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The importance of market research

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How well do you know your customers? What motivates them to purchase your products or services? What types of advertising catch their attention? Do you know what types of products to manufacture that will fit their needs? Good market research will help you find the answers to all your questions.

Market research basically involves collecting customer information, organizing it, and basing company decisions upon it. When you want to create a new product, market research will be the way to tell you if the product will become successful or if you need to go another direction. Market research can help you get to know your customers better and it can build a connection between the two of you.


There are 2 main elements to good market research, primary research and secondary research. Primary research is when you collect all the information direct from your target audience. Usually you can collect this data through customer surveys, phone calls, direct mail pieces, and actual customer interaction. Companies that do not have the time to collect the information on their own usually use secondary research. Secondary research is when you hire an outside company to collect all the information about your customers for you. They can provide you with more information than you can usually find on your own.

Create a list of all the things you need to know and understand about your customers before you conduct market research. It won't do you any good to conduct market research if you don't know what you are looking for. If you want to expand your company, use market research as a way to help you find a new location. How about designing a new product? Market research can help you with this as well. Before you launch a new product, you should always conduct market research to make sure your company even has an audience to market to.

If you are in a niche market, it helps to conduct market research so you can figure out just how big your target audience is. This will help you as you prepare to grow your company because you have the option of expanding your services to increase your target audience.

Collecting of the data can be done through online or direct mail surveys, personal phone calls, or conferences where you invite a portion of your customers and pay them for their time. When you are collecting market research, keep in mind that most of the customers expect to receive some type of compensation for their opinion. You can either choose to pay them for their time or you can offer them free products or services.

After you complete the market research, you have the hard task of organizing all the data. The data must be broken into categories that address your questions. After you have it all organized, you can start to analyze it and use it to create your marketing strategy.

Market research can also help you determine what types of marketing methods you should use. If your customers tend to respond to print media over online media, focus more money on printing brochures and flyers. If they respond to pay-per-click marketing, consider adding more keywords and then add other types of online marketing like email newsletters.

If you can invest some time and money into market research, your company will become more successful than it was before. This is because you know more about your customers and their wants and needs. It can help you create better products, promote them at the right time, price them effectively, and establish life-long relationships with your customers.

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