essay about market research

Essay on Market Research | Marketing Management

After reading this essay you will learn about:- 1. Meaning of Market Research 2. Characteristics of Good Marketing Research 3. Necessity 4. Undertaking Market Research 5. Functions 6. Classification 7. Techniques.

Essay Contents:

• Essay on the Techniques for Conducting Market Research

Essay # 1. Meaning of Market Research:

Market research is the analysis of a project to be started, expanded or modified. Broadly speaking market research is the commercial research for the suitability of a business and is a continuous process i.e. research is always kept continued for the stability of the business.

Mar­ket research is very essential in mass scale production because volume of production depends upon the continuity of demand. If demand reduces suddenly, production comes to a stand-still, which may produce great losses to manufacturer.

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Market research includes forecasting, intelligence and statistics. It is an important factor for the sale of products. Failure to do this accurately may lead to the production of more goods than the market can absorb, which means financial losses to the firm. It may also lead to under production, the results of which are equally unpleasant.

Market research may be defined as a way of finding out facts which must be known before a market policy is to be determined. Before starting a business, planning department makes different investigations affecting the business to maintain good working conditions, better qual­ity and handsome profits.

“Many new products” and firms fail because they start business on a “Guess-estimate” of the good market but that is never reached. Therefore, investment of small amount and time on careful market analysis is comparatively better instead of bigger loss at a later stage.

The market analysis is a scientific method of determining what to produce, who the pur­chasers are, where these are located, how much to manufacture, how to sell and when to sell, in order to maximise the service rendered and the profits earned.

This is a dynamic world in which the profit opportunities are constantly altering and efficient market research can only enable a manufacturer to earn maximum while giving the customer maximum satisfaction.

Continued success in business depends on its maintaining a continuous flow of new product ideas. Thus owner should select only profitable products and leave unprofitable ones. These ideas mainly originate in the sales or research organisations.

Mainly the object of market research is to inform the management as to what the future holds good for its products and proposed products.

The market research data can be collected from the internal records of the business, reports obtained by outside sales staff, published sources, investigators in the field, financial and trade formulae and reports of trade associations.

The analysis of the product is made to find out:

(i) Sales volume.

(ii) Amount of profit and its duration.

(iii) Amount of capital needed.

(iv) Cost of necessary advertising.

(v) Production cost.

(vi) Stability of new material supply.

(vii) Business conditions and trends.

(viii) Handling and transportation charges.

(ix) Seasonal market characteristics.

(x) Any other factors which may be considered related to the success of the business.

Essay # 2. Characteristics of Good Marketing Research :

1. Effective marketing research uses the principles of scientific method, careful observa­tion, prediction and testing.

2. Marketing research develops innovative ways to solve a problem.

3. Good marketing researchers should avoid over reliance on any one method. They also recognise that using multiple sources leads to better information.

4. Good marketing researchers recognise that data are interpreted from underlying models, and these models guide the type of information sought.

5. Good marketing researchers show concern for estimating the value of information against its cost. This helps in deciding which research project should be conducted.

6. Good marketing research benefits both the sponsoring company and its consumers. Through these, company learns more about consumers’ needs and is able to supply more satisfying products and services.

Essay # 3. Necessity of Market Research :

The necessity of market research which is a new technique existed in the 20th century due to the industrialisation of Western society in the 19th century. The necessity improved greatly due to introduction of large scale production and large increase in population.

In the earliest days there was less gap between the initial manufacturer and the ultimate consumer. Fig. 42.1 shows this relation. The manufacturer knew his customer’s demands, de­sires and habits. They were very close to each other because of few in number.

Now modern industry separated customers by complicated organisation and engaged in mass production for cheap and large scale demands. Therefore, the demands of the customers must be explored, developed and evaluated.

The change from intimate manufacturer and customer contact is similar to a broken circular chain as shown in Fig. 42.2. Fig. 42.3. shows how market research brings manufacturer and customer close to each other.

Essay # 4. Undertaking Market Research :

The work of market research should be handed over to the sales department. Throughout the research, scientific methods are used so that nothing is overlooked. The reasons for the various features of the market demand are made clear and generally the maximum information is obtained.

The analyst should first make the preliminary survey suggested by the directors. Since the preliminary survey is the foundation around which a more extensive study may be practised later.

Therefore, it should be conducted only by an alert and experienced analyst who can make out plans for future operations efficiently. Sometimes a preliminary survey supplies sufficient information that there is no profitable market for the products and hence further analysis is not required.

The collection of several data in survey is generally the most exhausting and frustrating part. The various mediums used, can be questionnaire, telephone, personal contacts and inter­views. The personal contacts and interviews are the best media as they give comparatively true and correct information though costly and take more time.

Essay # 5. Functions of Market Research :

Following are the main functions of market research:

1. It helps in knowing that who and where the customer is and what he wants.

2. It helps in knowing the sale trend, market potential and its shares in the market, which is essential for production planning.

3. It helps in knowing the defects in the products and reasons of resistance by consum­ers and then to rectify them in future production.

4. It studies the distribution channel and its effectiveness.

5. It exploits new markets and helps developing new products.

6. It safeguards the interest of the company against changes in the market in future.

7. It keeps the business in touch with its market and thus helps the sales promotion efforts.

Essay # 6. Classification of Market Research :

Market research is sub-divided into four general classifications as described below:

(a) Product Analysis.

(b) Market Analysis.

(c) Distribution Analysis.

(d) Competition Analysis.

(a) Product Analysis:

Product analysis is required to find out customer’s preferences for the product. This will enable management to make improvements that will meet the require­ments of customers. These will fulfill the present requirements of the market and will be more acceptable than those of competitor’s products.

Product analysis is also carried out to simplify product lines by eliminating those which have a limited demand, or are unprofitable, to determine the method of packing that will bring best sales and to find the suitable price which may be accepted by the customers and results in handsome profits.

It is important to find what characteristics your products have and which other competitor’s products have not, in order to know their relative advantages so that custom­ers can be persuaded to purchase your products only.

A check list of questions to be answered by a product analysis is given below:

1. Whether the product fulfills market requirements.

2. Whether the product competitive in character, performance and price.

3. Whether the product permits efficient distribution.

4. Whether the product can be sold at handsome profits.

5. Whether the lines complete the required sizes.

6. Whether some design improvement are required to fulfill customers’ needs and improve performance.

7. How product can be redesigned to reduce cost of production, packing, distribution, transportation and maintenance without affecting quality?

8. Whether reduction of a selling price has effects on demand.

9. Whether finished stock can be reduced to minimise investment, warehouse costs and obsolescence.

10. How repairs and replacement methods can be improved?

11. What is the future trend of changes as determined by customers’ changing habits?

12. What new changes and inventions are likely to occur?

13. What is competition offering? Whether some better design ideas can be taken from competitor’s products.

(b) Market Analysis:

The object of market analysis is to find the location of markets, scope of sales and buying habits of customers that make up the potential market for a product. As the size of industry increases with the consumption of products, therefore, this fact is required for deciding about the capacity of plant and machinery.

A check list of questions to be answered by a market analysis is given below:

1. Who purchase the product?

2. Where are the markets?

3. How many other customers influence the purchase?

4. What is the volume of sale during a particular time?

5. On what factors buyers pay stress e.g. quality, price, delivery, safety or service etc.?

6. When customers are mostly in the habit of buying?

7. How often they used to purchase?

8. Do they buy in advance of needs?

9. Whether demand is seasonal?

10. What discount and credit terms are prevailing?

(c) Distribution Analysis:

This consists of the study of the channels of distribution, meth­ods of pricing, resale price, maintenance, selling methods, sales promotion, sales training, ware­housing, distribution, cost analysis and other policies and practices required for the product distribution.

The economic selection of the best channels of distribution for a product is essen­tial for the success in market analysis. It includes transportation, warehousing and inventory costs.

(d) Competition Analysis:

Competition studies are generally included as a part of mar­keting analysis. This makes necessary to study the recent or proposed production sales and pricing policies of the competitors.

Most important of these is the analysis of the quality of competitor’s products to ascertain how a potential customer would compare with one’s own products.

The sales department should ask its salesmen to report and comment by potential custom­ers about the firm’s product or the products of its competitor’s. It should also study the re­search and product development work that the competition may be carrying on in order to estimate how these will affect its further sales.

From these studies, plans and policies may be made to guide future activities of a concern in order to improve its competitive position.

Essay # 7. Techniques for Conducting Market Research :

To carry out various analysis as explained above, following techniques are adopted:

1. Collection of Data:

Since these data are on the table of the organisation, this technique is also known as Desk research. In this method, the data are collected from published material (either by the company itself or by other agencies e.g. Journals of the trade, published survey reports, Government publications, international publications etc.).

This type of research is carried out for knowing past sales, effects of various factors on sales in the past, fluctuation in the sales etc.

2. Interviews:

To know the views of salesmen,-dealers and consumers interviews are con­ducted with a selected sample of people. These interviews can be conducted on telephone or in person depending upto the nature of questions.

3. Market Survey:

In order to collect specific data or views a carefully prepared question­naire is posted to the selected sample of people.

4. Statistical Methods:

Statistical methods like, bar chart, frequency polygon, distribu­tion curves and concept of standard deviation is used to serve the purpose.

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Market research is a cornerstone of all successful, strategic businesses. It can also be daunting for entrepreneurs looking to launch a startup or start a side hustle . What is market research, anyway? And how do you…do it?

We’ll walk you through absolutely everything you need to know about the market research process so that by the end of this guide, you’ll be an expert in market research too. And what’s more important: you’ll have actionable steps you can take to start collecting your own market research.

What Is Market Research?

Market research is the organized process of gathering information about your target customers and market. Market research can help you better understand customer behavior and competitor strengths and weaknesses, as well as provide insight for the best strategies in launching new businesses and products. There are different ways to approach market research, including primary and secondary research and qualitative and quantitative research. The strongest approaches will include a combination of all four.

“Virtually every business can benefit from conducting some market research,” says Niles Koenigsberg of Real FiG Advertising + Marketing . “Market research can help you piece together your [business’s] strengths and weaknesses, along with your prospective opportunities, so that you can understand where your unique differentiators may lie.” Well-honed market research will help your brand stand out from the competition and help you see what you need to do to lead the market. It can also do so much more.

The Purposes of Market Research

Why do market research? It can help you…

• Pinpoint your target market, create buyer personas, and develop a more holistic understanding of your customer base and market.
• Understand current market conditions to evaluate risks and anticipate how your product or service will perform.
• Validate a concept prior to launch.
• Identify gaps in the market that your competitors have created or overlooked.
• Solve problems that have been left unresolved by the existing product/brand offerings.
• Identify opportunities and solutions for new products or services.
• Develop killer marketing strategies .

What Are the Benefits of Market Research?

Strong market research can help your business in many ways. It can…

• Strengthen your market position.
• Help you identify your strengths and weaknesses.
• Help you identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Minimize risk.
• Center your customers’ experience from the get-go.
• Help you create a dynamic strategy based on market conditions and customer needs/demands.

What Are the Basic Methods of Market Research?

The basic methods of market research include surveys, personal interviews, customer observation, and the review of secondary research. In addition to these basic methods, a forward-thinking market research approach incorporates data from the digital landscape like social media analysis, SEO research, gathering feedback via forums, and more. Throughout this guide, we will cover each of the methods commonly used in market research to give you a comprehensive overview.

Primary vs. Secondary Market Research

Primary and secondary are the two main types of market research you can do. The latter relies on research conducted by others. Primary research, on the other hand, refers to the fact-finding efforts you conduct on your own.

This approach is limited, however. It’s likely that the research objectives of these secondary data points differ from your own, and it can be difficult to confirm the veracity of their findings.

Primary Market Research

Primary research is more labor intensive, but it generally yields data that is exponentially more actionable. It can be conducted through interviews, surveys, online research, and your own data collection. Every new business should engage in primary market research prior to launch. It will help you validate that your idea has traction, and it will give you the information you need to help minimize financial risk.

You can hire an agency to conduct this research on your behalf. This brings the benefit of expertise, as you’ll likely work with a market research analyst. The downside is that hiring an agency can be expensive—too expensive for many burgeoning entrepreneurs. That brings us to the second approach. You can also do the market research yourself, which substantially reduces the financial burden of starting a new business .

Secondary Market Research

Secondary research includes resources like government databases and industry-specific data and publications. It can be beneficial to start your market research with secondary sources because it’s widely available and often free-to-access. This information will help you gain a broad overview of the market conditions for your new business.

Identify Your Goals and Your Audience

Before you begin conducting interviews or sending out surveys, you need to set your market research goals. At the end of your market research process, you want to have a clear idea of who your target market is—including demographic information like age, gender, and where they live—but you also want to start with a rough idea of who your audience might be and what you’re trying to achieve with market research.

You can pinpoint your objectives by asking yourself a series of guiding questions:

• What are you hoping to discover through your research?
• Who are you hoping to serve better because of your findings?
• What do you think your market is?
• Who are your competitors?
• Are you testing the reception of a new product category or do you want to see if your product or service solves the problem left by a current gap in the market?
• Are you just…testing the waters to get a sense of how people would react to a new brand?

Once you’ve narrowed down the “what” of your market research goals, you’re ready to move onto how you can best achieve them. Think of it like algebra. Many math problems start with “solve for x.” Once you know what you’re looking for, you can get to work trying to find it. It’s a heck of a lot easier to solve a problem when you know you’re looking for “x” than if you were to say “I’m gonna throw some numbers out there and see if I find a variable.”

How to Do Market Research

This guide outlines every component of a comprehensive market research effort. Take into consideration the goals you have established for your market research, as they will influence which of these elements you’ll want to include in your market research strategy.

Secondary Data

Secondary data allows you to utilize pre-existing data to garner a sense of market conditions and opportunities. You can rely on published market studies, white papers, and public competitive information to start your market research journey.

Secondary data, while useful, is limited and cannot substitute your own primary data. It’s best used for quantitative data that can provide background to your more specific inquiries.

Find Your Customers Online

Once you’ve identified your target market, you can use online gathering spaces and forums to gain insights and give yourself a competitive advantage. Rebecca McCusker of The Creative Content Shop recommends internet recon as a vital tool for gaining a sense of customer needs and sentiment. “Read their posts and comments on forums, YouTube video comments, Facebook group [comments], and even Amazon/Goodreads book comments to get in their heads and see what people are saying.”

If you’re interested in engaging with your target demographic online, there are some general rules you should follow. First, secure the consent of any group moderators to ensure that you are acting within the group guidelines. Failure to do so could result in your eviction from the group.

Not all comments have the same research value. “Focus on the comments and posts with the most comments and highest engagement,” says McCusker. These high-engagement posts can give you a sense of what is already connecting and gaining traction within the group.

Social media can also be a great avenue for finding interview subjects. “LinkedIn is very useful if your [target customer] has a very specific job or works in a very specific industry or sector. It’s amazing the amount of people that will be willing to help,” explains Miguel González, a marketing executive at Dealers League . “My advice here is BE BRAVE, go to LinkedIn, or even to people you know and ask them, do quick interviews and ask real people that belong to that market and segment and get your buyer persona information first hand.”

Market research interviews can provide direct feedback on your brand, product, or service and give you a better understanding of consumer pain points and interests.

When organizing your market research interviews, you want to pay special attention to the sample group you’re selecting, as it will directly impact the information you receive. According to Tanya Zhang, the co-founder of Nimble Made , you want to first determine whether you want to choose a representative sample—for example, interviewing people who match each of the buyer persona/customer profiles you’ve developed—or a random sample.

“A sampling of your usual persona styles, for example, can validate details that you’ve already established about your product, while a random sampling may [help you] discover a new way people may use your product,” Zhang says.

Market Surveys

Market surveys solicit customer inclinations regarding your potential product or service through a series of open-ended questions. This direct outreach to your target audience can provide information on your customers’ preferences, attitudes, buying potential, and more.

Every expert we asked voiced unanimous support for market surveys as a powerful tool for market research. With the advent of various survey tools with accessible pricing—or free use—it’s never been easier to assemble, disseminate, and gather market surveys. While it should also be noted that surveys shouldn’t replace customer interviews , they can be used to supplement customer interviews to give you feedback from a broader audience.

Who to Include in Market Surveys

• Current customers
• Past customers
• Your existing audience (such as social media/newsletter audiences)

Example Questions to Include in Market Surveys

While the exact questions will vary for each business, here are some common, helpful questions that you may want to consider for your market survey. Demographic Questions: the questions that help you understand, demographically, who your target customers are:

• “What is your age?”
• “Where do you live?”
• “What is your gender identity?”
• “What is your household income?”
• “What is your household size?”
• “What do you do for a living?”
• “What is your highest level of education?”

Product-Based Questions: Whether you’re seeking feedback for an existing brand or an entirely new one, these questions will help you get a sense of how people feel about your business, product, or service:

• “How well does/would our product/service meet your needs?”
• “How does our product/service compare to similar products/services that you use?”
• “How long have you been a customer?” or “What is the likelihood that you would be a customer of our brand?

Personal/Informative Questions: the deeper questions that help you understand how your audience thinks and what they care about.

• “What are your biggest challenges?”
• “What’s most important to you?”
• “What do you do for fun (hobbies, interests, activities)?”
• “Where do you seek new information when researching a new product?”
• “How do you like to make purchases?”
• “What is your preferred method for interacting with a brand?”

Survey Tools

Online survey tools make it easy to distribute surveys and collect responses. The best part is that there are many free tools available. If you’re making your own online survey, you may want to consider SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Google Forms, or Zoho Survey.

Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis is a breakdown of how your business stacks up against the competition. There are many different ways to conduct this analysis. One of the most popular methods is a SWOT analysis, which stands for “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.” This type of analysis is helpful because it gives you a more robust understanding of why a customer might choose a competitor over your business. Seeing how you stack up against the competition can give you the direction you need to carve out your place as a market leader.

Social Media Analysis

Social media has fundamentally changed the market research landscape, making it easier than ever to engage with a wide swath of consumers. Follow your current or potential competitors on social media to see what they’re posting and how their audience is engaging with it. Social media can also give you a lower cost opportunity for testing different messaging and brand positioning.

SEO Analysis and Opportunities

SEO analysis can help you identify the digital competition for getting the word out about your brand, product, or service. You won’t want to overlook this valuable information. Search listening tools offer a novel approach to understanding the market and generating the content strategy that will drive business. Tools like Google Trends and Awario can streamline this process.

Ready to Kick Your Business Into High Gear?

Now that you’ve completed the guide to market research you know you’re ready to put on your researcher hat to give your business the best start. Still not sure how actually… launch the thing? Our free mini-course can run you through the essentials for starting your side hustle .

About Mary Kate Miller

Mary Kate Miller writes about small business, real estate, and finance. In addition to writing for Foundr, her work has been published by The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Bustle, and more. She lives in Chicago.

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130 Market Research Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Market research is an essential component of any successful business strategy. It involves gathering and analyzing data about consumers, competitors, and the overall market in order to make informed decisions. Whether you are a student studying marketing or a professional in the field, choosing the right market research essay topic is crucial for achieving success in your academic or professional endeavors.

Here are 130 market research essay topic ideas and examples to help you get started:

• The impact of social media on consumer behavior
• The importance of market segmentation in developing a marketing strategy
• The role of market research in product development
• The effectiveness of online surveys in gathering consumer insights
• The benefits of using focus groups in market research
• The impact of celebrity endorsements on consumer purchasing decisions
• The influence of cultural factors on consumer behavior
• The role of emotions in consumer decision-making
• The importance of brand loyalty in driving repeat purchases
• The impact of product packaging on consumer perceptions
• The effectiveness of influencer marketing in reaching target audiences
• The role of pricing strategies in influencing consumer behavior
• The impact of product placement in movies and TV shows on consumer preferences
• The role of customer reviews in shaping brand perception
• The effectiveness of loyalty programs in retaining customers
• The impact of environmental concerns on consumer purchasing decisions
• The role of advertising in shaping consumer perceptions
• The effectiveness of email marketing in driving sales
• The impact of online reviews on consumer trust
• The role of customer service in building brand loyalty
• The importance of market research in understanding competition
• The impact of technological advances on consumer behavior
• The effectiveness of social media marketing in reaching target audiences
• The role of demographics in shaping consumer preferences
• The impact of word-of-mouth marketing on brand perception
• The effectiveness of product demonstrations in driving sales
• The role of customer satisfaction surveys in improving products and services
• The impact of online shopping on traditional retail stores
• The importance of market research in launching a new product
• The role of influencers in shaping consumer trends
• The impact of customer reviews on brand reputation
• The effectiveness of online advertising in reaching target audiences
• The role of packaging design in influencing consumer perceptions
• The impact of brand partnerships on consumer purchasing decisions
• The importance of market research in entering a new market
• The role of customer feedback in improving products and services
• The effectiveness of experiential marketing in engaging consumers
• The impact of social media influencers on brand awareness
• The role of customer loyalty programs in retaining customers
• The importance of market research in developing a pricing strategy
• The impact of product quality on brand loyalty
• The effectiveness of direct mail marketing in reaching target audiences
• The role of customer testimonials in building brand trust
• The impact of online shopping on brick-and-mortar stores
• The importance of market research in identifying consumer needs
• The role of social media influencers in driving sales
• The impact of customer service on brand loyalty
• The effectiveness of content marketing in engaging consumers
• The role of packaging in attracting consumers
• The impact of brand reputation on consumer purchasing decisions
• The importance of market research in developing a marketing plan
• The effectiveness of influencer partnerships in reaching target audiences
• The impact of product placement in social media on consumer preferences
• The impact of celebrity endorsements on brand awareness
• The impact of online reviews on brand reputation
• The role of social media marketing in reaching target audiences
• The impact of customer testimonials on brand trust
• The impact of product quality on consumer purchasing decisions

These market research essay topics cover a wide range of areas within the field of marketing and can be tailored to suit your specific interests and expertise. Whether you are interested in consumer behavior, advertising, product development, or market segmentation, there is sure to be a topic on this list that will inspire you to create a compelling and informative essay.

Remember to conduct thorough research, gather relevant data and examples, and present your findings in a clear and organized manner. By choosing a topic that you are passionate about and that aligns with your goals and interests, you can create a market research essay that will impress your professors, colleagues, or potential employers. Good luck!

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What Is Market Research?

• How It Works
• Primary vs. Secondary
• How to Conduct Research

The Bottom Line

• Marketing Essentials

How to Do Market Research, Types, and Example

Joules Garcia / Investopedia

Market research examines consumer behavior and trends in the economy to help a business develop and fine-tune its business idea and strategy. It helps a business understand its target market by gathering and analyzing data.

Market research is the process of evaluating the viability of a new service or product through research conducted directly with potential customers. It allows a company to define its target market and get opinions and other feedback from consumers about their interest in a product or service.

Research may be conducted in-house or by a third party that specializes in market research. It can be done through surveys and focus groups, among other ways. Test subjects are usually compensated with product samples or a small stipend for their time.

Key Takeaways

• Companies conduct market research before introducing new products to determine their appeal to potential customers.
• Tools include focus groups, telephone interviews, and questionnaires.
• The results of market research inform the final design of the product and determine how it will be positioned in the marketplace.
• Market research usually combines primary information, gathered directly from consumers, and secondary information, which is data available from external sources.

Market Research

How market research works.

Market research is used to determine the viability of a new product or service. The results may be used to revise the product design and fine-tune the strategy for introducing it to the public. This can include information gathered for the purpose of determining market segmentation . It also informs product differentiation , which is used to tailor advertising.

A business engages in various tasks to complete the market research process. It gathers information based on the market sector being targeted by the product. This information is then analyzed and relevant data points are interpreted to draw conclusions about how the product may be optimally designed and marketed to the market segment for which it is intended.

It is a critical component in the research and development (R&D) phase of a new product or service introduction. Market research can be conducted in many different ways, including surveys, product testing, interviews, and focus groups.

Market research is a critical tool that companies use to understand what consumers want, develop products that those consumers will use, and maintain a competitive advantage over other companies in their industry.

Primary Market Research vs. Secondary Market Research

Market research usually consists of a combination of:

• Primary research, gathered by the company or by an outside company that it hires
• Secondary research, which draws on external sources of data

Primary Market Research

Primary research generally falls into two categories: exploratory and specific research.

• Exploratory research is less structured and functions via open-ended questions. The questions may be posed in a focus group setting, telephone interviews, or questionnaires. It results in questions or issues that the company needs to address about a product that it has under development.
• Specific research delves more deeply into the problems or issues identified in exploratory research.

Secondary Market Research

All market research is informed by the findings of other researchers about the needs and wants of consumers. Today, much of this research can be found online.

Secondary research can include population information from government census data , trade association research reports , polling results, and research from other businesses operating in the same market sector.

History of Market Research

Formal market research began in Germany during the 1920s. In the United States, it soon took off with the advent of the Golden Age of Radio.

Companies that created advertisements for this new entertainment medium began to look at the demographics of the audiences who listened to each of the radio plays, music programs, and comedy skits that were presented.

They had once tried to reach the widest possible audience by placing their messages on billboards or in the most popular magazines. With radio programming, they had the chance to target rural or urban consumers, teenagers or families, and judge the results by the sales numbers that followed.

Types of Market Research

Face-to-face interviews.

From their earliest days, market research companies would interview people on the street about the newspapers and magazines that they read regularly and ask whether they recalled any of the ads or brands that were published in them. Data collected from these interviews were compared to the circulation of the publication to determine the effectiveness of those ads.

Market research and surveys were adapted from these early techniques.

To get a strong understanding of your market, it’s essential to understand demand, market size, economic indicators, location, market saturation, and pricing.

Focus Groups

A focus group is a small number of representative consumers chosen to try a product or watch an advertisement.

Afterward, the group is asked for feedback on their perceptions of the product, the company’s brand, or competing products. The company then takes that information and makes decisions about what to do with the product or service, whether that's releasing it, making changes, or abandoning it altogether.

Phone Research

The man-on-the-street interview technique soon gave way to the telephone interview. A telephone interviewer could collect information in a more efficient and cost-effective fashion.

Telephone research was a preferred tactic of market researchers for many years. It has become much more difficult in recent years as landline phone service dwindles and is replaced by less accessible mobile phones.

Survey Research

As an alternative to focus groups, surveys represent a cost-effective way to determine consumer attitudes without having to interview anyone in person. Consumers are sent surveys in the mail, usually with a coupon or voucher to incentivize participation. These surveys help determine how consumers feel about the product, brand, and price point.

Online Market Research

With people spending more time online, market research activities have shifted online as well. Data collection still uses a survey-style form. But instead of companies actively seeking participants by finding them on the street or cold calling them on the phone, people can choose to sign up, take surveys, and offer opinions when they have time.

This makes the process far less intrusive and less rushed, since people can participate on their own time and of their own volition.

How to Conduct Market Research

The first step to effective market research is to determine the goals of the study. Each study should seek to answer a clear, well-defined problem. For example, a company might seek to identify consumer preferences, brand recognition, or the comparative effectiveness of different types of ad campaigns.

After that, the next step is to determine who will be included in the research. Market research is an expensive process, and a company cannot waste resources collecting unnecessary data. The firm should decide in advance which types of consumers will be included in the research, and how the data will be collected. They should also account for the probability of statistical errors or sampling bias .

The next step is to collect the data and analyze the results. If the two previous steps have been completed accurately, this should be straightforward. The researchers will collect the results of their study, keeping track of the ages, gender, and other relevant data of each respondent. This is then analyzed in a marketing report that explains the results of their research.

The last step is for company executives to use their market research to make business decisions. Depending on the results of their research, they may choose to target a different group of consumers, or they may change their price point or some product features.

The results of these changes may eventually be measured in further market research, and the process will begin all over again.

Benefits of Market Research

Market research is essential for developing brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. Since it is unlikely for a product to appeal equally to every consumer, a strong market research program can help identify the key demographics and market segments that are most likely to use a given product.

Market research is also important for developing a company’s advertising efforts. For example, if a company’s market research determines that its consumers are more likely to use Facebook than X (formerly Twitter), it can then target its advertisements to one platform instead of another. Or, if they determine that their target market is value-sensitive rather than price-sensitive, they can work on improving the product rather than reducing their prices.

Market research only works when subjects are honest and open to participating.

Example of Market Research

Many companies use market research to test new products or get information from consumers about what kinds of products or services they need and don’t currently have.

For example, a company that’s considering starting a business might conduct market research to test the viability of its product or service. If the market research confirms consumer interest, the business can proceed confidently with its business plan . If not, the company can use the results of the market research to make adjustments to the product to bring it in line with customer desires.

What Are the Main Types of Market Research?

The main types of market research are primary research and secondary research. Primary research includes focus groups, polls, and surveys. Secondary research includes academic articles, infographics, and white papers.

Qualitative research gives insights into how customers feel and think. Quantitative research uses data and statistics such as website views, social media engagement, and subscriber numbers.

What Is Online Market Research?

Online market research uses the same strategies and techniques as traditional primary and secondary market research, but it is conducted on the Internet. Potential customers may be asked to participate in a survey or give feedback on a product. The responses may help the researchers create a profile of the likely customer for a new product.

What Are Paid Market Research Surveys?

Paid market research involves rewarding individuals who agree to participate in a study. They may be offered a small payment for their time or a discount coupon in return for filling out a questionnaire or participating in a focus group.

What Is a Market Study?

A market study is an analysis of consumer demand for a product or service. It looks at all of the factors that influence demand for a product or service. These include the product’s price, location, competition, and substitutes as well as general economic factors that could influence the new product’s adoption, for better or worse.

Market research is a key component of a company’s research and development (R&D) stage. It helps companies understand in advance the viability of a new product that they have in development and to see how it might perform in the real world.

Britannica Money. “ Market Research .”

U.S. Small Business Administration. “ Market Research and Competitive Analysis .”

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Market Research: A How-To Guide and Template

Discover the different types of market research, how to conduct your own market research, and use a free template to help you along the way.

MARKET RESEARCH KIT

5 Research and Planning Templates + a Free Guide on How to Use Them in Your Market Research

Updated: 02/21/24

Published: 02/21/24

Today's consumers have a lot of power. As a business, you must have a deep understanding of who your buyers are and what influences their purchase decisions.

Enter: Market Research.

Whether you're new to market research or not, I created this guide to help you conduct a thorough study of your market, target audience, competition, and more. Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

What is market research?

Primary vs. secondary research, types of market research, how to do market research, market research report template, market research examples.

Market research is the process of gathering information about your target market and customers to verify the success of a new product, help your team iterate on an existing product, or understand brand perception to ensure your team is effectively communicating your company's value effectively.

Market research can answer various questions about the state of an industry. But if you ask me, it's hardly a crystal ball that marketers can rely on for insights on their customers.

Market researchers investigate several areas of the market, and it can take weeks or even months to paint an accurate picture of the business landscape.

However, researching just one of those areas can make you more intuitive to who your buyers are and how to deliver value that no other business is offering them right now.

How? Consider these two things:

• Your competitors also have experienced individuals in the industry and a customer base. It‘s very possible that your immediate resources are, in many ways, equal to those of your competition’s immediate resources. Seeking a larger sample size for answers can provide a better edge.
• Your customers don't represent the attitudes of an entire market. They represent the attitudes of the part of the market that is already drawn to your brand.

The market research services market is growing rapidly, which signifies a strong interest in market research as we enter 2024. The market is expected to grow from roughly $75 billion in 2021 to $90.79 billion in 2025 .

Free Market Research Kit

• SWOT Analysis Template
• Survey Template
• Focus Group Template

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Why do market research?

Market research allows you to meet your buyer where they are.

As our world becomes louder and demands more of our attention, this proves invaluable.

By understanding your buyer's problems, pain points, and desired solutions, you can aptly craft your product or service to naturally appeal to them.

Market research also provides insight into the following:

• Where your target audience and current customers conduct their product or service research
• Which of your competitors your target audience looks to for information, options, or purchases
• What's trending in your industry and in the eyes of your buyer
• Who makes up your market and what their challenges are
• What influences purchases and conversions among your target audience
• Consumer attitudes about a particular topic, pain, product, or brand
• Whether there‘s demand for the business initiatives you’re investing in
• Unaddressed or underserved customer needs that can be flipped into selling opportunity
• Attitudes about pricing for a particular product or service

Ultimately, market research allows you to get information from a larger sample size of your target audience, eliminating bias and assumptions so that you can get to the heart of consumer attitudes.

As a result, you can make better business decisions.

To give you an idea of how extensive market research can get , consider that it can either be qualitative or quantitative in nature — depending on the studies you conduct and what you're trying to learn about your industry.

Qualitative research is concerned with public opinion, and explores how the market feels about the products currently available in that market.

Quantitative research is concerned with data, and looks for relevant trends in the information that's gathered from public records.

That said, there are two main types of market research that your business can conduct to collect actionable information on your products: primary research and secondary research.

Primary Research

Primary research is the pursuit of first-hand information about your market and the customers within your market.

It's useful when segmenting your market and establishing your buyer personas.

Primary market research tends to fall into one of two buckets:

• Exploratory Primary Research: This kind of primary market research normally takes place as a first step — before any specific research has been performed — and may involve open-ended interviews or surveys with small numbers of people.
• Specific Primary Research: This type of research often follows exploratory research. In specific research, you take a smaller or more precise segment of your audience and ask questions aimed at solving a suspected problem.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is all the data and public records you have at your disposal to draw conclusions from (e.g. trend reports, market statistics, industry content, and sales data you already have on your business).

Secondary research is particularly useful for analyzing your competitors . The main buckets your secondary market research will fall into include:

• Public Sources: These sources are your first and most-accessible layer of material when conducting secondary market research. They're often free to find and review — like government statistics (e.g., from the U.S. Census Bureau ).
• Commercial Sources: These sources often come in the form of pay-to-access market reports, consisting of industry insight compiled by a research agency like Pew , Gartner , or Forrester .
• Internal Sources: This is the market data your organization already has like average revenue per sale, customer retention rates, and other historical data that can help you draw conclusions on buyer needs.
• Focus Groups
• Product/ Service Use Research
• Observation-Based Research
• Buyer Persona Research
• Market Segmentation Research
• Pricing Research
• Competitive Analysis Research
• Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research
• Brand Awareness Research
• Campaign Research

1. Interviews

Interviews allow for face-to-face discussions so you can allow for a natural flow of conversation. Your interviewees can answer questions about themselves to help you design your buyer personas and shape your entire marketing strategy.

2. Focus Groups

Focus groups provide you with a handful of carefully-selected people that can test out your product and provide feedback. This type of market research can give you ideas for product differentiation.

3. Product/Service Use Research

Product or service use research offers insight into how and why your audience uses your product or service. This type of market research also gives you an idea of the product or service's usability for your target audience.

4. Observation-Based Research

Observation-based research allows you to sit back and watch the ways in which your target audience members go about using your product or service, what works well in terms of UX , and which aspects of it could be improved.

5. Buyer Persona Research

Buyer persona research gives you a realistic look at who makes up your target audience, what their challenges are, why they want your product or service, and what they need from your business or brand.

6. Market Segmentation Research

Market segmentation research allows you to categorize your target audience into different groups (or segments) based on specific and defining characteristics. This way, you can determine effective ways to meet their needs.

7. Pricing Research

Pricing research helps you define your pricing strategy . It gives you an idea of what similar products or services in your market sell for and what your target audience is willing to pay.

8. Competitive Analysis

Competitive analyses give you a deep understanding of the competition in your market and industry. You can learn about what's doing well in your industry and how you can separate yourself from the competition .

9. Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research

Customer satisfaction and loyalty research gives you a look into how you can get current customers to return for more business and what will motivate them to do so (e.g., loyalty programs , rewards, remarkable customer service).

10. Brand Awareness Research

Brand awareness research tells you what your target audience knows about and recognizes from your brand. It tells you about the associations people make when they think about your business.

11. Campaign Research

Campaign research entails looking into your past campaigns and analyzing their success among your target audience and current customers. The goal is to use these learnings to inform future campaigns.

• Define your buyer persona.
• Identify a persona group to engage.
• Prepare research questions for your market research participants.
• List your primary competitors.
• Summarize your findings.

1. Define your buyer persona.

You have to understand who your customers are and how customers in your industry make buying decisions.

This is where your buyer personas come in handy. Buyer personas — sometimes referred to as marketing personas — are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers.

Use a free tool to create a buyer persona that your entire company can use to market, sell, and serve better.

2. Taco Bell tests new products in select markets before launching nationwide.

Taco Bell is known for their innovative, consumer-driven menu items. In fact, just last year, they gave Taco Bell rewards members exclusive access to vote on the newest round of hot sauce sayings .

This popular fast-food chain puts a lot of menu decisions in the hands of their target market. Taco Bell lovers ultimately determine which new menu items stay on the menu through voting and, ultimately, their purchase behaviors.

(Let’s all collectively agree that the Cheez-It Crunchwrap deserves a permanent spot.)

Often, this process of releasing a new item is done regionally before a nationwide launch. This is a form of market research — soft launching products in smaller markets to determine how well it sells before dedicating too many resources to it.

The way Taco Bell uses this information is pretty straightforward. If the product is not successful, it’s unlikely to be released on a national scale.

3. The Body Shop used social listening to determine how they should reposition brand campaigns to respond to what their customers cared most about.

The Body Shop has long been known for offering ethically sourced and natural products, and proudly touts “sustainability” as a core value.

To dive deeper into the sustainability subtopics that meant the most to their audiences, the team at The Body Shop tracked conversations and ultimately found their audiences cared a lot about refills.

Using this information helped the Body Shop team feel confident when relaunching their Refill Program across 400 stores globally in 2022 .

Market research proved they were on the right track with their refill concept, and demonstrated increased efforts were needed to show Body Shop customers that the Body Shop cared about their customers' values.

Conduct Market Research to Grow Better

Conducting market research can be a very eye-opening experience. Even if you think you know your buyers pretty well, completing the study will likely uncover new channels and messaging tips to help improve your interactions.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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How to do market research in 4 steps: a lean approach to marketing research

From pinpointing your target audience and assessing your competitive advantage, to ongoing product development and customer satisfaction efforts, market research is a practice your business can only benefit from.

Learn how to conduct quick and effective market research using a lean approach in this article full of strategies and practical examples. 

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A comprehensive (and successful) business strategy is not complete without some form of market research—you can’t make informed and profitable business decisions without truly understanding your customer base and the current market trends that drive your business.

In this article, you’ll learn how to conduct quick, effective market research  using an approach called 'lean market research'. It’s easier than you might think, and it can be done at any stage in a product’s lifecycle.

How to conduct lean market research in 4 steps

What is market research, why is market research so valuable, advantages of lean market research, 4 common market research methods, 5 common market research questions, market research faqs.

We’ll jump right into our 4-step approach to lean market research. To show you how it’s done in the real world, each step includes a practical example from Smallpdf , a Swiss company that used lean market research to reduce their tool’s error rate by 75% and boost their Net Promoter Score® (NPS) by 1%.

Research your market the lean way...

From on-page surveys to user interviews, Hotjar has the tools to help you scope out your market and get to know your customers—without breaking the bank.

The following four steps and practical examples will give you a solid market research plan for understanding who your users are and what they want from a company like yours.

1. Create simple user personas

A user persona is a semi-fictional character based on psychographic and demographic data from people who use websites and products similar to your own. Start by defining broad user categories, then elaborate on them later to further segment your customer base and determine your ideal customer profile .

How to get the data: use on-page or emailed surveys and interviews to understand your users and what drives them to your business.

How to do it right: whatever survey or interview questions you ask, they should answer the following questions about the customer:

Who are they?

What is their main goal?

What is their main barrier to achieving this goal?

Pitfalls to avoid:

Don’t ask too many questions! Keep it to five or less, otherwise you’ll inundate them and they’ll stop answering thoughtfully.

Don’t worry too much about typical demographic questions like age or background. Instead, focus on the role these people play (as it relates to your product) and their goals.

How Smallpdf did it: Smallpdf ran an on-page survey for a couple of weeks and received 1,000 replies. They learned that many of their users were administrative assistants, students, and teachers.

Next, they used the survey results to create simple user personas like this one for admins:

Who are they? Administrative Assistants.

What is their main goal? Creating Word documents from a scanned, hard-copy document or a PDF where the source file was lost.

What is their main barrier to achieving it? Converting a scanned PDF doc to a Word file.

💡Pro tip: Smallpdf used Hotjar Surveys to run their user persona survey. Our survey tool helped them avoid the pitfalls of guesswork and find out who their users really are, in their own words. 

You can design a survey and start running it in minutes with our easy-to-use drag and drop builder. Customize your survey to fit your needs, from a sleek one-question pop-up survey to a fully branded questionnaire sent via email. 

We've also created 40+ free survey templates that you can start collecting data with, including a user persona survey like the one Smallpdf used.

2. Conduct observational research

Observational research involves taking notes while watching someone use your product (or a similar product).

Overt vs. covert observation

Overt observation involves asking customers if they’ll let you watch them use your product. This method is often used for user testing and it provides a great opportunity for collecting live product or customer feedback .

Covert observation means studying users ‘in the wild’ without them knowing. This method works well if you sell a type of product that people use regularly, and it offers the purest observational data because people often behave differently when they know they’re being watched. 

Tips to do it right:

Record an entry in your field notes, along with a timestamp, each time an action or event occurs.

Make note of the users' workflow, capturing the ‘what,’ ‘why,’ and ‘for whom’ of each action.

Don’t record identifiable video or audio data without consent. If recording people using your product is helpful for achieving your research goal, make sure all participants are informed and agree to the terms.

Don’t forget to explain why you’d like to observe them (for overt observation). People are more likely to cooperate if you tell them you want to improve the product.

💡Pro tip: while conducting field research out in the wild can wield rewarding results, you can also conduct observational research remotely. Hotjar Recordings is a tool that lets you capture anonymized user sessions of real people interacting with your website. 

Observe how customers navigate your pages and products to gain an inside look into their user behavior . This method is great for conducting exploratory research with the purpose of identifying more specific issues to investigate further, like pain points along the customer journey and opportunities for optimizing conversion .

With Hotjar Recordings you can observe real people using your site without capturing their sensitive information

How Smallpdf did it: here’s how Smallpdf observed two different user personas both covertly and overtly.

Observing students (covert): Kristina Wagner, Principle Product Manager at Smallpdf, went to cafes and libraries at two local universities and waited until she saw students doing PDF-related activities. Then she watched and took notes from a distance. One thing that struck her was the difference between how students self-reported their activities vs. how they behaved (i.e, the self-reporting bias). Students, she found, spent hours talking, listening to music, or simply staring at a blank screen rather than working. When she did find students who were working, she recorded the task they were performing and the software they were using (if she recognized it).

Observing administrative assistants (overt): Kristina sent emails to admins explaining that she’d like to observe them at work, and she asked those who agreed to try to batch their PDF work for her observation day. While watching admins work, she learned that they frequently needed to scan documents into PDF-format and then convert those PDFs into Word docs. By observing the challenges admins faced, Smallpdf knew which products to target for improvement.

“Data is really good for discovery and validation, but there is a bit in the middle where you have to go and find the human.”

3. Conduct individual interviews

Interviews are one-on-one conversations with members of your target market. They allow you to dig deep and explore their concerns, which can lead to all sorts of revelations.

Listen more, talk less. Be curious.

Act like a journalist, not a salesperson. Rather than trying to talk your company up, ask people about their lives, their needs, their frustrations, and how a product like yours could help.

Ask "why?" so you can dig deeper. Get into the specifics and learn about their past behavior.

Record the conversation. Focus on the conversation and avoid relying solely on notes by recording the interview. There are plenty of services that will transcribe recorded conversations for a good price (including Hotjar!).

Avoid asking leading questions , which reveal bias on your part and pushes respondents to answer in a certain direction (e.g. “Have you taken advantage of the amazing new features we just released?).

Don't ask loaded questions , which sneak in an assumption which, if untrue, would make it impossible to answer honestly. For example, we can’t ask you, “What did you find most useful about this article?” without asking whether you found the article useful in the first place.

Be cautious when asking opinions about the future (or predictions of future behavior). Studies suggest that people aren’t very good at predicting their future behavior. This is due to several cognitive biases, from the misguided exceptionalism bias (we’re good at guessing what others will do, but we somehow think we’re different), to the optimism bias (which makes us see things with rose-colored glasses), to the ‘illusion of control’ (which makes us forget the role of randomness in future events).

How Smallpdf did it: Kristina explored her teacher user persona by speaking with university professors at a local graduate school. She learned that the school was mostly paperless and rarely used PDFs, so for the sake of time, she moved on to the admins.

A bit of a letdown? Sure. But this story highlights an important lesson: sometimes you follow a lead and come up short, so you have to make adjustments on the fly. Lean market research is about getting solid, actionable insights quickly so you can tweak things and see what works.

💡Pro tip: to save even more time, conduct remote interviews using an online user research service like Hotjar Engage , which automates the entire interview process, from recruitment and scheduling to hosting and recording.

You can interview your own customers or connect with people from our diverse pool of 200,000+ participants from 130+ countries and 25 industries. And no need to fret about taking meticulous notes—Engage will automatically transcribe the interview for you.

4. Analyze the data (without drowning in it)

The following techniques will help you wrap your head around the market data you collect without losing yourself in it. Remember, the point of lean market research is to find quick, actionable insights.

A flow model is a diagram that tracks the flow of information within a system. By creating a simple visual representation of how users interact with your product and each other, you can better assess their needs.

You’ll notice that admins are at the center of Smallpdf’s flow model, which represents the flow of PDF-related documents throughout a school. This flow model shows the challenges that admins face as they work to satisfy their own internal and external customers.

Affinity diagram

An affinity diagram is a way of sorting large amounts of data into groups to better understand the big picture. For example, if you ask your users about their profession, you’ll notice some general themes start to form, even though the individual responses differ. Depending on your needs, you could group them by profession, or more generally by industry.

We wrote a guide about how to analyze open-ended questions to help you sort through and categorize large volumes of response data. You can also do this by hand by clipping up survey responses or interview notes and grouping them (which is what Kristina does).

“For an interview, you will have somewhere between 30 and 60 notes, and those notes are usually direct phrases. And when you literally cut them up into separate pieces of paper and group them, they should make sense by themselves.”

Pro tip: if you’re conducting an online survey with Hotjar, keep your team in the loop by sharing survey responses automatically via our Slack and Microsoft Team integrations. Reading answers as they come in lets you digest the data in pieces and can help prepare you for identifying common themes when it comes time for analysis.

Hotjar lets you easily share survey responses with your team

Customer journey map

A customer journey map is a diagram that shows the way a typical prospect becomes a paying customer. It outlines their first interaction with your brand and every step in the sales cycle, from awareness to repurchase (and hopefully advocacy).

The above  customer journey map , created by our team at Hotjar, shows many ways a customer might engage with our tool. Your map will be based on your own data and business model.

📚 Read more: if you’re new to customer journey maps, we wrote this step-by-step guide to creating your first customer journey map in 2 and 1/2 days with free templates you can download and start using immediately.

Next steps: from research to results

So, how do you turn market research insights into tangible business results? Let’s look at the actions Smallpdf took after conducting their lean market research: first they implemented changes, then measured the impact.

Implement changes

Based on what Smallpdf learned about the challenges that one key user segment (admins) face when trying to convert PDFs into Word files, they improved their ‘PDF to Word’ conversion tool.

We won’t go into the details here because it involves a lot of technical jargon, but they made the entire process simpler and more straightforward for users. Plus, they made it so that their system recognized when you drop a PDF file into their ‘Word to PDF’ converter instead of the ‘PDF to Word’ converter, so users wouldn’t have to redo the task when they made that mistake. 

In other words: simple market segmentation for admins showed a business need that had to be accounted for, and customers are happier overall after Smallpdf implemented an informed change to their product.

Measure results

According to the Lean UX model, product and UX changes aren’t retained unless they achieve results.

Smallpdf’s changes produced:

A 75% reduction in error rate for the ‘PDF to Word’ converter

A 1% increase in NPS

Greater confidence in the team’s marketing efforts

"With all the changes said and done, we've cut our original error rate in four, which is huge. We increased our NPS by +1%, which isn't huge, but it means that of the users who received a file, they were still slightly happier than before, even if they didn't notice that anything special happened at all.”

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Market research (or marketing research) is any set of techniques used to gather information and better understand a company’s target market. This might include primary research on brand awareness and customer satisfaction or secondary market research on market size and competitive analysis. Businesses use this information to design better products, improve user experience, and craft a marketing strategy that attracts quality leads and improves conversion rates.

David Darmanin, one of Hotjar’s founders, launched two startups before Hotjar took off—but both companies crashed and burned. Each time, he and his team spent months trying to design an amazing new product and user experience, but they failed because they didn’t have a clear understanding of what the market demanded.

With Hotjar, they did things differently . Long story short, they conducted market research in the early stages to figure out what consumers really wanted, and the team made (and continues to make) constant improvements based on market and user research.

Without market research, it’s impossible to understand your users. Sure, you might have a general idea of who they are and what they need, but you have to dig deep if you want to win their loyalty.

Here’s why research matters:

Obsessing over your users is the only way to win. If you don’t care deeply about them, you’ll lose potential customers to someone who does.

Analytics gives you the ‘what’, while research gives you the ‘why’. Big data, user analytics , and dashboards can tell you what people do at scale, but only research can tell you what they’re thinking and why they do what they do. For example, analytics can tell you that customers leave when they reach your pricing page, but only research can explain why.

Research beats assumptions, trends, and so-called best practices. Have you ever watched your colleagues rally behind a terrible decision? Bad ideas are often the result of guesswork, emotional reasoning, death by best practices , and defaulting to the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion (HiPPO). By listening to your users and focusing on their customer experience , you’re less likely to get pulled in the wrong direction.

Research keeps you from planning in a vacuum. Your team might be amazing, but you and your colleagues simply can’t experience your product the way your customers do. Customers might use your product in a way that surprises you, and product features that seem obvious to you might confuse them. Over-planning and refusing to test your assumptions is a waste of time, money, and effort because you’ll likely need to make changes once your untested business plan gets put into practice.

Lean User Experience (UX) design is a model for continuous improvement that relies on quick, efficient research to understand customer needs and test new product features.

Lean market research can help you become more...

Efficient: it gets you closer to your customers, faster.

Cost-effective: no need to hire an expensive marketing firm to get things started.

Competitive: quick, powerful insights can place your products on the cutting edge.

As a small business or sole proprietor, conducting lean market research is an attractive option when investing in a full-blown research project might seem out of scope or budget.

There are lots of different ways you could conduct market research and collect customer data, but you don’t have to limit yourself to just one research method. Four common types of market research techniques include surveys, interviews, focus groups, and customer observation.

Which method you use may vary based on your business type: ecommerce business owners have different goals from SaaS businesses, so it’s typically prudent to mix and match these methods based on your particular goals and what you need to know.

1. Surveys: the most commonly used

Surveys are a form of qualitative research that ask respondents a short series of open- or closed-ended questions, which can be delivered as an on-screen questionnaire or via email. When we asked 2,000 Customer Experience (CX) professionals about their company’s approach to research , surveys proved to be the most commonly used market research technique.

What makes online surveys so popular?  

They’re easy and inexpensive to conduct, and you can do a lot of data collection quickly. Plus, the data is pretty straightforward to analyze, even when you have to analyze open-ended questions whose answers might initially appear difficult to categorize.

We've built a number of survey templates ready and waiting for you. Grab a template and share with your customers in just a few clicks.

💡 Pro tip: you can also get started with Hotjar AI for Surveys to create a survey in mere seconds . Just enter your market research goal and watch as the AI generates a survey and populates it with relevant questions. 

Once you’re ready for data analysis, the AI will prepare an automated research report that succinctly summarizes key findings, quotes, and suggested next steps.

An example research report generated by Hotjar AI for Surveys

2. Interviews: the most insightful

Interviews are one-on-one conversations with members of your target market. Nothing beats a face-to-face interview for diving deep (and reading non-verbal cues), but if an in-person meeting isn’t possible, video conferencing is a solid second choice.

Regardless of how you conduct it, any type of in-depth interview will produce big benefits in understanding your target customers.

What makes interviews so insightful?

By speaking directly with an ideal customer, you’ll gain greater empathy for their experience , and you can follow insightful threads that can produce plenty of 'Aha!' moments.

3. Focus groups: the most unreliable

Focus groups bring together a carefully selected group of people who fit a company’s target market. A trained moderator leads a conversation surrounding the product, user experience, or marketing message to gain deeper insights.

What makes focus groups so unreliable?

If you’re new to market research, we wouldn’t recommend starting with focus groups. Doing it right is expensive , and if you cut corners, your research could fall victim to all kinds of errors. Dominance bias (when a forceful participant influences the group) and moderator style bias (when different moderator personalities bring about different results in the same study) are two of the many ways your focus group data could get skewed.

4. Observation: the most powerful

During a customer observation session, someone from the company takes notes while they watch an ideal user engage with their product (or a similar product from a competitor).

What makes observation so clever and powerful?

‘Fly-on-the-wall’ observation is a great alternative to focus groups. It’s not only less expensive, but you’ll see people interact with your product in a natural setting without influencing each other. The only downside is that you can’t get inside their heads, so observation still isn't a recommended replacement for customer surveys and interviews.

The following questions will help you get to know your users on a deeper level when you interview them. They’re general questions, of course, so don’t be afraid to make them your own.

1. Who are you and what do you do?

How you ask this question, and what you want to know, will vary depending on your business model (e.g. business-to-business marketing is usually more focused on someone’s profession than business-to-consumer marketing).

It’s a great question to start with, and it’ll help you understand what’s relevant about your user demographics (age, race, gender, profession, education, etc.), but it’s not the be-all-end-all of market research. The more specific questions come later.

2. What does your day look like?

This question helps you understand your users’ day-to-day life and the challenges they face. It will help you gain empathy for them, and you may stumble across something relevant to their buying habits.

3. Do you ever purchase [product/service type]?

This is a ‘yes or no’ question. A ‘yes’ will lead you to the next question.

4. What problem were you trying to solve or what goal were you trying to achieve?

This question strikes to the core of what someone’s trying to accomplish and why they might be willing to pay for your solution.

5. Take me back to the day when you first decided you needed to solve this kind of problem or achieve this goal.

This is the golden question, and it comes from Adele Revella, Founder and CEO of Buyer Persona Institute . It helps you get in the heads of your users and figure out what they were thinking the day they decided to spend money to solve a problem.

If you take your time with this question, digging deeper where it makes sense, you should be able to answer all the relevant information you need to understand their perspective.

“The only scripted question I want you to ask them is this one: take me back to the day when you first decided that you needed to solve this kind of problem or achieve this kind of a goal. Not to buy my product, that’s not the day. We want to go back to the day that when you thought it was urgent and compelling to go spend money to solve a particular problem or achieve a goal. Just tell me what happened.”

— Adele Revella , Founder/CEO at Buyer Persona Institute

Bonus question: is there anything else you’d like to tell me?

This question isn’t just a nice way to wrap it up—it might just give participants the opportunity they need to tell you something you really need to know.

That’s why Sarah Doody, author of UX Notebook , adds it to the end of her written surveys.

“I always have a last question, which is just open-ended: “Is there anything else you would like to tell me?” And sometimes, that’s where you get four paragraphs of amazing content that you would never have gotten if it was just a Net Promoter Score [survey] or something like that.”

What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative research?

Qualitative research asks questions that can’t be reduced to a number, such as, “What is your job title?” or “What did you like most about your customer service experience?” 

Quantitative research asks questions that can be answered with a numeric value, such as, “What is your annual salary?” or “How was your customer service experience on a scale of 1-5?”

 → Read more about the differences between qualitative and quantitative user research .

How do I do my own market research?

You can do your own quick and effective market research by 

Surveying your customers

Building user personas

Studying your users through interviews and observation

Wrapping your head around your data with tools like flow models, affinity diagrams, and customer journey maps

What is the difference between market research and user research?

Market research takes a broad look at potential customers—what problems they’re trying to solve, their buying experience, and overall demand. User research, on the other hand, is more narrowly focused on the use (and usability ) of specific products.

What are the main criticisms of market research?

Many marketing professionals are critical of market research because it can be expensive and time-consuming. It’s often easier to convince your CEO or CMO to let you do lean market research rather than something more extensive because you can do it yourself. It also gives you quick answers so you can stay ahead of the competition.

Do I need a market research firm to get reliable data?

Absolutely not! In fact, we recommend that you start small and do it yourself in the beginning. By following a lean market research strategy, you can uncover some solid insights about your clients. Then you can make changes, test them out, and see whether the results are positive. This is an excellent strategy for making quick changes and remaining competitive.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld, and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.

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Introduction to Market Research

• First Online: 20 July 2018

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• Marko Sarstedt 3 &
• Erik Mooi 4  

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Market research is key to understanding markets and requires the systematic gathering and interpreting of information about individuals and organizations. This will give you an essential understanding of your customers’ needs, a head start on your competitors, allow you to spot potential problems, and future growth. Drawing on real examples, we show the value of market research, describe its main purposes, and explain how market research differs from marketing research. We explain what makes, or breaks, a successful market research study and describe when market research is most needed. We also provide a description of the different types of market research providers.

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Roberts et al. ( 2014 ) and Hauser ( 2017 ) discuss the impact of marketing science tools on marketing practice.

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Further Reading

American Marketing Association at http://www.marketingpower.com

British Market Research Society at http://www.mrs.org.uk

ESOMAR at http://www.esomar.org

GreenBook Directory at http://www.greenbook.org

Insights Association at http://www.insightsassociation.org/

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Sarstedt, M., Mooi, E. (2019). Introduction to Market Research. In: A Concise Guide to Market Research. Springer Texts in Business and Economics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56707-4_1

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Everything You Should Know About Marketing Research Essay

Marketing research is complex, and its content depends on the niche and purpose.

In business, it’s a set of data marketers collect about a company to determine what its customers want and how to give it to them.

In academia, it’s a considerable research paper aimed at being published in a scholarly journal. It communicates new findings or adds information to the existing ones to support the scientific community. College students also write them to share their progress with instructors.

More details needed?

This article reveals everything you need to know.

What Is Marketing Research?

Marketing research is a set of techniques or practices companies use to better understand their target market. They collect information about customers and their reactions to offered products and use that data later to improve their business.

A marketing research essay represents and describes all the collected data. As academic experts at customwritings.com explain, such essays also explore the psychology behind customer behavior for a business to know the market and understand their ways to improve.

Why Write Marketing Research Essays

• Know the market to understand what products or services are most in demand and profitable in your niche.
• Make calculated decisions about your business idea to minimize investment risks.
• See how competitive your chosen landscape is and who your main competitors are.
• Analyze your target audience to make more informed business decisions.
• Reveal your ideal customer’s characteristics — demographics, interests, pain points, motivations, objections, buying habits, etc. — to determine what value your product or service can bring them.

The data from a marketing research essay also allows you to see your business weaknesses (poor customer support, wrong marketing channels or strategy, bad UX, missed features in your product, you name it) and think of the ways for improvement.

Writing a Stellar Marketing Research Essay

And now, to practice:

Below are the seven steps to writing a professional marketing research essay.

Step 1: Conduct a research

First, decide on marketing research methods to collect the data for your essay.

The four primary methods are:

• Surveys (use questionnaires with close-ended or open-ended questions)
• Interviews (consider in-person and telephone talks with customers)
• Focus groups (involve several respondents in a discussion on your topic)
• Observation (organize customer observation sessions to see how they engage with your product/service)

You can also add secondary methods to your marketing research:

• Up-to-date books and articles on your topic
• The info from reputable research agencies’ websites (Forrester, Nielsen, Gartner, etc.)
• Your in-house data about market conditions or customer buying patterns

How to conduct a research:

Create a user persona (a character representing your customer): Who are they? What’s their goal, and what stops them from achieving it? Then, conduct observational research (remember to take notes) and personal interviews with customers.

Finally, analyze the information you’ve collected. (More on that below)

Step 2: Gather all the data

Address the following questions when analyzing the data you’ve gathered through your research:

• Is your product relevant to current market trends and consumer behavior?
• Do you consider competitors in your research? (Ensure to include the competitor analysis to get insights on how their offers can affect yours.)
• Does your product/service match your target customer’s preferences (value, price, visual appeal, etc.)?

Try different techniques to get patterns into customers’ preferences and buying behaviors. Ensure all your data is up-to-date and relevant to your market, target audience, and brand.

Step 3: Outline an essay

Now, organize all the information in a logical and coherent paper. Before writing, craft a detailed outline ( a la table of contents) for your future essay. It will help you structure it and ensure you don’t miss critical information while writing.

Core elements to include in your marketing research essay:

• Introduction with a thesis statement
• Methodology
• Body paragraphs (their number may vary depending on the topic)

Step 4: Write a draft

Start your marketing essay with an engaging introduction to get the audience interested in your research. State a strong thesis statement emphasizing the topic of your discussion: online reviews, customer choices, competitors’ analysis, etc.

When writing, please use clear and concise language. Avoid professional jargon that readers might misunderstand and over-sophisticated words hurting readability.

• Don’t use first-person narration; use a unique voice and simplicity instead.

Support your points with evidence (the data you’ve gathered). For readers to see you don’t share personal opinions but proven facts, write a paragraph specifying the methodology you used when researching. Where did you get the data? How did you analyze that information?

• Ensure smooth and logical transitions between paragraphs to maintain flow and promote readability and understanding.

Conclude with a summary of your points and provide ideas on the practical application of your shared information. Sum up your arguments, explain the value of your marketing research, and offer recommendations on how to solve the problem you discussed in the essay.

• Ensure you don’t introduce new ideas in the conclusion but recap the main arguments.

Step 5: Incorporate visual elements

Take a step further and make your marketing research essay stand out: Incorporate compelling yet relevant visual content into the text.

Consider charts, tables, and other graphics to support your analysis. (As we know from customwritings and other social media marketing accounts, users perceive images and other visual elements faster than text. It’s your chance to grab their interest and make it easier for them to understand the data in your research.)

Step 6: Revise

Once your marketing research essay is ready, revise and polish it to ensure it’s free from grammar, context, and factual mistakes.

Re-read the draft several times to eliminate errors: Check spelling, grammar, punctuation, and formatting. Refine all the sentences for clarity, check for consistency in style and citation, and ensure your essay flows logically.

Step 7: Credit your sources

Remember to appropriately credit all the references and citations you used in the research. For that, create a reference list at the end of your paper and address it when writing, using a specific citation style required by your instructor.

APA, MLA, Chicago — each style has guidelines on formatting citations in the reference list and in-text. Be consistent, and use the prescribed citation style throughout your essay.

Final Words

Marketing research is a must-have practice for any business willing to succeed in the niche and get loyalty and trust from their target customers. Writing an essay explaining the research allows you to see the pitfalls (if any) your company has and what it can do to overcome them for better marketing results.

James is the head of marketing at Tamoco

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11 Benefits of Market Research + Free Templates

The benefits of market research are long-proven. Yet still, there are many who focus on instinct instead of insight.

While intuition is all good and well, there’s no getting away from the power of cold-hard data.

In this post, I list 11 market research benefits, with real-world examples and six free research templates thrown in for good measure.

1. Better communication with customers

Why it matters: Effective communication is the cornerstone of good relations. And, with how much time, effort, and money it takes to win a new client, ensuring you stay in their good books isn’t just nice – it’s a necessity.

The first benefit of market research is the ability to learn about your customer’s likes and dislikes – so you can adapt how you position the business and its products accordingly. Tailored communications speak to customers in a way that resonates far better than generalized messages.

The one-size-fits-all approach no longer works. Delivering comms in the right format, at the right time, via the right platform can boost engagement and help focus on driving value. With it, customers feel appreciated and receive information that’s both useful and relevant.

These days, all it takes is a quick click, and customers can unsubscribe from communications. This is why businesses must ensure every communication counts.

Example: Market research surveys are an ideal way to quickly understand how customers feel about your communications with them. Be direct, and ask them about the content, frequency, and formats they prefer.

If you want to establish the best time or day of the week to email, you can use your email campaign tracking data to show you the best and worst times, based on open rates, and click-through rates.

2. Enables strategic, data-driven plans

Why it matters: Market research benefits all types and stages of business planning. It gives you the numbers and insights you need to make accurate forecasts. It can also impact key decisions that can help you develop and adapt your strategy.

Here are a few examples where market research can benefit data-driven decision-making :

• Deciding whether to modify or discontinue a product.
• Prioritizing new features to develop for an existing product.
• Establishing which marketing channels to invest in.
• Selecting which social media platforms to utilize.
• Choosing which new markets to enter or where to open a new retail outlet.
• Evaluating the impact of a cost increase or change to pricing strategy.
• Discover new partners, affiliates, or publishers to work with.
• Targeting a new persona or different segment of a market.

Market research serves as a trusty compass, helping guide and steer decisions that impact growth and profitability. Once you implement a new tactic or campaign, you can again benefit from market research to measure and track ongoing success.

3. Develop detailed target personas

Why it matters: It’s no secret that a comprehensive understanding of one’s target audience is fundamental to an organization’s success. Everything from product development to positioning and marketing is impacted by the effective development of target personas.

While most companies have a decent understanding of what their ideal customer profile looks like; a distinct advantage of market research is the depth of detail it offers about the preferences, behaviors, and habits of a target audience – based on actual facts and everyday actions they take online.

By doing audience analysis and consumer journey tracking , organizations can discover insights about their ideal customers quickly and in finite detail. So instead of having a static persona that doesn’t really change with the times; marketers can discover things like:

• Age, gender, and geography
• Audience loyalty & interests
• Cross-shopping behaviors
• Product search trends
• View audience overlaps with rivals
• Identify drop-off points in funnels
• Optimize conversion funnels
• Discover which marketing channels appeal to a specific audience

Grab our customer persona template to use a framework for this research – it’s at the end of this post, along with 5 other useful market research templates !

4. Reduce costs and save time

Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of market research for a business is its ability to help organizations improve efficiency and reduce outlay – both from a time and cost perspective. While each business achieves different outcomes, doing proper research can help pave the way for process improvements.

A few examples include:

• Spending less on marketing channels that don’t appeal to a target audience or drive ROI.
• Decrease customer churn via surveys, enhanced support, or more suitable product offerings.
• Prevent you from entering a new market in a territory that’s already saturated.
• Testing the viability or appetite for a new product or service before making investment decisions.
• Reduce customer acquisition costs (CAC) through clearer targeting and messaging.
• Identification of new partnerships or affiliates who can drive referrals to your business.

DocSend uses Similarweb to reduce marketing spend by 20% and reduced research time by 10% – as an added bonus it saw website traffic gains of around 10%.

Read more about how market research benefited DocSend here .

5. Stay ahead of the competition

Why it matters: These days, the competition is fierce in almost every market. Customers have many options to choose from, and outpacing your rivals is a constant battle. From new product or service offerings to campaigns and content – not to mention promotions and partnerships; keeping a keen eye on your market positioning is key.

A core benefit of market research is knowing what other players in your market are doing. More to the point, market research actually shows you how well these offerings are doing.

A competitive analysis framework is a great way to systematically record and track what your rivals are doing. It can help you spot opportunities, such as:

• Develop new marketing campaigns and creatives
• Adapt your product or service offerings
• Give insights into new content to write about
• Show you which channels work best for your target market
• Find underserved segments of a market
• See what customers like or dislike about your rivals
• Help you develop your unique selling proposition (USP)

Good market research can be the differential factor that gives you an edge in your market.

In this scenario, I want to analyze the competitive landscape of a social media management company. I chose Sprout Social to review as it’s considered a market leader.

See how much competitive intel I can grab in less than a minute

In a snapshot, I can see an overview of its traffic and engagement. This includes the total visits, unique visitors , a link to its apps, and a breakdown of traffic by channel. With a quick compare, I see how these metrics stack up against others in the market. Later.com and influencermarketinghub.com are two players who consistently outperform sproutsocial.com – which means I can delve deeper into their successes, campaigns, and content next.

From the platform, I can see how many referrals they’re getting, and from where. Which ad networks and campaigns they’re running, and copies of the creatives being used.

Next, I look at the most popular pages on Sprout Social’s site. This shows several pages on the topic of small business social media are achieving significant growth – indicating my target audience is responding to these pages, so I should be covering or promoting content on a similar theme.

So, in less than a minute, I’ve discovered

• How my competitor stacks up vs others in the market
• Which traffic channels are growing
• The best referral partners and advertisers
• What marketing channels are showing the best results
• Copies of their ad creatives
• What content topics are the most popular
• Top industry search terms
• Uncovered two other major players to evaluate

Software like Similarweb makes it quick and easy to see the insights and metrics that matter most. Here, you can discover where you can get a competitive edge, and keep track of market trends and rival campaigns.

6. Discover the best marketing channels

From email marketing to socials, affiliates, referrals, paid ads, and more; there are many marketing channels to leverage – and it’s not always obvious which is right for your business. Another key benefit of doing market research is the ability to hone in on the channels that deliver the best return on investment.

A trial-and-error approach can be costly. Not just from a dollar perspective, it can be a drain on your resources too. By first establishing the optimal marketing mix for your target audience or market, you can save time and money, and reach your goals faster.

Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence can show you which channels work best for your market and rivals. It also highlights the specific ad creatives and content being used for high-performing campaigns.

Here, you see a snapshot of the marketing channels being used across five competitive sites. It shows the biggest drivers of traffic are direct and organic search. By clicking on any single channel, you can get a complete breakdown of the respective details. I’ve clicked to expand social media, as just one example, here’s what it tells me.

As well as being able to instantly see the insights that count, I can click on any channel to see a detailed breakdown of performance. Next, I can compare each channel to see who is outperforming others – which tells me exactly who I need to take a closer look at.

7. Identify growth opportunities

The benefits of doing market research apply to those launching new products or entering new markets . However, periodic research can also help you spot growth-focused opportunities that may not have been considered before.

Another compelling entrant to include in the benefits of market research is its ability to unearth opportunities to grow. Whether that’s through finding new customers, markets, channels, or creative ways to go to market and get more eyes on your business. A good case in point is in the identification of new partnerships for referrals; something that often comes about when doing a competitive analysis .

The advantages of using market research for growth are ongoing, throughout the lifecycle of your business. For example:

• Reviewing competitor marketing channels could uncover key findings about a new affiliate site that’s sending a volume of traffic to their site.
• A guest post or piece of content generates a high level of interest and drives traffic to the site.
• Untapped segments for your products. Perhaps a rival is doing a better job of appealing to a different demographic. This, in turn, presents an opportunity to diversify your messaging or switch marketing channels. The same could apply to a new location or geographic region.
• New partnerships. Joint ventures between businesses that share a similar target demographic can be mutually beneficial – helping both parties reach a new ready-prepped customer base.
• Perhaps a rival is offering an add-on or upsell that you’ve failed to consider.
• You might also conduct market research surveys where customers tell you something they’d like but which you don’t yet offer.

Success story: See how AirBnB used Similarweb to uncover opportunities for growth in new markets.

8. Spot new or emerging trends

Why it matters: With how quickly consumer behaviors change and markets shift, it’s important to move with the times. Market research can help businesses stay in touch with what’s happening – something that applies to consumers, competitors, and the industry as a whole.

From changes to purchasing behaviors, new technologies, new products, or service features; researching trends and staying close to rising players in your market allows you to keep tabs on what things are attracting attention.

• Which keywords or phrases are trending in your industry?
• Is there a new player showing significant growth in your market?
• What are your rival’s highest-hitting pages?
• How are apps impacting your market – do you know which of your competitors have one, and is it successful?
• Which campaigns in your industry are working and gaining traction?
• Is there a specific asset, whitepaper, or offering that your target audience responds to?
• Are there any seasonal trends that impact your market?
• Can you see spikes in specific search terms or phrases?

While you can use digital research tools like Similarweb to quickly analyze a market, search trends, seasonal patterns, mobile app intelligence , and more – qualitative data, like surveys can be leveraged to understand customers and changing behaviors too.

Read more about how Wonderbly achieved its success here.

9. Makes it easy to evaluate and track your success

Why it matters: With the knowledge of where your business is performing well, or falling behind, you can set goals and direction more clearly. Benchmarking shows you industry standards, and maps out how rivals are doing; so you can measure relative performance.

For a business to grow, it needs to push the boundaries. The benefit of using market research here is that it shows you where and how big those boundaries are. A survey from PWC found businesses that set benchmarks achieve 45% more productivity and grow, on average 69 times faster than those that do not.

There are various types of benchmarking – each of which makes it possible to unpack and track the successes of those in your market and drill down into what success looks like for your business.

10. Inform market analysis – SWOT

Why it matters: A further benefit of doing market research is that it can show you any relative strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that exist between competitors and in a market. Greater awareness of these facts helps drive the right actions and gives clarity on areas of focus for the business. Without it, your business is susceptible to preventable mistakes.

With company and market research , you find out where opportunities and threats exist in your ecosystem. From environmental or technological factors to internal considerations; forewarned is forearmed. What’s more, a regular review of your SWOT, informed by market research, allows you to capitalize on new opportunities faster than others and keeps you in the strongest position where gaining a competitive edge is concerned.

Helpful: Read our complete guide to doing an industry SWOT analysis .

11. Inform a content marketing strategy

Why it matters: These days, the importance of having an effective, relevant, and successful content marketing strategy cannot be overstated. According to a 2020 competitive intelligence survey , companies have, on average, 29 competitors. So, regardless of your sector, in the digital world, it’s constant competition – be it for better visibility online, a higher CTR, or increased engagement.

So, how does market research benefit a business? And how can you stand out and get found online? With content marketing, of course.

An advantage of using market research to inform your content marketing strategy is that data doesn’t lie. Yes, it’s an old one but a good one. A data-driven approach to content marketing is a surefire way to uncover the most searched keywords , the right topics, and content to harness to your advantage.

You can use market research to uncover the following:

• The busiest pages on any website.
• Which topics and keywords drive the most traffic in your market?
• New topics or keyword phrases that are trending or appearing seasonably.
• Inform topic planning or theme building for a blog.
• Help you discover new opportunities for dedicated landing pages.
• What content or assets an audience engages with most.
• Which channels are the most effective to deliver content?
• The best time of day to post new content.

Success story:  See how Tourism New Zealand benefits from market research ; and how they use Similarweb to research content and keywords.  

Limitations of Market Research

Regardless of whether it’s for an enterprise company or an entrepreneur – time, cost, and experience are viewed as the biggest limitations of market research. But this is an outdated perception that is no longer relevant or true to life.

Here’s how things are in 2022.

• If cost is considered a limitation of market research – use secondary market research methods. Most of the time, the data can be found online, for free.

This guide to desk research shows you the best places to find secondary research data. 

• Should you view time as a limitation – use software like Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence to quickly view insights in almost any market, company, or product.

If you’re on a deadline, let’s say you need to do market research for a business plan , market research tools can help you get it done in a day.

• Perhaps you feel a lack of experience is preventing you from doing market research. Most market research tools require little to no training and are highly intuitive.

Use market research templates to guide you through the key data points you need to collect. 

Benefits of market research – In summary

Market research benefits any business, at any stage. From product teams to sales, customer support, marketing, operations, and management – there’s a relevant application in almost every department. However, many organizations choose only to use it for limited periods in limited areas of their business.

Similarweb Research Intelligence makes key insights accessible to all. And with the ability to impact an entire business, at almost every level, it’s a market research tool with the power to deliver immense value and insights at pace.

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Get actionable insights for market research here

What are the advantages and disadvantages of market research?

The advantages of market research include things like gaining a competitive edge, data-driven decision-making, reducing expenditure, finding new markets to enter, trend-spotting, and developing growth-focused strategies. The only disadvantage is in how it’s conducted, and the time it takes to carry out the research. However, market research tools are designed to make the task of conducting research more efficient, and cost-effective.

Which goals can market research help you accomplish?

Market research can help you achieve key business objectives, such as growing your customer base, retaining a higher number of customers, improving marketing effectiveness, and increasing revenue.

How can market research benefit entrepreneurs?

The benefits of market research to entrepreneurs are plentiful. It can help startups and new businesses research the viability of a new product or service they want to bring to market. In addition, it allows entrepreneurs to accurately forecast demand, which can help both operationally and financially.

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After 40 Years, How Representative Are Labor Market Outcomes in the NLSY79?

In 1979, the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) began following a group of US residents born between 1957 and 1964. It has continued to re-interview these same individuals for more than four decades. Despite this long sampling period, attrition remains modest. This paper shows that after 40 years of data collection, the remaining NLYS79 sample continues to be broadly representative of their national cohorts with regard to key labor market outcomes. For NLSY79 age cohorts, life-cycle profiles of employment, hours worked, and earnings are comparable to those in the Current Population Survey. Moreover, average lifetime earnings over the age range 25 to 55 closely align with the same measure in Social Security Administration data. Our results suggest that the NLSY79 can continue to provide useful data for economists and other social scientists studying life-cycle and lifetime labor market outcomes, including earnings inequality.

We thank Kevin Bloodworth II, Elizabeth Harding, and Siyu Shi for research assistance. The views in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Federal Reserve System, or of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Richard Rogerson acknowledges financial support in excess of $10,000 over the last three years from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and the World Bank.

MARC RIS BibTeΧ

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Gender pay gap in U.S. hasn’t changed much in two decades

The gender gap in pay has remained relatively stable in the United States over the past 20 years or so. In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers. These results are similar to where the pay gap stood in 2002, when women earned 80% as much as men.

As has long been the case, the wage gap is smaller for workers ages 25 to 34 than for all workers 16 and older. In 2022, women ages 25 to 34 earned an average of 92 cents for every dollar earned by a man in the same age group – an 8-cent gap. By comparison, the gender pay gap among workers of all ages that year was 18 cents.

While the gender pay gap has not changed much in the last two decades, it has narrowed considerably when looking at the longer term, both among all workers ages 16 and older and among those ages 25 to 34. The estimated 18-cent gender pay gap among all workers in 2022 was down from 35 cents in 1982. And the 8-cent gap among workers ages 25 to 34 in 2022 was down from a 26-cent gap four decades earlier.

The gender pay gap measures the difference in median hourly earnings between men and women who work full or part time in the United States. Pew Research Center’s estimate of the pay gap is based on an analysis of Current Population Survey (CPS) monthly outgoing rotation group files ( IPUMS ) from January 1982 to December 2022, combined to create annual files. To understand how we calculate the gender pay gap, read our 2013 post, “How Pew Research Center measured the gender pay gap.”

The COVID-19 outbreak affected data collection efforts by the U.S. government in its surveys, especially in 2020 and 2021, limiting in-person data collection and affecting response rates. It is possible that some measures of economic outcomes and how they vary across demographic groups are affected by these changes in data collection.

In addition to findings about the gender wage gap, this analysis includes information from a Pew Research Center survey about the perceived reasons for the pay gap, as well as the pressures and career goals of U.S. men and women. The survey was conducted among 5,098 adults and includes a subset of questions asked only for 2,048 adults who are employed part time or full time, from Oct. 10-16, 2022. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used in this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

The  U.S. Census Bureau has also analyzed the gender pay gap, though its analysis looks only at full-time workers (as opposed to full- and part-time workers). In 2021, full-time, year-round working women earned 84% of what their male counterparts earned, on average, according to the Census Bureau’s most recent analysis.

Much of the gender pay gap has been explained by measurable factors such as educational attainment, occupational segregation and work experience. The narrowing of the gap over the long term is attributable in large part to gains women have made in each of these dimensions.

Related: The Enduring Grip of the Gender Pay Gap

Even though women have increased their presence in higher-paying jobs traditionally dominated by men, such as professional and managerial positions, women as a whole continue to be overrepresented in lower-paying occupations relative to their share of the workforce. This may contribute to gender differences in pay.

Other factors that are difficult to measure, including gender discrimination, may also contribute to the ongoing wage discrepancy.

Perceived reasons for the gender wage gap

When asked about the factors that may play a role in the gender wage gap, half of U.S. adults point to women being treated differently by employers as a major reason, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October 2022. Smaller shares point to women making different choices about how to balance work and family (42%) and working in jobs that pay less (34%).

There are some notable differences between men and women in views of what’s behind the gender wage gap. Women are much more likely than men (61% vs. 37%) to say a major reason for the gap is that employers treat women differently. And while 45% of women say a major factor is that women make different choices about how to balance work and family, men are slightly less likely to hold that view (40% say this).

Parents with children younger than 18 in the household are more likely than those who don’t have young kids at home (48% vs. 40%) to say a major reason for the pay gap is the choices that women make about how to balance family and work. On this question, differences by parental status are evident among both men and women.

Views about reasons for the gender wage gap also differ by party. About two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (68%) say a major factor behind wage differences is that employers treat women differently, but far fewer Republicans and Republican leaners (30%) say the same. Conversely, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say women’s choices about how to balance family and work (50% vs. 36%) and their tendency to work in jobs that pay less (39% vs. 30%) are major reasons why women earn less than men.

Democratic and Republican women are more likely than their male counterparts in the same party to say a major reason for the gender wage gap is that employers treat women differently. About three-quarters of Democratic women (76%) say this, compared with 59% of Democratic men. And while 43% of Republican women say unequal treatment by employers is a major reason for the gender wage gap, just 18% of GOP men share that view.

Pressures facing working women and men

Family caregiving responsibilities bring different pressures for working women and men, and research has shown that being a mother can reduce women’s earnings , while fatherhood can increase men’s earnings .

Employed women and men are about equally likely to say they feel a great deal of pressure to support their family financially and to be successful in their jobs and careers, according to the Center’s October survey. But women, and particularly working mothers, are more likely than men to say they feel a great deal of pressure to focus on responsibilities at home.

About half of employed women (48%) report feeling a great deal of pressure to focus on their responsibilities at home, compared with 35% of employed men. Among working mothers with children younger than 18 in the household, two-thirds (67%) say the same, compared with 45% of working dads.

When it comes to supporting their family financially, similar shares of working moms and dads (57% vs. 62%) report they feel a great deal of pressure, but this is driven mainly by the large share of unmarried working mothers who say they feel a great deal of pressure in this regard (77%). Among those who are married, working dads are far more likely than working moms (60% vs. 43%) to say they feel a great deal of pressure to support their family financially. (There were not enough unmarried working fathers in the sample to analyze separately.)

About four-in-ten working parents say they feel a great deal of pressure to be successful at their job or career. These findings don’t differ by gender.

Gender differences in job roles, aspirations

Overall, a quarter of employed U.S. adults say they are currently the boss or one of the top managers where they work, according to the Center’s survey. Another 33% say they are not currently the boss but would like to be in the future, while 41% are not and do not aspire to be the boss or one of the top managers.

Men are more likely than women to be a boss or a top manager where they work (28% vs. 21%). This is especially the case among employed fathers, 35% of whom say they are the boss or one of the top managers where they work. (The varying attitudes between fathers and men without children at least partly reflect differences in marital status and educational attainment between the two groups.)

In addition to being less likely than men to say they are currently the boss or a top manager at work, women are also more likely to say they wouldn’t want to be in this type of position in the future. More than four-in-ten employed women (46%) say this, compared with 37% of men. Similar shares of men (35%) and women (31%) say they are not currently the boss but would like to be one day. These patterns are similar among parents.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published on March 22, 2019. Anna Brown and former Pew Research Center writer/editor Amanda Barroso contributed to an earlier version of this analysis. Here are the questions used in this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

What is the gender wage gap in your metropolitan area? Find out with our pay gap calculator

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Carolina Aragão is a research associate focusing on social and demographic trends at Pew Research Center

Women have gained ground in the nation’s highest-paying occupations, but still lag behind men

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1 hr 12 min

#55 - Don Close, White Papers and Black Swans Practically Ranching

Don Close is Terrain’s Chief Research & Analytics Officer. Don’s prior experience includes his work as a senior animal protein analyst at Rabobank, and as a market director for the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, where he worked on all economic and market-sensitive policy issues for cattle feeders in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.  In his three decades of professional experience, Don has been a licensed commodity broker, handled risk management and pricing for large cattle operations, managed a grain procurement program, and published market updates and outlooks for cattle and hogs. Don has conducted research on a wide range of topics including confinement cow/calf operations, dairy-beef crossbreeds, and development in international trade. Don earned his BS in agricultural economics from West Texas A&M. www.terrainag.com [email protected]

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Conducting Market Research Definition Essay

Introduction, marketing research process.

A process essay is a presentation that aims at describing, to an audience, how a subject is achieved. It outlines the procedure of doing a subject matter. This paper seeks to present a process essay for conducting market research. The paper is based on personal research through interviewing an executive of one of the locally successful companies.

Marketing research is a defined process of investigating and collecting information about consumers and other factors in a market such as competitors and barriers into a market. A successful market research is done in a defined and outlined process. It also involves qualified personnel to induce sufficient expertise.

This is because market research deals with social factors such as consumers’ needs, preferences, and attitudes that must be factored by a marketing research team. The process normally begins with sufficient planning followed by fieldwork and a final analytical review that may involve professional statistical applications.

The first step in market research is problem definition. This stage involves expression of understanding of the objectives of the market research. It defines the problem to be solved such as; ‘how can we best expand our geographical market?’ or ‘why do our competitors seem to have an advantage over our enterprise?’ The stage also defines the people to be involved in the market research. Once the problem is defined, a suitable approach is developed for the entire process.

At this stage, the aims of the research are outline and the scope established. Possible factors that might influence the research process are identified and remedies outlined. The stage calls for sufficient experience in market research. Research questions and hypothesis statements are also outlined at this step.

After developing the approach for a research, the necessary procedures for achieving the set objectives are established. Formulating research procedure outlines the exact measures that should be undertaken in order to answer the research questions and achieve the research objectives.

The methods to be adopted for collecting information are also outlined at this step. Further, this step describes the data that is to be collected, how it is to be collected, and the number of participants to be used and how the information should be analyzed.

Once the research procedure is outlined, fieldwork for data collection is adopted. A suitable data collection method that could involve use of questionnaires, interviews, or observation is then adopted. Data can also be collected from secondary sources such as governmental information centers and specialized research bodies.

After collecting the necessary and relevant data for a particular market research, a professional stage that involves data analysis is undertaken. This stage involves specialized academic background that applies statistical tools. The outlined hypothesis for the research is tested and relationships investigated.

Based on the assumptions made in the research, this stage answers the research questions and takes a position on the research hypothesis. The final stage in market research is the communication of the findings. This stage is based on the analysis conducted and involves graphical and tabular presentations for clarity.

Market research is a very important step towards strategic management in businesses. It involves problem definition, establishment of an approach, design for the research and a subsequent data collection. These are then followed by data analysis and a final presentation of the findings. Process essay outlines a procedure for a particular process. It is therefore important in familiarizing people with knowledge of processes.

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IvyPanda. (2024, January 15). Conducting Market Research. https://ivypanda.com/essays/process-essay-free-text-example/

"Conducting Market Research." IvyPanda , 15 Jan. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/process-essay-free-text-example/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Conducting Market Research'. 15 January.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Conducting Market Research." January 15, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/process-essay-free-text-example/.

1. IvyPanda . "Conducting Market Research." January 15, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/process-essay-free-text-example/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Conducting Market Research." January 15, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/process-essay-free-text-example/.

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