Market research - what's it all about?

The other day a colleague commented to me on how many businesses pursue a marketing strategy without having researched their market and their customers.

I feel quite strongly that many business managers, especially in SMEs, don't have any experience of formal market research. For some, the easiest way forward is often to avoid the unknown.

Getting the customer's opinion on your new product, brand, or business idea is obviously vital - if they don't like it then you must stop, listen and adapt what you're doing. As Seth Godin says in his excellent blog, the lizard brain in all of us tempts us to forge ahead with what we want to do, what's easiest for us to do, even if at the back of our minds we know that the right thing to do is something else completely.

The successful business manager will always pay attention and react to to what their customer says they want, and the only way to hear them is through market research.

So, here's a short sharp shot at unveiling the mysteries of research. To find out more, just contact KnowledgeWorks.

There are two main types of research: Secondary and Primary. (For more info on secondary research check out this earlier blog post.)

Primary research. So called, because it's about talking directly to the primary source of information i.e. the end user or the target market. There are two main types of primary research: qualitative and quantitative.

- Qualitative research is about understanding how customers feel about something. Focus groups are often used for this: these are sessions with eight to ten people lasting for around an hour where the subject (the business idea, brand or advertisement etc) is discussed and explored at length. Sometimes in-depth interviews are also used in qualitative research: these are one to one and will reveal a wealth of sentiment about the subject.

- Quantitative research is all about numbers and measurement and typically involves asking a relevant group of interviewees what they think of something. It answers questions such as ‘how much’, ‘how many’, ‘how often’, etc. This type of research is normally carried out in the form of a (face to face, over the phone or online) survey or questionnaire.


[There are many excellent research tools that will facilitate communication with your customer/consumer, this is just an overview to get you started]

With thanks to Real Insights for Colette's input to this post.