What is Market Research?
Market Research is a continuous process for collecting, investigating and interpreting information about a particular market a company operates in or a product/service the company offers for selling in that market, and also about potential and existing competitors and the past, present and potential customers who purchase and consume the offered product/service. Conducting market research means making an analysis of all information about the market, product/service, customers and competitors in order to investigate possible ways for the company to successfully operate in the market, sell the product/service, attract the target audience and gain competitive advantages.
Planning and conducting market research is one of the key duties of marketing departments and teams. For your company it is also important to organize regular market research to get insight into the market, investigate spending habits of your customers, identify existing and potential competitors, develop solutions for product promotion and advertizing, increase your company’s recognition, improve your business reputation, and so on. Researching the market is an important activity providing your company with more business planning solutions that can improve the company’s performance, improve sales and increase revenue.
The Importance of Market Research
There is no doubt about the importance of market research. To prove this statement, let’s view why you should research markets. Market research is important for your business because it provides you with the following opportunities:
- Increased Sales. Through researching your market you gain valuable information that helps you identify how successful your product/service is likely to be, what the best price you can set for the product/service, and which customers are interested in purchasing and consuming the product/service. Having investigated this information helps you increase sales.
- Better Customer Management. The importance of market research is that you can use tools of marketing campaigns (questionnaires, meetings, discussions, messaging) to reach a wide audience of customers, reduce the timeframe within which your product/service reaches the customers, investigate current and future needs and expectations of the customers, and achieve higher customer satisfaction.
- Business Growth. As due to market researching your sales tends to an increase and your customer management gets better, your company gains an opportunity for further business growth and development.
Conclusion
The importance of market research is explained by three key opportunities that your business gains. First, you get sales increased, then you reach better customer management, and finally you lead your company to continuous business growth and development. Taking into account these opportunities, you should research markets because market researching paves the way for better inventory management, business planning, time management, employee management, etc. Obviously the marketing department of your organization can optimize its marketing campaigns through planning and conducting market research activities.