Market Research

Contents

Obsah

1...................................................................................................................................Market research
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2.......................................................................................Nature, Definition and Role Market Research
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3.....................................................................................................................Market Research Process
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4.....................................................................................................................Market Research Process
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5................................................................................................................Using IT for market research
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6.............................................................................................................Tools for quantitative research
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 1. Market research
Market research is the crucial tool for gathering information about markets and
customers. By identifying and analyzing market needs, market size and competition, it works as
one of the most important determinants of the business strategy. Market research utilizes
statistical and analytical methods to identify what potential customers demand, what they need,
or what are their beliefs. It can be also used for predicting responses to actions organization can
make.

The term market research is often misleadingly interchanged with marketing research.
Experts differentiate these terms based on current requirements. Qualified data describing own
products or service and current customer base then the marketing research applies. When the aim
is to analyze the market situation, customer potential and market situation including competition,
substitutes or complementariness, in general looking at the broader view, then market research is
the right strategy [1].

Why we conduct market research?

 Suppliers of products and services need to have information about the final consumer to
market their products and services effectively.
 bridge the gap between the managers and the final consumers of their products as the
company grows

The attitude, preference and opinions of stakeholders and the environment can easily be
identified during the marketing research process.

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 2. Nature, Definition and Role Market
Research
The American Marketing Association defines market research as a function which links the
consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information.

The information gathered can be used to

 Identify and define market opportunities and problems

 Generate, refine and evaluate marketing actions and performance
 Monitor marketing performance
 Improve understanding of marketing as a process

The nature of marketing research decision making involves:

 routine or recurring decisions

 non recurring or less frequent decisions

3. Market Research Process[3]

Defining the Developing the Collecting the

problem and state research Plan information
research Objectives

Present the
Analyse the
Findings
Information
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 4. Market Research Process
Step 1

Diagnose the problem and specify research objectives. The nature of the problem could be

 client based or a research diagnosed problem

Step 2

Prepare a list of the information you needed. Likely questions you can ask include:

 What information does the client have already?

 What further information does the client need?
 What quality of information is required?
 How would the information be related to the decisions the client has to take?
 What is the cost of making the wrong decision?

Step 3

 Designing the data collection process would involve the following any of these statistical
approaches namely i) qualitative approach ii) quantitative approach and iii) mixed
approach
 Select a Sample size
 Determine sample type
 Produce a research brief
 Draft a research proposal and get approval
 Organise and carry out research the field work
 Analyzing the data collected and reporting the findings

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 

5. Using IT for market research

No matter the differentiation, IT can however provide various means to gather analyze and
interpret the data. The increasing accessibility of internet made it an optimal channel with variety of
convenient tools. Qualitative surveys involving interviews and free discussion with focus groups can be
conducted online using tools with video conferencing capabilities, however, because of the usually
limited recources available [2],only quantitative researches involving online questionnaires, and feedback
forms are typically utilized.

Besides these scientific methods requiring direct interaction with customers, there are also
methods, which require nothing but a simple browsing. These methods can be especially useful when
building initial overview of the market situation. One of the possible actions is just simple trying to
search for selected keyword, which do the best describe the potential product. This can provide insights
what is the competition like and how well the words intended to describe marketed product are used.
Interesting market possibilities can be discovered this way. This may sound a bit odd and toy-like
subjective activity, yet when brought to higher level using for example services provided WordTracker,
which cooperate with leading search engine providers, organization can get invaluable insights on
phrases describing offered product or service, which are often searched for, however yet underutilized
by competitors.

6. Tools for quantitative research

Quantitative research campaigns on web are typically conducted using questionnaires or

feedback forms. Besides keeping general rules for creating unobtrusive surveys including keeping the
content short, coherent and understandable, it is crucial to select proper means of distribution. Initial
market and marketing researches have been lately typically spread using not only traditional e-channels
like email, but also benefiting from the homogenous daily active user base of social networks.
Companies gathering the database of their customers often request a permission to ask for feedback
after certain time. It is often highly recommended to keep the frequency of contact mass-events
minimal, typically once or twice a year maximum. Otherwise it can be discouraging for the responders
even to begin. Besides, there is always possibility to allocate this task to specialized company.

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 When organizations decides to conduct research using own recourses, it is vital to choose
proper technology which makes the gathering and analysis of data as easy and comprehendible as
possible. Few years ago, there was probably need to write special application using own recourses,
nowadays it is however perfectly possible to utilize specialized software, often in the form of thin client.
There are currently plenty of products worth mentioning, including for example highly sophisticated
platform offered by http://www.keysurvey.com/, or open source LimeSurvey tool, implemented on the
web http://dotaznik.czu.cz/ as available for study purposes on the CULS.

Any system selected is required to have certain features, which makes the work convenient for
broader public including marketers. Nowadays necessity is interactive interface allowing simple styling
typically in a form of WYSIWYG editor, supported by easy survey-page styling opportunities, quite typical
are default or on-demand galleries that can be selected. Not only design makes the survey unobtrusive
but the logical correctness and consistency. Therefore it should be easy to specify internal logic and
development structure - in other word, set consequences of answering question in specific way by
specifying succeeding entries. Uniqueness of respondents and further action setting including events
interrupting the answering process should be considered as well. Many researchers also care for
graphical data outputs

Besides previously mentioned tool, which have been in fact randomly selected, there exist wide
variety of solutions for gathering and analyzing data including Facebook-modules, SharePoint workflows
and many others. Having the business already in the phase running a webpage, another tool might be
used to improve the turnaround. Analyzing the visits by using either one of the generic traffic analysis
systems that most of the hosting providers currently provide, or stick to Google Analytics, which has
became benchmark long ago. This possibility relates more to existing companies wishing to take
advantage from observed data. It is than perfectly possible to conduct internal research based on data
mining techniques, which can for example identify what led user to a website which means potential
profit. ICT than provides various modules which transfers data from the web to the spreadsheet. For MS
Excel is a perfect example Tatvic add on, which allows parameter-driven loading of data.

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 7. Conclusion
In the nut-shell we see that marketing research specifies

 The information required to address certain define marketing issues

 The design and method for collecting information
 management and implementation of the data collection process and analyses
 how to communicates the findings and their implications

It is a nowadays essential tool for majority of Market and Marketing researches by providing
means for gathering, storing, and analyzing data. Based on these inputs, it even widely supports making
conclusions. Thanks to applied Business Intelligence practices, it can not only help organization to
conduct quantitative research by providing a logical mean for disseminating questionnaires, it can also
be helpful in designing it by revealing aspects of the business including product and organization related
keywords. This helps the business entity to improve the efficiency of marketing and overall market
strategies.

8. Sources
[1] Market research versus marketing research [online].[quoted 2012-2-28]. Accessible at
<http://marketing-planet.com/surveys/market-research-versus-marketing-research.html>

[2] How to conduct market research, [online].[quoted 2012-2-28]. Accessible at

<http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090901/guidebook-how-to-conduct-market-research.html?
nav=next>

[3] Introduction to marketing research, [online].[quoted 2012-2-29]. Accessible at

<http://www.pauravshukla.com/marketing/research-methods/introduction-marketing-
research.pdf>

Freely considered were information provided by selected software vendors:

www.tatvic.com
http://www.keysurvey.com/
http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/