Market research is one of the important factors of competition between companies. By knowing the customers, the basis of competition in the market can be changed. By using market research, the collected information is analyzed and by analyzing the information, the market need, size and competition in the market can be determined. Market research includes both qualitative methods (focus groups and in-depth interviews) and quantitative methods (questionnaires and secondary data analysis).
Market research is done in the simplest way unconsciously by asking customers’ opinions about the product, price or questions about competitors by the employer; But professional market research is done using the formulas and techniques of this science, which provides extremely valuable information to business owners.
The degree of complexity and simplicity of market research also depends on the employer. Some processes are so simple that they don’t need to be done by elite people, but some processes should be done by experts. One of the influential factors in market research is budget, time and work experience in market research. The main purpose of conducting market research is to collect the information needed by the employer to promote business, create innovation and launch new businesses.
What is market research?
Market research is one of the most effective ways to gain insight into your customers and competitors in your industry. The purpose of market research is to obtain information that is important in making business decisions. Especially for small business decisions to enter a new field or produce new products, market research is very important and influential. There are various market research methods that businesses use to collect product usage information.
Classification of market research
According to executives, market research is divided into the following three groups:
Exploratory research: used to find suitable ideas and opportunities and identify work challenges. This method does not have a certain rule and structure, so that the executive managers have to plan the project from the beginning to the end (definition and analysis stage).
Descriptive research: Goes into more detail in the target market research. Such as: investigating the reason for buying a certain product by a certain age group; Conducting descriptive research requires careful planning to collect information due to its many details.
Scientific research: deals with understanding the cause and effect of events in the market and helps project managers to identify their problems and challenges.
The importance of market research is based on the three principles of price reduction, sales increase and business growth.
Achievements of market research in business
- Understanding the customer, identifying their level (place of life, gender, income, etc.)
- Determining the best place to run a business
- Identifying opportunities for growth and increasing work profit
- Make changes according to market demand
- Proposing new products according to the daily needs of the market
- Finding a new market inside or outside the country
- Finding a new market inside or outside the country
- Planning for work shifts, the number of personnel required and costs
- Review and monitor competitors in the market
- Identify competitors
- Collect information about how competitors work
- Competitors comparison
- Risk reduction
For more exploitation in the implementation of projects, the help of market research should be taken, according to the points mentioned above, it can be said that with the implementation of market research, a comprehensive picture of the business is obtained, which makes it easier to make a decision in the implementation of the project.
In short, market research is done to better understand customers and to know more about competitors. All of which are used for product and service development.
Reasons for conducting market research
- Determining the needs and wants of customers
Market research is done in order to identify and understand the problems of customers and to solve their needs. One of the most important factors in this section is the in-depth knowledge of customers in paying for the desired product. Familiarity with various demographic charts also provides employers with information including gender, age, occupation, and economic status of customers. Details of information It is obtained in such a way that the products desired by the customers, the positive and negative points from their point of view can also be identified and checked.
- Better understanding of the market
Market research is effective in determining the size and amount of market growth; By conducting market research, it is possible to determine the available opportunities or even the saturation level of the market. Market research is used with the aim of keeping the information up-to-date so that the latest changes and needs in the market are always available.
- Development of products desired by customers
Market research evaluates the absorption and popularity of the product produced by the manufacturer. Among the achievements of market research, we can mention the identification of differences between competing companies, and by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, development plans for products can be planned.
- Dominate the market
Market research is done to match the products with the needs of the market and customers to dominate the target market. This work requires careful planning and time in order to get a proper understanding of the target market.
What is marketing research?
Marketing research or marketing research is a set of processes that connect the producer and customers and the final consumer through the collection of information. This information is used to define marketing opportunities and threats, evaluate marketing activities and better understand the marketing process and improve it.
The difference between marketing research and market research
Both of these activities are part of marketing and include activities that are done before selling the product. A number of marketing experts consider market research as a subset of marketing research, and another group believes that these two concepts overlap in some activities. That is, they consider activities such as market trends, market size, target market research, etc. to be part of market research and independent from marketing research.
Examples of marketing research include optimization in advertising, A-B testing, customer satisfaction, and changing attitudes toward branding. Regarding market research, we can mention market trends, market size and target market analysis, segmentation, etc. However, these two concepts share a range of topics such as pricing, product features, and demand estimation.
