Market Research Techniques - How to Gather Data for Your Business

Market research is indeed a good step if you are deciding to put up a small business or if you want to improve the performance of your business. One of the mistakes of some businesspeople is to assume that they pretty know their market well and disregards market research as a very good step in knowing what your clients need and want.

Conducting a good research on your market will also help you outwit competitors as this will be a good way to learn firsthand from your target market on what they want, what they prefer so you can conceptualize on the improvements that you want to do with your products. If you are thinking of conducting a research for your business, and you want to explore the market research techniques and methods that you can use, here are some ideas that may be of help.

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1. Surveys. Surveys are among the most common and one of the best ways to gather data for your research. Of course, aside from getting answers from direct from the individual, you can also solicit a good and specific answer especially if you can ask follow up questions.

You can however do the surveys in many other ways as well. You can do surveys through questionnaire form and interview the person directly, or you can mail them, although mailing them generates lesser response than doing the interview personally. You can also do it as an online survey or through telephone. Of course, your choice of these market research techniques can be based on the cost, the turnout, as well as the reliability of the data gathered.

2. Focus group discussions. This is also another way of gathering data for your business research. This actually involves discussing a certain topic in a group and collecting their ideas about it. The discussion is then documented, either by either videotaping or by observing. This is also a fast technique to get data as well.

3. Interviewing the respondents personally. Indeed, if you want to know what your market is like and what are their thoughts, you can go and interview them personally. With personal interview, you can also ask open-ended questions that allow you to gather more data. Unlike those with questionnaires, these are usually unstructured interviews. These however may be less reliable than surveys and focus group discussions.

Aside from these data gathering methods, you can also use other market research techniques such as gathering data from free secondary sources and then do the primary data gathering if you think you need more specific data. However, going for the primary data is a good choice in your research especially if you want to outsmart your competitors, as this will often give you good and accurate data on the behavior of your market.

With accurate data, you will also be guided correctly on what to do or improve. Indeed, if you want to move ahead of the competition, do your market research. Techniques, methods and strategies in doing so are readily available and you can even do so with lesser costs as well.

Market Research Techniques - How to Gather Data for Your Business

Carolyn Anderson did a market research to improve her business. If you want an easier way to market research, check out faster, easier market research. Also check out Niche Annihilation Method, where you can find tips on how to make money online by having your niche website.

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Challenges and Advantages of Marketing Research

Marketing research is a systematic and objective collection, analysis, interpretation of data and communication of marketing information relevant to a particular marketing problem. A company or organization can research about the market before initiating any marketing activity like sales and production to identify niche markets.

Advantages of marketing research

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· It indicates opportunities for products and market development, a company can then decide on the production, sales and production plans after identifying the opportunities.
· It provides a basis for sound, market led decision making by providing information to reduce uncertainty.
· Marketing research enables an organist ion to match their products or services to the requirements of the consumers or market.
· Research enables advertising to be tested during a campaigns development or prior to launch to ensure its effectiveness, and after launch to measure the success of the media used.
· It also enables product ideas to be tested without expenses of lunching to the market; this can be a change in service, product or design.
· It also provides objective explanation for success and failure in the market.
· Marketing research also helps to evaluate the strength and weakness of rivals plus the threats they may cause to the company.

Problems associated with marketing research
Though marketing research is a good practice for all firms to embark on and indeed many put in a lot of effort, many times things go wrong in the process. Below are some of the reasons why marketing research can fail.

Lack of cash
Financial constraints may limit the amount of research activity, leading to erroneous conclusion. Some times research activities are put on hold before they are completed due to lack of funds.

Haste
Many companies and firms attempt to do too much in such a little time, they end up taking shortcuts and some times use out of date secondary data which produces wrong results.

Inappropriate methodology
Research methods can be distorted by errors in project design, sampling techniques, lack of understanding by subject and interview bias.

Inexperience in data analysis
Some mangers that are not experienced in analyzing and interpreting research data may only look for the information they want to see from the research data and hence neglect a whole lot of important data.

Wrong information
Some times, some people due to different reasons can give wrong information to the interviewer which will produce wrong results.

Seasonality
There are some products which are only consumed by seasons, making a research about such products in a different season will produce wrong results.

Challenges and Advantages of Marketing Research

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Marketing Research & Elements of Marketing Research

Marketing research "The systematic gathering, recording and analyzing data about problems relating to the marketing of goods and services".

Market research on the other hand, is only a part of marketing research that covers a few of aspects of marketing. It is only the sub function of marketing research 'some companies use "market research" for describing research into markets the size geographical distribution incomes, and so on. However it fails to cover the idea of research into the effects of marketing efforts on markets, for which the term marketing research is the accurate. Elements of marketing research.

\"market Research\"

1. Market Research. It covers the aspects regarding size and nature of the market including export markets dividing the consumers in terms, of their age, sex, income (market segmentation), economic aspects of marketing etc.

2. Sales Research. This relates to the problem regional variations in sales fixing sales territories, measurement of the effectiveness of salesman, evaluation of sales methods and incentives, etc.

3. Product Research. This relates to the analysis of strengths and or weakness of existing product testing problems relating to diversification, simplification, trading up and trading down (all product line decisions), etc.

4. Packaging Research. In essence, it is a part of product research. But the recent development in packaging and its contribution in the advertising made it to occupy an independent position. This necessitates a separate study concerning the aspects of package to know its impact and response in the market.

5. Advertising Research. It undertakes a study relating to the preparation of advertisement copy (copy research), media to be used (media research) and measurement of advertising effectiveness.

6. Business Economic Research. Problems relating to input output analysis, forecasting, price and profit analysis, and preparation of break -even charts are the main fields of the research.

7. Export Marketing Research. This research is intended to study the export potentials of the product. In such cases any or all kinds of research mentioned above become necessary.

Marketing Research & Elements of Marketing Research

Elements of the Marketing Research

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The Keys To Success - Routine, Buyer Psychology, Market Research

In this next installment of my keys to success series, I want to touch on three more keys to success which are establishing a routine, understanding buyer psychology and doing market research. These are just as critical as any other for having success online.

Establishing a routine may be one of the hardest things for a marketer to do even though it should be one of the easiest. This really comes down to how disciplined a person you are. Personally, I get up every morning at 7 AM and get right to work, even before I have breakfast, which I eat while I work. I have everything typed up in a spreadsheet as far as what I have to do for the day. As i complete each item, I cross it off and move on to the next item. I do this until all the items for the day are completed. This is not something I even have to think about anymore. After establishing this routine now for over 4 years, it just comes naturally. This is one of the main reasons I am earning a five figure a month income.

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Understanding buyer psychology is critical to being able to make sales. If you don't understand why a person wants something, you can't sell to them. This is one of the areas where expert copywriters are king. They know all the hot buttons to push when it comes to selling to their target market because they know what makes people tick. While I can't give you a complete course on buyer psychology in an article, I can tell you that the main reason that people buy things is to relieve pain or to make themselves feel better. We don't buy things because we need them. We buy things because they solve some kind of a problem and make us feel better because of it. If your product or service can tap into this, then you're ahead of the game.

Finally, there is market research. This is so important because without it you won't even know if there is a demand for your product or not. Doing market research is time consuming, but it's not hard. The best way to do market research is to go to forums in the niche you're targeting and see what people are looking for. This way you can tell if the product you are selling, or thinking of creating, actually has a market. Also, look on the Internet and see if products like yours are already being sold. If so, then there is a good chance that the market exists.

Establishing a routine, understanding buyer psychology and doing market research are three keys to having success on the Internet with your business.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

The Keys To Success - Routine, Buyer Psychology, Market Research

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Overview on Qualitative Data Collection Techniques in International Marketing Research

This article is meant to be a brief review and reminder of some valuable yet often bypassed techniques to collect data on international markets and consumers.

When thinking of market research, surveys are most likely the first technique that comes to ones mind. However, surveys are a quantitative research and, in order to understand customer behavior and the social and cultural context in which our business will operate, we will need to perform some qualitative research as well.

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Qualitative methods are most certainly a more appropriate option when in need of researching patterns and attitudes in customer behavior, understand the depth of the environment around the customer, and understand the cultural characteristics then influence a customer - especially when the marketer is not familiar with the country of culture.

There are certain situations where qualitative research alone can provide the marketer with all insights needed to make decisions and take actions; while in some other cases quantitative research might be needed as well.

We will stop by the main qualitative techniques and see how and where they can be employed in international marketing.
Craig and Douglas (2000), mention three major types of qualitative data collection techniques:

- observational and quasi-observational techniques;

- projective techniques and depth interviews;

- creative group sessions (synectics).

1. Observational and quasi-observational techniques

Observational techniques involve direct observation of phenomena (in our case, consumers' behavior) in their natural settings. Observational research might be somehow less reliable than quantitative research yet it is more valid and flexible since the marketer is able to change his approach whenever needed.

Disadvantages are given by the limited behavioral variables and the fact that such data might not be generalizable - we can observe a customer's behavior at a given moment and situation but we cannot assume all further customers will act the same.

Quasi-observational techniques are reported to have increased in usage over the past decades, due to the large scale employ of surveillance cameras within stores. Such techniques cost less than pure observational ones since costs associated with video surveillance and taping are far lower than a researcher's wage; the tape can be viewed and analyzed at a later time, at the marketer's convenience. When performing videotaping of consumers' behaviors, they can be asked to give comments and insights upon their thoughts and actions while the conversation itself can be recorded and be further analyzed.

Pure observation: the marketer watches behavior of customers in real-life situation, either in situ or by videotaping the consumers (less intrusive). Videotaping can be specifically recommended when studying patterns of different cultures, since we can easily compare behaviors taped and highlight similarities and / or differences.

Trace measures: consist in collecting and recording traces of consumers' behavior. Such traces can be fingerprints or tear of packages, empty packages, garbage cans analysis and any other ways a marketer can imagine (it's all about creativity here!). In eMarketing, trace measures come under the form of recorded visits and hits - there are numerous professional applications that can help an emarketer analyze the behavior of visitors on his company's website.

Archival measures: can be any type of historical records, public records, archives, libraries, collections of personal documents etc. Such data can prove to be of great use in analyzing behavioral trends and changes in time. Marketers can also identify cultural values and attitudes of a population at a given moment by studying mass media content and advertisement of the timeframe questioned.

Entrapment measures: those are indirect techniques (by comparison to the previously mentioned ones) and consist in asking the respondent to react to a specific stimulus or situation, when the actual subject of investigation is totally different. The marketer plants the real stimulus among many fake ones and studies reactions. The method is quite unobtrusive and the marketer can gather valuable, non-reactive facts. When the respondent becomes aware of the true subject under investigation (s)he might change the behavior and compromise the study.

Protocols: are yet another observational marketing research technique which asks respondents to think out loud and verbally express all their thoughts during the decision-making process. Protocols are of great value for determining the factors of importance for a sale and they can be collected in either real shopping trips or simulated ones.

2. Projective techniques

Such techniques are based on the respondent's performance of certain tasks given by the marketer. The purpose is to have the consumers (respondents) express their unconscious beliefs through the projective stimuli; to express associations towards various symbols, images, signs.

Cooper (1996) suggested that projective techniques can be successfully employed to:
- indicate emotional and rational reactions;

- provide verbal and non-verbal communication;

- give permission to express novel ideas;

- encourage fantasy, idiosyncrasy and originality;

- reduce social constraints and censorship;

- encourage group members to share and "open up".

Projective market research techniques can take the following forms, presented below.

Collages - used to understand lifestyles and brand perceptions, respondents are asked to assemble a collage using images and symbols from selected sets of stimuli or from magazines and newspapers of their choice.

Picture completion - certain pictures can be designed to express and visualize the issue under study and respondents have to make associations and / or attribute words to the given pictures.

Analogies and metaphors are used when a larger range of projection is needed, with more complexity and depth of ideas and thoughts on a given brand, product, service, organization. The respondents are asked to freely express their association and analogies towards the object being studied; or they can be asked to select from a set of stimuli (e.g. photos) those that fit the examined subject.

Psycho-drawing is a technique that allows study participants to express a wide range of perceptions by making drawings of what they perceive the brand is (or product, service).

Personalization consists in asking the respondents to treat the brand or product as if it is a person and start making associations or finding images of this person. This technique is especially recommended in order to understand what kind of personality consumers assign to a brand / product / service.

3. In-depth interviews

These techniques of marketing research put an accent on verbal communication and they are efficient especially when trying to discover underlying attitudes and motivations towards a product or a specific market / consumption situation.

Individual in-depth interviews are performed on a person-to-person environment and the interviewer can obtain very specific and precise answers. Such interviews are common in B2B practices of market research, for example when a company conducts a research about a product among their existing corporate customers.

Interviews can be conducted by phone or via internet-based media, from a centralized location: this can greatly reduce costs associated with market research and the results are pretty much as accurate as the face-to-face ones. The only disadvantage would be the lack of non-verbal, visual communication.

Focus groups are basically discussions conducted by a researcher with a group of respondents who are considered to be representative for the target market.

Such meetings are usually held in an informal setting and are moderated by the researcher. Videotaping the sessions is common these days, and it can add more sources of analysis at a later time.

Focus groups are perhaps the ideal technique, if available in terms of costs and time, to test new ideas and concepts towards brands and products; to study customers' response to creative media such as ads and packaging design or to detect trends in consumers' attribute and perception. One of the important advantages of focus groups is the presence of several respondents in the same time, providing a certain synergy. Disadvantages refer mainly to the costs involved and the scarcity of good professionals to conduct the interviews and discussions.

To conclude, we have to keep in mind just how important non-survey data collection techniques are in today's market research. Not only they provide more depth of analysis but they can be performed in significantly less time than surveys and they're more suitable to be employed during the exploratory phases of international marketing research.

Overview on Qualitative Data Collection Techniques in International Marketing Research

Otilia Otlacan is a young professional specialized in eMarketing and eBusiness. She is currently working as independent Marketing Consultant and she is also teaching her own online course in Principles of eMarketing.

You can contact Otilia via her Marketing resources portal at Tea With an Edge of Marketing

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