In managing and growing your business, you have to have a good understanding of your target market and customers.
You have to manage your time, money and resources wisely to avoid having to put them into waste and lose your business. You have to capitalize and allocate some of your resources in conducting marketing research. This will greatly help you make informed decisions with regards to your overall business development.
Marketing research definition
Marketing research looks into the essential aspects of the entire marketing sector. These are mainly what are referred to as the four P’s – product, price, place, and promotion. Your marketing research allows you to assess what works and do not work within your business model.
Marketing research lets you look through your overall target market. This also includes the systems in your business model that pacify your marketing efforts. It helps you identify what your customers want and need, and whether you are able to satisfy them.
What’s more is that it allows you to identify new opportunities for growth and development. At the same time, it also helps you to determine problems and evaluate your current marketing strategies.
Market research vs marketing research
What many people remain unaware of up to this day is that market research is not synonymous to marketing research.
Market research sole focus is identifying a specific target group market. This type of research’s main purpose is to study a specific group of people to have a good understanding about their behavior and desires.
Marketing research, as we have discussed earlier, has a broader scope as it includes the whole marketing processes of an organization.
Marketing research methods
Marketing research methods are divided into qualitative and quantitative research. A quantitative marketing research aims to statistically observe certain behaviors of different marketing components. It usually answers the questions, what? How? How much? Where? And when a customer buys a product or services?
While qualitative marketing research looks for answers as to why consumers behave the way they do. It identifies the motives and utilizes psychological methods and techniques to assess consumer behavior.
Now let us go to the commonly used methods and techniques in marketing research:
- Survey – this type of method can be conducted in both qualitative and quantitative research. It refers to the systematic collection of information from specific respondents to understand or predict specific characteristics of the target market.
- Observation – in this method, a human or machine observer is utilized to identify what is taking place. Observation marketing research can also be used in both qualitative and quantitative market research.
- Experimentation – the aim for the experimentation method is to be able to provide the best solution on a specific problem.
Apart from the three primary market research methods that a lot of businesses utilize, other two methods are in-depth interview and projective technique.
