As a business, there are certain key questions that need to be answered before making any important decision. These questions help in understanding the scope of growth for the business and how the stakeholders and consumers would react to those decisions. Accurate answers to questions like, “Why or why not your targeted consumers shall buy your product?”, “If you launch a new product, do the consumers really need it?”, “Whether a particular marketing strategy would work with your consumers?”, or can it make or break a business decision. This is where having accurate market research holds immense importance. Market research, in practice, is the process of analysing and evaluating the practicality of a business decision, through research conducted directly with potential consumers. This process allows businesses to get familiar with their target market, collect and assess opinions and make informed decisions.
But, how exactly is market research conducted? Market research for a specific product and its potential consumers is conducted in a linear fashion and involves a number of steps that come one after the other. The process of market research can be done through conducting surveys, interacting with a particular group of people also known as samples, conducting interviews among other similar processes. Let’s look at the key steps involved in a market research and how each of these steps help in understanding a specific market and help businesses take advantage of the insights gathered from them.
Identifying and defining the problem
Before the inception of any kind of survey, identifying the key problems and issues you hope to solve is the first and the most crucial step. Making sure that the problem which needs to be dealt with has a level of clarity on which a research can be built. This step should also include clearly defined objectives.
Deciding on an appropriate approach
In this step, a budget for the research is established and an understanding is reached regarding the influencing factors such as the environment or economy. Then, decisions on sampling and survey methods are made.
The survey design
This is, essentially, the most important step out of all, as the research design would warrant the efficiency and credibility of the research. This means that if survey questionnaires are not upto the mark, the data shall not come out accurate and important information could be lost. All the different sampling methods and data analysis factors are to be kept in mind while designing a research survey.
Collection of data
The next step is to push out the designed survey to the target population and collect the data that is provided by them in response to the surveys. A preliminary testing of the survey needs to be done before the surveys reach a real audience to ensure that the data being fielded is correct. This can be done through survey tools available online.
Data analysis
Now, the collected data is analysed and a conclusion is to be reached regarding the business decision that needs to be made. The analysis can be done through tools such as Excel, or even more advanced programs like SPSS, depending on the complexity of the questions.
Reporting and taking action
This is the final step in the market research process and here all the analysed data is presented and reported in the most efficient way. Efficient reporting of the data is extremely essential to draw the right conclusions and make the correct decisions.
The above steps, more or less, define the effectiveness of a market research and are crucial regardless of the company, the product or the targeted population. Torfac makes this tedious process easier with their category leading end-to-end market research solutions. From high quality Survey Programming and technology driven data processing to extremely systematic
reporting and presentation of the data collected, Torfac brings a level of efficiency and a personalised touch to this lengthy process and helps clients get comprehensive results for making important strategic decisions.
