Traditionally, successful businesses tend to spend a considerable amount of energy, money, and time on market research. Have you ever taken a step back and thought to yourself, why is market research such a vital part of any successful business? No matter which CEO, successful entrepreneur, or mentor you listen to, it seems that all agree on the fact that online market research needs to precede any lucrative business strategy.
Today’s goal is to better understand the strong correlation between market research and success in a business. After reading today's post, you’ll have a much better understanding as to why market research is such a vital facet for any successful business plan.
What Is Market Research?
Before we can dive into the deep end, we must first understand the concept of market Research. According to Wikipedia, market research can be defined as “any organized effort to gather information about target markets or customers.” Although simply defined, market research is a broad and deep subject that has many sub topics.
Market research helps companies maintain a competitive advantage over any competitors. By understanding their target market better than their competitors, companies are able to position their development and marketing strategies that better connect to their target market’s wants and needs.
More often than not, market research is handled by large market research companies that are experts in extracting information from specific audiences.
How Is Market Research Conducted?
Although there is no “cookie-cut” answer, market research can be divided into two categories, Primary research and Secondary research.
If a company decides that it needs very specific and original data, it will often times resort to Primary Research, or collecting original data by means of questionnaires, phone interviews, experiments, or online surveys.
On the other hand, if the company recognizes that raw data has previously been collected, they would likely use Secondary Research. The company will simply consolidate and analyze the existing information to draw conclusions to their target market.
Understanding The Importance of Market Research
By understanding where visitors are coming from, why they’re coming, what their intentions are, and what they want, we can generate a strong business plan that is likely to succeed.
On the other hand, if a company were to overlook market research in the product development phase, they’d likely end up guessing what their customers wanted. If you think about it, without market research, how would anyone be able to comprehend their target audience’s wants and needs as they continually change throughout time?
As you can see, market research is a vitally important part of any business model.
Market Research and Digital Marketing Intertwined
As many companies are beginning to recognize the potential of the internet and technology alike, they’re starting focus their market research and marketing efforts online. By using digital ad platforms, electronic research companies, and conducting their own experiments, companies are able to learn more about their target markets faster and more affordably than ever before.
If you think about it, 10 years ago market research had to be done via phone calls, in-person interviews, or surveys sent in the mail. Not only did it take time and massive amounts of energy to learn about a target audience, it often yielded shallow answers for companies.
Fast forward to today, thanks to the power of the internet, it’s extremely easy to learn more about a desired market. From digital interviews to electronic surveys, market research is being conducted more accurately and affordably than ever before.
The Importance of Market Research in The Year Of 2018
Due to the fact that the entire world can be marketed to online & it can be easy to reach suspected interested customers, many companies are creating digital marketing plans to further expand their businesses. No matter what type of digital marketing strategy is being implemented, it will likely fail if the market research isn’t done before hand. Whether it be selling a digital product, physical product, or service, if one does not accurately understand their target audience, there is a high probability of wasted efforts, money, and time.
In order to help you understand your target audience, I’ve compiled a list of the most popular means of getting a better grasp on your target audience digitally.
1. Conducting Keyword Research – By understanding what people are searching for and recognizing their intentions, companies can select specific keywords to target in the hopes of generating more exposure or sales for their company.
2. Competitor Research – Often times, companies will analyze their competitor’s websites and marketing strategies to better-understand their target audience. By understanding what works for competing companies, marketers can quickly understand where to focus their marketing efforts.
3. Search Engine Optimization – Seeing what people are searching for on search engines and finding specific keywords to target, companies can use this specialized market research to achieve a competitive advantage above their competitors.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that there is an extremely strong correlation between detailed market research and success in a business. In order to find success, you must first focus your efforts on collecting and analyzing data from your desired target audience. By doing so, you can make changes to your product or add additional features, correct or adjust your marketing plan, or simply decide if the market has interest in your new product or service or not.
