What is Market Research?

 

“What is market research?”, to answer this question in simple words, it’s knowing everything about the market you are operating in. Market research is the cornerstone of a well-informed business. Knowing your consumers and your competitors well enough will always give you an upper hand in the market.

 

Market research is a systematic process of collecting, organizing, analyzing, and interpreting data from the market to better understand the market standing, your consumers, where you stand with your competitors, and the industry trends. With the entrance of the internet into the market, market research has also changed a lot. It has evolved and many new methods of conducting market research are coming to the forefront.

 

It is the backbone of a business as you cannot move ahead with your functions, be it manufacturing a product or sourcing out your services to prospective clients unless you have a clear idea of your standing in the market. Market research involves a wide range of tools and techniques meant for evaluating the market so that the business can gain insights and form strategies around product designing, marketing strategy, branding, and overall decision-making process. 

 

What is Market Research: Objectives of Market Research

 

Market research fulfills some very important functions in the day-to-day functioning of the business. Let us take a look at some of the objectives of market research:

 

• Knowing your customer: The primary objective of market research is to know who your customers are, what they want in your product, and whether they will buy it if you make it in a certain way. Ultimately, a business is a profit-making organization and profit is earned through sales of the product which will be bought by the customer.

 

• Knowing the market: It is imperative to know the environment you will be working in. The industry trends, the market accessibility in that particular niche, and how to operate. All these things are a part of the market research and it helps the business to learn more about the market.

 

• Knowing the competitors: An important outcome of market research is you get to know about your competitors in the market. A business cannot survive or thrive in the market without being aware of what its competitors are doing and how they can better themselves and serve the customers better.

 

• Helps in risk mitigation: Overall, market research protects you from unwanted risks. Proper market research beforehand helps you draw a prediction on how your product will perform in the market and how the consumer will take it. If it is a new business, risk mitigation becomes absolutely necessary.

 

What is Market Research: Importance of Market Research

 

As discussed above, Market research plays a very important role in helping businesses achieve their objectives. Let us take a look at the importance of market research.

 

• Gives a direction: A business needs a roadmap before entering the market with a new product. Market research provides a direction and helps businesses to navigate and tackle difficult phases in their journey.

 

• Informed decision-making: Market research helps businesses to make well-informed decisions as they have data in their hands, prediction becomes easier and well-informed reducing the chances of encountering unforeseeable risks in the journey.

 

• An advantage over competitors: Businesses have the upper hand if their market research is always updated compared to their competitors. They also stay aware of what their competitors are doing in the market which helps them to decide their next step.

 

• Helps in identifying opportunities: Market research provides data and industry trends in advance which helps the brands to identify opportunities as and when they appear.

 

• Improves brand image: With thorough market research, brands are able to serve their customers well. And if the customers are receiving good services, they tend to trust the brand which ultimately improves the brand image and the brand’s goodwill.

 

• Effective utilization of resources: Market research also helps in utilizing the resources available effectively. As everything is calculated beforehand, it is highly unlikely that they would go to waste which makes market research a step towards sustainability.

What is Market Research: Future of Market Research

 

There is no debate about whether market research will be relevant in the future or not. No matter what time comes, market research will be as relevant as ever. In fact with the digitization era, it makes even more sense to know your consumer base as most of them are present online. There are multiple ways to conduct market research. Let us see what the future holds for market research.

 

Online surveys have become an instant hit these days. They are convenient, time-saving, and informative. While it’s usually the small businesses and online stores using online survey forms to do market research, in the future they will spread far and wide, and more and more people will start using online survey forms. It gives the customers a personalized feel and also helps them receive better customer service from the brand.

 

The wave of Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Intelligence (MI) is also in the air. AI will help in big data automation in the future making analysis and decision making easier for market researchers.

 

Also, social responsibility for businesses has been a constant hot topic in the market. With everyone emphasizing preferring sustainable and ethical brands over those who are not, ethical and socially responsible businesses will see a rise in the future, and market research will be clear proof of that.

 

What is Market Research: Examples of Market Research

 

A few brands are known for their extensive market research strategies. Let us discuss a few of them below:

 

• Apple: Apple is known for its market research efforts. They conduct a wide, even global market research before creating or launching a product in a particular market. They came up with the ideas of the iPad and iPhone after extensive market research and needless to say, it showed results.

 

• CocaCola: CocaCola has been in the beverage market for a long time and it knows the business well but no brand is elusive to the importance of market research. The biggest example has to be Coca-Cola’s new recipe experiment with a Diet Coke in the 1980s which the customers heavily criticized, following which, the brand instantly went back to its original formula.

 

• Nike: Nike is a leading name in the shoe market. Especially, in recent years their popularity has gone off the charts. When Nike launched its most famous model, the Air Jordan series, it conducted extensive market research and came up with the idea of collaborating with Michael Jordan, a legend in his field. Safe to say, their market research reaped immeasurable results given the success they got after the launch.

 

What is Market Research: A practical way to do Market Research

 

Market research should be done following a simple procedure step-by-step. Let us take a look:

 

• Identify your objective: The first and foremost step is to identify your objective and the end goal for conducting the market research. It gives you a direction to lean on.

 

• Find your market and audience: Once your goal is defined, you need to recognize your target audience as the market research would be conducted on them and what they desire in a product.

 

• Choose your tools: There are various methods of conducting market research, you need to identify which one is the most resourceful to you and would give you the best results.

 

• Begin the research: Once your tools are finalized, begin your market research. Do not miss out on any important component, from the target audience to the industry trends and the competitors, everything should be covered properly.

 

• Analysis: Once you have the required data in hand, it’s time to analyze it properly. It could also be done using various methods, such as a SWOT analysis.

 

• Interpreting the data: The next step after analysis is to interpret your analyzed data. You can draw reports and conclusions from your findings. These interpretations are presented to the board of members of the team that will be carrying on that particular project.

 

• Evaluation and implementation: Once your data is interpreted, the reports need to be evaluated by the team and senior officials and once it is approved, the work based on the evaluation begins. The product or service or the brand is planning to start now has a clear direction and a proper vision that the team can follow to extract visible results.

 

How we do market research

 

As a digital marketing agency, we also indulge in market research at various times. No strategy or plan can be taken up without thorough market research. Suppose our client wants us to maintain their social media handles. In that case, we run a small research based on the analytics and numbers which helps us to identify the demographic of the audience the brand is catering to and the people viewing the content.

After that, we draw up a blueprint or a strategy that would be followed by our team in ideating, creating, and posting content on the clients’s pages.

 

Based on the findings above, it can be concluded that market research is one of the most important steps in the marketing process and no brand can skip it if it wants smooth and effective results.