Market research identifies preferences and behaviours of customers and competitor's strategy to be used to develop marketing strategies. These preferences include spending patterns, competitive threats and strategies used by competitors.
Market research can be conducted through primary or secondary research. Primary research methods involve collecting up-to-date data from research performed to meet a specific need. This method is time-consuming and costly as the research must undergo all research steps. Primary method research involves;
Face-to-face interviews
Telephone surveys
Online or Zoom surveys
Postal surveys
Focus group/consumer panel
Observation
Secondary research involves using information published from other completed research. They cost less but may not provide accurate and up-to-date information. They are usually obtained from newspapers, magazines, journals, published reports from trade associations, and government agencies.
Market research is especially important to a market-oriented business, as they utilise results from market research to develop products and marketing strategies. While product-oriented businesses would rely on market research to gather information of their competitors' performance, weakness and strengths to develop strategies to compete to increase market share.
RELATED CONCEPTS
Market-Oriented Businesses
Product-Oriented Businesses
Market Segmentation
Marketing Strategies
Marketing Mix
PAST YEAR QUESTIONS
Identify and explain two methods of market research that a firm could use. (4 marks) May/June 2018/11
Identify and explain two benefits to JSF of market research. (4 marks) May/June 2018/12
Identify and explain two factors that might affect the accuracy of a firm's market research. (4 marks) Oct/Nov 2018/1
Identify and explain one advantage and one disadvantage to a business of using primary market research. (6 marks) Oct/Nov 2019/11
Should secondary research or a focus group be used to gather market research information (6 marks) Oct/Nov 2019/12
Identify two methods of secondary market research. (2 marks) Oct/Nov 2018/13 & Feb/Mar 2019/12
How is market research related to the related concepts? Comment for discussion