Market Research | What is Market Research?

Market Research | What is Market Research?

Market Research is the study of the behavior of the people or individual in the market. It involves several behavioral pattern and psychologies of individuals or groups. The problem and goal for an individual can differ from the group. You should consider all the views to provide a solution so that it can benefit both the entities. Several socio-economical factors also come into play while conducting large scale findings. You can do market research before or after you have identified the problem. It helps to modify or develop your product or service in the way that customers like and will ultimately convert them to clients.

What is Market Research?

Market research can be done at two levels-

Micro-Level Research

Such type includes targeted or focused research on a particular geographical area or on a specific age group. 

For example, if you are trying to survey for a baby product, you should conduct Micro-Level research focusing the age group of toddlers, not teenagers which are not your specific customers and may not add value. 

Advantages of Micro-level Research

• Can reach a specific domain of customers for marketing.
• Easy to understand specifically what the targeted group needs and the problems.
• Better marketing-selling ratio, which is beneficial for the organization

Disadvantages of Micro-level Research

• Need to choose and specify the focused market, which may involve negative cash flow.
• The customers base gets reduced and may become problematic if competitors come to play, or if the market is already dominated by the competitors.
• Law and Government regulations change over region to region, so a product or service may go well in a particular region but may not be effective in some other region. This hinders product growth and ultimately reaches the Maturity Stage quickly.

Macro-Level Research

Such a method involves global specification and there are no such targeted audience or market groups. It includes a broader customer base. Such a level of research can even be conducted if the organization does not know how to target the audience or if market segmentation is still not done yet. 

Advantages of Macro-Level

• Has a much greater reach than micro-level.
• More customer relationships and more scopes of product development.
• Generally takes more time for the product to reach the Maturity Stage.
• Can help in market segmentation, if not done yet.

Disadvantages of Macro-Level Research

• The cost involved is high as compared to micro-level.
• Law and regulations may vary from region to region and from governments to governments, so your product or service needs to be tailored according to specific rules which can be time and resource consuming.
• Takes and time as there are several factors like culture, race, ethnicity, religion, preference etc which all come into play.

Why Market Research is Important?

Market Research is of utmost importance when it comes to product development.

Negative cash flow but beneficial in the long run. 

Initially, it is going to cost you much of your time and resources particularly if you are in the Introduction stage of your product cycle, but no matter what it takes it is going to give fruitful results in the long run.

Know where your product or service stands in the market

You can have a fair idea about which stage your product is likely going to end up before the next version needs to be brought in the market. If your product isn’t going well then you can find substitute goods for the same and implement market research to find whether it will work or not. 

Importance of Market Research

Competitor Analysis Score

One important factor is that you can know about your competitor and their impact in the customer solutions so that you can add a feature which solves one of their major drawbacks and you can win a sustainable place in the market.  You can continuously develop and test your product or services by conducting research in a periodic manner and that your solution never goes out of the play.

Brand Recognition and Customer Relationship

They are vital factors for your business and doing such activities shows that you care for the people and customers and provides non-tangible benefits in the long run. Moreover, it will motivate your employees to work with you and will promote a good atmosphere. It helps to keep the curve of the organization steady and inclined towards growth. 

Conclusion

One has to consider both individual and group views in order to succeed. Individuals are often stimulated by group behavior and they tend to follow group rules. This might hinder the process. It is essential for the organization to provide a proper environment to the entity involved in the research so that the findings are not influenced by anyway. 

Conducting such research before developing a product can save tons of resources and time as you can have market information and the needs of the consumers. Otherwise, the product will be a complete failure. Consider the case of Windows Longhorn- it was developed and after a detailed survey, Microsoft denied its release and made another product or version called Windows Vista and added some features of Longhorn in it.