That said, market research doesn’t always have to be a large, complex project. I mean, with the right methods in place it shouldn’t be that hard to predict that consumers will deem the car overpriced and ugly. The more important the marketing issue you’re tackling, the more market research comes in handy.įor example, launching a new car on the market is quite a big event, right? So maybe Ford could have avoided losing 350 million dollars with the Ford Edsel if they had done their research properly. Supporting company growth. Understanding how and why consumers decide on products will help you decide what products to introduce to the market.Īnother answer to the “when” is the importance of the decision that you need to make.

Low sales? Low profitability? Market research will help you understand whether your problems are internal, like a low-quality product, or external, like aggressive competition. Knowing things like the size of the market, or defining your potential customers can help you set your sales goals. Hauge and Peter Jackson in their book “Do Your Own Market Research” point to three specific situations when market research is really useful: Xerox’s idea for a commercial photocopier was a no-go in the eyes of research analysts Xerox did it anyway, and the rest is history. That’s why market research with all of its significance is “only” a part of marketing, and it’s “only” an experiment. It’s up to you whether you will conduct your experiment, and when you will end it.įor example, Crystal Pepsi seemed very promising in the market research phase, yet it failed when released onto the market (a similar thing happened to New Coke). Even companies that specialize in market research admit it - here’s a quote from one of them: (…) it cannot be assumed that market research is an exact science, as it would be unrealistic and unreasonable to expect market researchers to predict the precise demand for a new concept, given that there are numerous variables that can impact demand outside of the market researchers’ remit. Research is what marketing pros do to plan their moves, and outperform their competition. It’s also what marketing pros use to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their own marketing strategy.īut is market research the ultimate business oracle? Unfortunately no. Moreover, it allows you to understand who your opponent is by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your competition.

Market research allows you to discover the rules of the marketing game by understanding your target audience. This is exactly where market research comes in. Since you’re new to the game, you don’t know the rules, and you don’t know who you’re playing against. Entering a market with a product is like starting a new game. The key word in the above definition is “game plan”. What is the role of market research in a marketing strategy?Ī marketing strategy is a business’s overall game plan for reaching consumers and turning them into customers.

Google trends data for market research