Researching current customers
Customer research can define what types of people are using your products or services, for what purpose, in what situation, and with what attitudes and opinions. Almost any aspects of a company’s business can be researched to ensure the best possible operations are in place, be it basic processes management, complex niche branding development, or the strategic reduction in customer churn or lost value.
Researching potential customers
These are market research projects with a wider scope, conducted to find out how the products, brands or services provided by you and / or your competitors are used and perceived in the overall market. This research is especially valuable for identifying customer acquisition opportunities.
Market share information
This information is descriptive information about what is actually being bought and consumed in the market. Examples include supermarket scanning (what’s being bought?), radio, television, and internet ratings, or readership and circulation data.
In markets dominated by a small number of businesses, who cannot obtain such data through existing research or government statistics, market research companies can sometimes establish specialist data-sharing progammes to enable this data to be collated on a confidential basis.
Public Sector / Non-commercial research
The public sector in New Zealand is a major user of market research, with both local and central government bodies increasingly using market research organizations to help with policy development, stakeholder consultation, and community feedback. Although traditional forms of governmental public consultation (e.g. public submissions and community forums) still have their place, the increased financial and performance pressures faced by much of the public sector have led to a greater demand for more accountable, accurate and strategic research.
Such research must be sensitive to the underlying political issues at hand, as well as totally robust and able to withstand public, political and media scrutiny. In contrast, the public consultation process of submissions does not provide a representative reflection of the views of the whole community - properly conducted surveys with a genuinely random sample of the population are required to ensure that community opinion is understood.
Market research examples
In essence, research is used to find out whatever it is that the marketer needs to know to make decisions about how to market a product or service. These decisions include advertising and promotion, product design, packaging, pricing levels - all the activities aimed at optimising the profitability of a product in its available market.
Just a few examples include…
The most effective market research is research that has a clearly defined objective.