Market research is sociological research focused on studying the market situation, desired, preferred, and behavior of consumers and other market players. It consists of systematically searching, collecting, and analyzing information to make the right management decisions in producing and selling the company’s products.

What Tasks Does Market Research Solve?

In the course of marketing research, you can solve several groups of tasks at once:

• Search: collection, filtering, and sorting of information for further study.
• Descriptive: definition of the essence of the problem, structuring, and identification of all operating factors.
• Casual: search for a connection between certain factors and the identified problem.
• Test: testing of found ways or mechanisms of solving a marketing problem.
• Prognostic: forecast of the future situation in the market.

When and Why Does a Business Need Market Research?

Market research provides essential and up-to-date information about the situation on the market, how effectively the company promotes its products and helps to choose the right promotion strategy and possible direction of business development. Marketing studies are necessary for the following situations:

To make critical marketing decisions. First, research is needed to collect objective information about the market situation when the company launches new large-scale projects when entering a new market. Also, it will be helpful to make competitor analysis and study of promotion channels and methods. Developing a new product or service also belongs to the same group. In this case, the research task will be searching for new ideas, insights, market niches, and unmet needs.

To assess the effectiveness of activities. During this research, it is possible to evaluate sales dynamics, brand awareness, customer loyalty and satisfaction, competitive positions, and the perception of the company’s image.

To solve problems. Companies often conduct marketing research when issues have already arisen in business – low sales, not enough consumers, more successful competitors – to develop an anti-crisis strategy.

Is It Possible to Order a Study from Research Marketing Companies?

One way or another, the analysis will require information about the economic activity of competitors and other metrics by indicators, region, and type of activity. It is not easy for a beginner to understand these data, so many people follow the path of least resistance: they order markets research from professional consulting companies like Waveup.

The main task is to conduct a qualitative analysis and get the correct data, considering your business goals, circumstances, and plans. Therefore, it is desirable to evaluate the market immediately before launching the project and to do it as “custom” as possible.

For such work, you can hire specialists or do it yourself. They can help to find information:

• about each potential competitor/partner/client in search engines;
• find out indicators of economic activity;
• manually compile statistics and analyze them.

How to Understand Whether You Need to Conduct Market Research?

To understand whether a company needs marketing research, you should answer 5 key questions. The need for research is evident if the answer to 3 is positive.

1. Is there a severe problem requiring information about the market, consumers, and competitors?
2. Is there a need for more information to make a risky marketing decision?
3. Is information necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of already made decisions (in addition to internal information)?
4. Does the company have the desire and opportunity to change its marketing policy based on the research results?
5. Is there enough time to carry out the research?

The manager or owner must initially understand that the result of the market research is not material values ​​that can be immediately included in the company’s assets but information capable of giving a real economic effect from the use of support in the future.