Saturday, 27 July 2013

MARKET RESEARCH





Market research is any organized effort to gather information about markets or customers. It is a very important component of business strategy.
Market Research is defined as the process of gathering data on goods and services to determine whether the product or service will satisfy customers' needs. Market research can identify market trends, demographics, economic shifts, customer's buying habits, and important information on competition.
 The term is commonly interchanged with marketing research; however, expert practitioners may wish to draw a distinction, in that marketing research is concerned specifically about marketing processes, while market research is concerned specifically with markets.
IMPORTANCE OF MARKET RESEARCH
With effective market research, you can determine the need for your service, a product's likelihood to sell, target-market demographics, and desirable store locations. There are numerous ways to uncover this information—from online research to focus groups to counting customers. To help you meet your target market's needs, we've put together a collection of our best market-research articles and resources.
Knowing this information is essential to the success of your business. It will guide you in making strategic business decisions, uncovering unmet customer needs, and in many cases, help you discover new ideas for products or services.
Market research is a key factor to get advantage over competitors. Market research provides important information to identify and analyze the market need, market size and competition.
Market research, which includes social and opinion research, is the systematic gathering and interpretation of information about individuals or organizations using statistical and analytical methods and techniques of the applied social sciences to gain insight or support decision making
Market research is a key part of developing your marketing strategy. It’s about collecting information to give you an insight into your customers’ mind so that you understand what they want, how they gather information and where they come from. You can also do market research to get a better idea of market trends and what is happening in your industry sector.
The information you gather and analyse builds the foundation of good business decisions whether it’s deciding what product or service you’ll offer, where your business should be located, how to distribute your products or how you communicate with consumers.

Market research is important for every business – and not just as a one-off activity. Regardless of whether you’re starting or growing a business, ongoing research will help you keep up with market trends and maintain a competitive edge.
Market research for business/planning
Market research is for discovering what people want, need, or believe. It can also involve discovering how they act. Once that research is completed, it can be used to determine how to market your product. Peter Drucker believed[4] market research to be the quintessence of marketing.
There are two major types of market research. Primary Research sub-divided into Quantitative and Qualitative research and Secondary research.
For starting up a business, there are some important things:
  • Market information
Through Market information one can know the prices of different commodities in the market, as well as the supply and demand situation. Information about the markets can be obtained from different sources, varieties and formats, as well as the sources and varieties that have to be obtained to make the business work.
  • Market segmentation
Market segmentation is the division of the market or population into subgroups with similar motivations. It is widely used for segmenting on geographic differences, personality differences, demographic differences, technographic differences, use of product differences, psychographic differences and gender differences. For B2B segmentation firmographics is commonly used.
Market trends are the upward or downward movement of a market, during a period of time. The market size is more difficult to estimate if one is starting with something completely new. In this case, you will have to derive the figures from the number of potential customers, or customer segments.
Besides information about the target market, one also needs information about one's competitors, customers, products, etc. Lastly, you need to measure marketing effectiveness. A few techniques are:

References
ü  McQuarrie, Edward (2005), The market research toolbox: a concise guide for beginners (2nd ed.), SAGE, ISBN 978-1-4129-1319-5
ü  McDonald, Malcolm (2007), Marketing Plans (6th ed.), Oxford, England: Butterworth-Heinemann, ISBN 978-0-7506-8386-9
ü  ICC/ESOMAR (2008), International Code on Market and Social Research. ICC/ESOMAR Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 4th ed. http://www.esomar.org/uploads/pdf/professional-standards/ICCESOMAR_Code_English_.pdf
ü  Drucker, Peter F. (1974). Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. Australia: Harper & Row. p. 864. ISBN 0-06-011092-9Drake, Philip (2008). McDonald & Wasko, ed. Distribution and Marketing in Contemporary Hollywood. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 63–82. ISBN 978-1-4051-3388-3.McNamara, Carter. "Marketing - A Commonly Misunderstood Term
ü  Bradley, Nigel Marketing Research. Tools and Techniques.Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010
ü  Marder, Eric The Laws of Choice—Predicting Customer Behavior (The Free Press division of Simon and Schuster, 1997

 
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