Market Research is neither a complex process nor very expensive. The amount of effort and expenditure needs to be related in some way to the costs and risks associated with the proposition. A Market Research can be systematically conducted in following stages:-
- Formulating the Problem:- Before starting a Market Research, set clear and precise objectives.
For example, if you have the plan to market Fashion-garments, specially to be designed for young women, the research objective should be to find out how many women aged 18-28, with an income over $60,000 / year, live or work within the target market. This will give an idea whether the market could support this venture. - Determining the information needs:- Knowing the size of the market requires several information like size of the resident population, people who come into the target area to work or stay on holiday or other places like hospital, library, railway station or schools which provide potential customers to that area.
- Sourcing Information:- Apart from research in libraries or on the internet, field research is the most fruitful way of gathering information that can provide competitive advantage.
- Deciding the Budget:- Market Research will not be free even if you do it yourself. At the very least, there will be your time. Doing the research may save costs but may limit the objectivity of the research. If you have no time for conducting research, get an outside agency to the work.
- Selecting the Research Technique:- Most field work research carried out consists of interviews, with the interviewer putting questions to a respondent. The more popular forms of interview are:- (i) Face-to-face interview for the consumer products. (ii) Telephone, email & web surveys for surveying companies. (iii) Postal Surveys & (iv) Test & Discussion Group. Each method requires good strategies to get positive responses from the respondents.
- Constructing the research Sample Population:- It is neither impractical nor desirable to include every possible customer or competitor in research. Instead, a sample of people can be selected. Sampling saves time and money and cane be more accurate than surveying an entire population. The accuracy of your survey will increase with the sample size.
- Processing and Analysing the Data:- The raw market research data needs to be analysed and turned into information to guide your decisions on price, promotion and location, and the shape, design and scope of the product or service itself.