Businesses want to thrive, break borders, and even move overseas. All it takes to do this is to have a dream and then do a simple, good market research.

It happens to almost every company at the point when they are realizing success in a local market or a specific industry and are scoring new customers and enjoying frequent patronage, they begin to dream of expanding their footprint or bringing in new products to generate revenue, promote reach and further drive customer satisfaction.

Completing this objective will partly depend on the quality of their market research processes. 

What is a Market Research?

Market research is the cumulative efforts put in by a company or business to gather and utilize information about their customer's needs and preferences. 

The Different Types of Market Research

There are many different types of market research and they exist under specific classifications. In this section, we will highlight a market research classification before proceeding to mention the types of research within them.

Classification 1: Based on the source of the research data 

Primary Market Research 

Primary research refers to research work done directly by your business team for the sake of unique and original data or information. To perform this type of research, your team would have to be out in the field, physically contacting customers and collecting data. 

There are two ways to conduct primary research: either through one-on-one interviews or through focus groups. Here’s a brief on each of these two methods.

One-on-One Interviews:

A one-on-one interview idealizes a direct discussion between an interviewer and an interviewee. The process is deliberate, rich, and can lead to  

Focus Groups:

The focus group method involves one interviewer and a group of interviewees. There could be five, ten, or twenty interviewees. What matters, however, is that they are all people from your target market.  

The focus group method is a great option where only a short time is available to conduct research or where human resources are insufficient. Answers and responses received are considered to be from the entire group rather than from an individual within the group. 

A major downside to the focus group method is that responses from people within the group can be influenced in several different ways including:

• Acquiescence bias:

This talks about a participant falsely answering in the positive in order to please the interviewer. 

• Dominance bias: 

A situation in which answers or responses come from dominant group members even when they do not make up the majority of the number. 

• Researcher bias:

A situation in which the researcher indirectly dictates the response of the group.

What Businesses Are Suitable for Primary Research 

Companies and large businesses are in a good position to perform primary research since they often have the necessary manpower and finances required. 

Secondary Market Research 

Secondary research is a form of research that involves using data or materials that have been collected or gathered by another individual or entity. It is the kind of research that may not require going to the field. Instead, it is usually facilitated by in-house or remote systems to access and analyze the research information. 

Compared to primary research, secondary research is less costly, quicker, and much easier to conduct since someone else would have already done the hard work of sourcing original information. 

What Businesses Are Suitable for Secondary Research 

Businesses and small companies are more suited to conduct secondary research since it is not capital-intensive. In addition, small businesses will opt for this research option since they likely lack the manpower or expertise to brainstorm their research strategies and perform the necessary interviews, surveys, and analysis. 

Classification 2: Based on the nature of the data gathered or collected

Qualitative Research 

Qualitative research simply produces data in non-countable forms. Both primary and secondary research could be applied in performing this type of research. 

The drawback of this type of research is that the results do not make any concrete statements. It only gives depth to already recognized data. For example, if your primary research tells you that a group of customers are capable of purchasing your product or service, qualitative research could go on to tell what value of purchase can come from them (that is, whether these customers can make high-value purchases or not). 

When Does a Business Perform Qualitative Research

Qualitative research comes into play when both small and large businesses are looking to improve the outcome of their actions. Let’s say that the small business wants to know just how much a set of potential customers would love a particular product and the big business wants to know how well they can thrive in a new market. 

Quantitative Market Research

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While qualitative research reveals depth, quantitative research - on the other hand - brings in the numbers. Data from quantitative research is numerical in nature. It is easier to collect and analyze this form of data and so, by default, quantitative research seems to be more meaningful than qualitative research.

Quantitative market research is the bedrock of almost all business research. It provides timelines and very solid references that could aid further research and also direct decision-making processes. 

Classification 3: Based on specific market segment 

Branding Market Research

Branding market research is done to align a company’s branding in a way that builds a desired identity, reveals its unique offering, and attracts its target market. In addition, branding market research enables a business to create or manage its brand elements when necessary.  

Such research seeks to understand what the best choice for a brand color, logo, theme, and even values should be. In addition, branding research also tries to understand customer loyalty as well as the public’s perception of the brand. 

The most popular ways of conducting this research are through interviews, surveys, and focus groups. Interestingly, it is not a one-time research. A business will need to perform branding research early on in its existence and keep it up at intervals going forward. 

What Businesses Are Suitable for Branding Research 

Businesses across all industries and locations need to perform this particular research. No one business is exempted and none can thrive if this is done right.  

Customer Research

Customer market research sets your company’s eyes on the customers. It is intended to provide data on; who the customers are, what influences customer emotions, and what drives their actions. All of this is analyzed to determine how the company can adjust its response or appearance to increase sales conversion and loyalty. 

What Businesses Are Suitable for Customer Research 

Businesses across all industries and locations need to perform this particular research. No one business is exempted and none can thrive if this is done right. 

Competitor Research

Business is like warfare and the big talk of understanding the enemy - or in this case, the competitor - applies perfectly. Competitor research is the key to this. It gives insights into who your competitors are, what sets them apart from you, and what particularly interesting things they are up to. 

By gathering information about the competition, businesses can stand out in the market through accurate decisions on what products to build, what projects to work on, and whether to enter a partnership or other forms of agreement with competitor companies or not.  

What Businesses Are Suitable for Competitor Research 

Businesses across all industries and locations need to perform this particular research. No one business is exempted and none can thrive if this is done right. 

Product Research

Product market research is a form of research done into prospective or existing business products to check that they are viable enough for the intended market. This type of research looks into several different aspects including;

product design - what the product is intended for and how it will solve a unique consumer problem, product branding - what story the product tells and how it is perceived by customers,  product testing - how best to test the functionalities and performance of the product in ideal and non-ideal scenarios, product marketing - when to enter the target market, how to do this, and what to do to ensure that the product remains visible and attractive to customers. 

Since products directly interact with customers, it is important to tailor or even personalize them to suit known customer behaviors and characteristics. For example, you may want to include a translation feature for a digital product that will be used among multi-lingual customers. This way, customers can use the app in any language they understand or are proficient in. 

What Businesses Are Suitable for Product Research

Both product and service businesses can perform product research. This does not depend on the size of the company and can be undertaken at any point in time, for example, to identify areas for product improvement. 

Steps to Performing Good Market Research

We agree with this article that the 5-step marketing research process is:

Identifying an Issue and Setting Out Research Objectives:

Research is a purposeful business activity. As such, a clear reason or objective is needed before any work is done. Finding out what issues exist and whether they are worth solving is the main deal here. In a general sense, it is about finding out the “why” of the research. 

Developing a Market Research Plan:

Once you’ve found out the why (in the previous step), the next step is finding out the how. A market research plan lays it all out for you and your entire team. In this document, you will highlight what type of research you intend to conduct and how this will be carried out. The research plan should also identify how many field agents or researchers will be involved, what their specific roles will be, and what the expected outcome of the research is. 

Collect Relevant Data and Information:

By the time you’re here, you’re already taking interviews with individual customers and target groups for primary research, or combing through digital files and resources for desktop research.  Obviously, this is how data is accessed, sieved, and retrieved.  

Analyze Data and Report Findings:

At this point, you are simply trying to draw meaningful conclusions from your well-organized research data. All of what you identify should be properly documented and even expanded on in a written report. This will serve as a reference for any short and long-term actions or decisions corresponding to the research problem. 

Make Research-Based Decisions:

Research-based decisions simply put the research into action. If this is not done at any point in time, then the entire research is being put to waste. A research-based decision will likely produce positive and long-lasting results. 

Conclusion

When you think of market research, think of it as focusing on either brand, customers, competitors, or products. Within each of these aspects, a business can utilize qualitative or quantitative research, and they can achieve this through either primary or secondary research. All of these types of research are important to the success of a business activity and perfecting them could be the difference between staying on top of the market or sinking deep below it.

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