedback from the clients who are using the goods or services of this company. For sure, all of them are positive because there is no sense in posting negative feedback. Now try to broaden these testimonials to a well-structured case studies where you can clearly see the problem of the client and the way your company solved it.
- If you want to go with deep answers and deep understanding of your customer, it is advisable to arrange interviews with your clients. Of course, it does take much of time and sources, but the results of this method are worth it! You will be armed with a personal opinion on your product with deep pieces of advice on how to make your product better.
- One more good method of conducting the MR is doing this with observation! Compared to interviews, this method is more objective, as the data gathered after observation is 100% objective without any opinion of the clients. This data are based only on the behavior of your client. Thus, the assumptions will be the most trustable. We are all humans and sometimes it happens that clients are in one way during the interview, but their behavior may differ from their words.
- Product research is among the methods of MR. The study of the product is focused on the analysis of particular characteristics of the product. Conducting product research can help the company to understand what kinds of goods your customer wants to buy. Having conducted this study, one can customize the product and it will meet all the necessary, desirable criteria of your buyers.
Conclusion
Having conducted the MR you are well-equipped with all the necessary facts to make your outfit better and sell the best goods or services. Thus, do not neglect to do this. It is a tool that will distinguish your successful company from small risky ones.
About the author:
Adriana Johns is a content writer and guest blogger. She writes the articles on numerous topics like business, marketing, as literature, arts, and other topics. For example, you can read her other publication on the sculpture review on artscolumbia.org/visual-arts/sculpture/berninis-david-5633/. Andriana is fond of blogging and always happy to communicate with readers. So, if you have any questions, feel free to ask her in the comments below.