Share This Article
Market Research Process – Definition
The market research process is intended to paint a complete picture of a company’s marketing plan, helping identify its strengths and weaknesses. The initial step in marketing research process is defining the problem your research is trying to answer , analyzing the data, and producing a report.
What is Market research?
Market research is assembling data about your target market and customers to confirm the success of a new product. In addition, it helps your team iterate on an existing product or understand brand perception to ensure that your team effectively communicates the value of your business.
Market research tools include focus groups, telephone interviews, and questionnaires. The market research results inform the product’s final design and determine its position in the market. Market research can also be essential in developing your products and services, bringing them to market, and marketing them to consumers.
Purpose of Market Research Process
The primary purpose of market research is to know or inspect the market related to a particular product or service to choose how the audience will respond to a product or service. In addition, information obtained from market research may be used to tailor marketing/advertising activities or prioritize consumer features/service requirements.
6 Steps for Market Research Process
Following are the main steps one should undergo for Marketing Research Process:
1. Recognize the prospect
The primary step is to define the problem you want to solve. Asking specific questions will help identify the most pressing needs or reveal the most significant opportunities to achieve your research objectives. Questions to ask at this early stage contains:
- How many of our recent customers are first-time customers?
- How can we turn them into regular buyers?
- Why are sales lesser than in the last part?
- Are our prices too extraordinary?
- Why do consumers put items in their shopping cart without completing the purchase?
- How can we make our payment flow more efficient?
2. Develop a research plan
A marketing research plan can help a company outline how to find ways to report the questions it pursues to answer or the problems it wishes to solve. How you plan and design this investigation depends on the budget available, the investigative method chosen to collect the data, and the project scope.
There are two main research ways and means you can use to collect your data:
Primary research and Secondary research. Each draws data from various sources to provide a clear snapshot of your marketing research plan.
- Primary research:It involves collecting original data through collection methods, such as surveys or in-person interviews, and then synthesizing that data into a report. Although it can be time-consuming and expensive.But it can be one of the best ways to accurately collect answers to your questions.
- Secondary research:It involves collecting and synthesizing information from other sources, such as research reports or websites. Most research plans start with secondary data, which is generally less expensive and readily available. You can use the information you obtained using secondary information to inform how you will approach your primary research.
The scope and budget of the plan will likely influence the time it takes to thorough the investigation
3. Collect the data
After identifying the objectives, it is vital to start assembling data. There are numerous different data collection methods that you can use to obtain info.
Surveys: Directing a survey is an effective primary research method that can provide valuable feedback on business practices, marketing tactics, and product demand. Unbiased survey research can help capture the thoughts and feelings of a particular demographic.
A/B testing: This research methodology compares two or more versions of a variable, to gather information and test which one would result in better customer meetings. In this state, the goal may be to see which site attracts the most direct traffic to increase the number of monthly visitors.
Surveys in social networks: Setting up a social media survey can be an effective and inexpensive way to collect user data. Polling current and potential customers collects information from your target audience, affecting how the company selects its products and user experiences.
Interviews: Face-to-face or phone interviews can help companies gauge consumer expectations of a brand. During these interviews, participants may be asked: How long have you been a buyer? Or: Why did you pick this brand over the competition?
Focus groups: Focus groups bring together a select group of people based on demographics, purchasing history, or other factors to collect non-numeric (qualitative) data about a particular product or service. With focus groups, moderators can capture a range of opinions and emotions through open-ended conversations or lines of questioning to capture the feelings of potential (or current) customers toward a product or service.
4. Analyze your data
Data analysis is discovering trends or patterns within the company or the marketplace that may affect market performance. Data analytics transforms raw metrics into digestible data to offer the answers to your initial research questions.
There are four main types of analytics that you can use to evaluate data:
Descriptive analytics: Analysis tools that present documents in charts and graphs. This type of analysis presents a snapshot of performance in numbers, such as unique users or page views.
Diagnostic analytics: Analysis tools can help you find the “cause and effect” of a problem. For example, suppose the number of visitors to your website has decreased by 15% in the last six months. In that case, you’ll want to investigate why too many popups make it difficult for users to navigate the site or if the page loading speed is too slow and users click to another website.
Predictive analytics: Based on existing data, predictive analytics also helps companies establish predictive models to forecast future results accurately.
Prescriptive analytics: This tool combines descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive analytics methods to help businesses optimize their best course of action. In this case, they are finding web hosting plans that upgrade the site’s bandwidth to accommodate increased web traffic.
5. Present your results
Once you’ve researched and analyzed the data, you can create a research report to present your key answers. You can show your report in a slideshow design, a video, or an interactive dashboard to view the data differently. The emphasis should be on presenting the information in a way that is understandable and accessible.
Furthermore, Market research reports contain necessary company-specific details, such as customer profiles, target audience buying habits, and market competitors. Beyond that, reports typically present research findings in a narrative format incorporating images, charts, graphs, and comments from “real people.
Another statistic to include in your report is how you reached these conclusions. What research approaches did you use? How long did it take? How big were your model groups? Once the report is collected, share these results with all necessary parties, such as relevant stakeholders, the marketing team, company managers, or others who might be affected by this proposed strategy change
6. Incorporate your findings
Once you’ve presented your data, it’s time to develop actionable plans that put your findings into practice.This can be done by developing new strategies or improving existing ones. Some findings can lead to significant changes to your marketing plans. Also minor improvements can help you optimize your company’s overall strategy.
For example, if your marketing report points to a problem with retaining a younger audience, you may need to redesign your entire social media campaign. Or, you may need a minor change, such as offering additional promotions through social media accounts to entice current young customers so they stay loyal.
Conclusion
Hence, marketing research process is crucial to ensure that a company can understand the mindset of its customers. Based on the findings of these reports, they eventually, develop products that meet customers’ requirements. They can also set trends as they comprehensively analyze current trends and projections.