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Market Research Report
Introduction
A market research report is a text that reveals the features of your ideal customers, their buying habits, the value that your product or service can bring them, and the list of your main competitors.
The market research report shows what new products or services can be the most profitable in today’s highly competitive landscape. In addition, for products or services already available, a market research report can provide detailed information on whether they meet consumer needs and expectations.
Purpose of Market Research Report
Writing a market research report aims to make calculated decisions about whether or not business ideas are worth pursuing. This requires one primary skill: observing the pattern hidden in User Generated Content (UGC) written in various tones and perspectives on the social web.
It helps to understand why consumers buy a particular product by studying consumer behavior, including how economic, cultural, social, and personal factors influence that behavior. Therefore, writing a market research report is a vital part of planning business activities and is a straightforward way to digest all the information about your target market and potential customers.
Two Key Varieties of Marketing Research Report Formats: Primary and Secondary.
Primary Market Research vs. Secondary Market Research
Let’s see in detail how to make a market research report:
Primary Research
This marketing research method collects first-hand information about your market and potential customers. You study your customers directly by:
- Interviews (either by phone or face-to-face)
- Surveys and surveys (online or by email)
- Questionnaires (online or by email)
- Focus group discussions with a sample of potential customers and get their direct feedback
Some crucial questions to ask your prospects in the primary research method include:
- What are the factors that inspire you to buy this product or service?
- What do you like or dislike about this product or service already available?
- Are there any areas that you would like to suggest for improvement?
- According to you, what is the right price for this product or service?
Primary research also involves analyzing competitors’ strategies, so you can find gaps and weaknesses to look into your strong point.
Secondary Research
The following method of writing a marketing research report is to analyze the published data and use the data on the web. It is done from reliable reports and statistics on other organizations’ websites or authority blogs in your industry.
The sources can be:
Public: This includes all accessible sources like social media and forums, Google Trends, YouGov, and government sources like the US Census Bureau.
Commercial: This includes industry information collected by research agencies like Pew, Gartner, Forrester, etc. Usually, these are paid.
Internal – This is the historical market data that your organization already has internally, such as Net Promoter Score, Customer Churn Rate, etc.
Secondary data can benefit you by identifying competitors, establishing benchmarks, and determining target customer segments or demographics: people who live a particular lifestyle, their income and purchasing patterns, age group, location, etc.
Advantages of the Market Research Report
These are the main reasons to invest in creating a market research report:
1. Provides a sound understanding of your consumers
The replies to questions like who will purchase your product, the customer’s pain points, what motivates their buying behavior, etc., will be answered effectively with a market research report. It will help you map out the complete profile of your ideal customer and consequently allow you to create personalized products and marketing campaigns.
2. Helps detect business opportunities
As mentioned, market research will give you insight into your competitors’ strategies, so you can find gaps in their offerings that can turn into your product’s strong suit. You may also discover other business opportunities, such as potential partnerships with brands that sell complementary products or a chance to upsell or cross-sell your products.
For example, a keyword research report from a SaaS SEO agency offers an opportunity to acquire an organic search ranking by creating deep, high-converting, funnel-targeted content.
3. Minimize risks
Starting or managing a business is synonymous with risk. Almost half of all small businesses with employees do not survive more than five years. Regularly conducting proper market research will let you stay on top of trends, not discard your efforts and capital on likely unsuccessful things.
For example, before launching a new product, conducting market research gives you a better idea of the demand for your product. Or, if an existing product is experiencing a significant drop in sales, market research helps you determine the root cause of the problem.
4. Facilitates data-driven decision making
When it comes to business decisions, data is over guesswork, always. Therefore, based on the results of your market research, you can make more informed decisions regarding pricing, distribution channels, and the marketing budget for your products.
Disadvantages of Market Research Report
As with anything, there are also a couple of downsides to doing market research:
1. It could be an expensive activity
Carrying out a thorough investigation is often costly in terms of time and money. Researching the right audience with the right questions requires investing much time. If you want to use data from commercial market research organizations or get help from one of those agencies to do primary research, be prepared to spend a considerable amount.
2. The insights collected could be inadequate or even inaccurate
Another problem often faced in marketing research is the lack of respondents. While you can find out who your target audience is, getting them to complete surveys and questionnaires can be challenging. Also, you are using data you collected to draw conclusions, which may not be reliable.
For example, when you act on the collected data, it may have become outdated. This translates into poor decision-making, and the whole process can backfire.
How to prepare a Market Research Report?
Here are some steps and guidelines for writing a marketing research report.
Step 1: Pool the data
First, collect any relevant data you have accumulated from your primary and secondary research efforts. For example, survey results, interview responses, and statistics from third-party sources – pull it all together, then analyze the information to outline your target market profile.
Step 2: Prepare an outline
Next, create a report skeleton so you understand what information will go where. An outline with sections and subsections will help you correctly structure your marketing research report. For example, a classic report contains an introduction, background, methodology, an executive summary, results, and a conclusion with links to all references.
With an outline in front of you, start by writing the main topic of your report: an introduction that gives a brief overview of your business and the reason you did the market research. Next, include a summary of the market research process and the results you have analyzed. For example, you may have been evaluating the feasibility of a new product, so summarize that your market research report is for a new product launch.
Step 3: State the research ways
An essential next step is to mention the methods used to conduct the research. That is, if you conducted surveys, specify the number of surveys, the response rate, the types of people or businesses targeted, and the questions included in the study. Label all resources for demographic information, such as census data.
Step 4: Include images with a narrative explanation
Visual elements like charts and graphs are essential to any research paper. They make assured that the findings are easy to understand. Therefore, create tables, graphs, and diagrams illustrating the investigation results. Accompany it with a narrative description of the visual data. Highlight the inferences you made based on these data.
Step 5: Conclude the report with recommendations
Finally, conclude your report with a section listing practical recommendations based on the research results to facilitate decision-making. For example, all the numbers can figure that your customers want a particular feature that no other product on the market currently offers.
In this case, investing your resources in providing that feature and gaining a competitive advantage is a good idea. Finally, at the end of the report, include reference links to all sources and an appendix for supplementary materials and further reading.
Conclusion
Hence, market research reports may include information on the industry’s competitive landscape, industry trends, key competitors, industry size, and prospects. In addition, market research firms advise their clients on an industry or product’s positive or negative prospects.