How To Make A Good Decision Using Marketing Research

Research can help you avoid costly mistakes and make the most of limited resources. It can also create opportunities for your business to compete with much larger entities and gain a competitive advantage by learning from market research. 

You’ve heard this before, but what does it mean in practice? How do you go about getting the information you need in order to make smart decisions? Here’s a step-by-step breakdown:

How To Do Market Research! (5 FAST & EASY Strategies)
Takeaways
1. Effective decision-making relies on thorough marketing research.
2. Identify your research objectives and the specific questions you need to answer.
3. Utilize various research methods such as surveys, interviews, and data analysis.
4. Gather data from reliable sources and ensure its accuracy and relevance.
5. Analyze collected data to derive meaningful insights and trends.
6. Interpret the findings to make informed decisions aligned with your goals.
7. Continuously monitor the market landscape and adapt your strategies as needed.
8. Marketing research empowers you to mitigate risks and seize opportunities.

Define Your Objective

Before You Start, Ask Yourself: What Is My Objective?

This is important because it forces you to define the problem before starting on a solution. If your objective isn’t clear, then you will end up compromising and settling for something less than ideal. 

You want to avoid wasting time on projects that don’t move your business forward or lose momentum by ending up in dead ends along the way.

It’s also critical not to let other people’s goals influence your decision making they may not have the same priorities as you do and their idea of success might not align with yours. 

At the same time, however, setting ambitious goals can be counterproductive if they’re unrealistic or unattainable within certain timeframes (i.e., three months).

So how do we strike this balance between being ambitious but realistic? One way is by setting tangible fitness goals so that they’re easy enough to track over time without feeling like an overwhelming challenge when they’re finished! 

For example: lose 5 pounds in 3 months or run 5k without stopping for 6 months…

Conducting thorough market research is crucial for making informed decisions. Learn how to gather valuable insights without breaking the bank by following our guide on how to conduct market research for free.

Determine Your Research Methodology

Marketing research is a very useful tool for decision-making. However, it can be difficult to know which type of marketing research is appropriate for your situation. 

The following information will help you understand the different types of marketing research methods that exist and how they can be used to make good decisions.

Understanding what each method is and how each one works will allow you to determine which type involves the least or most time, cost, and risk.

Choose The Types Of Research You Will Use

There are many types of research to choose from. All research methods can be useful in some situations, but they each have a different purpose and use. 

It’s important to match the right method with your need so that you get accurate results and make good decisions based on them:

Primary Research 

This type of research starts with gathering information directly from people through survey questions or interviews. You can do primary research yourself using tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms, or hire someone who specializes in it like us!

Secondary Research 

his type of research uses existing data to answer questions about what happened in the past (or present). It might be compiled statistics from government agencies or reports from businesses who already conducted their studies that are relevant for your situation. 

For example, we gathered all available data about businesses selling products online before we launched our website builder tool so that we could understand how well those companies were doing compared to our competitors’ businesses.

Then used this knowledge when creating our product roadmap!

Before launching a survey, it’s important to be well-prepared to maximize its effectiveness. Discover 14 essential tips that can significantly improve your survey’s outcomes in our article on tips before conducting a survey.

What Are Your Hypothesis/Assumptions?

Now that you know what you’re trying to learn, your next step is to figure out what assumptions you’re making.

Assumptions are often called “unconscious beliefs,” because they’re things we don’t realize we believe. They can be helpful or harmful, but either way it’s important to identify them so that they don’t contaminate your research.

You should ask yourself: What are my beliefs about this topic? What am I assuming about my customers, competitors, and other industry players? What do I think I know already about this problem (or challenge) and how will my solution address it?

In addition, consider asking these questions:

Do I know what is relevant in the market? – If not, how can I find out quickly and inexpensively? – How can I understand more clearly what matters most to buyers at different stages of purchase decision-making so that my efforts are aligned with their needs/desires as closely as possible?

Choose Between Primary And Secondary Research

Before you can make a good decision, you need to know what information is available and how to use it.

Primary research is conducted specifically to answer a research question. For example: “What are the attitudes of people who live in this city toward recycling?” or “How much money should we spend on advertising?”

Secondary research is conducted for some other purpose but may be useful in answering your research questions. For example: “How much do people like our products?” or “What are our competitors spending on advertising?”

Primary data collection methods include surveys and focus groups; secondary data includes information you can find in published reports and databases.

Marketing research doesn’t always yield the expected results. Learn how to overcome common challenges and enhance your research process with our insights on why marketing research doesn’t always work and how to do it better.

What Data Do You Need?

It’s important to have a clear understanding of what data you need and how it will work together to answer your research questions. You should also be aware of the potential limitations and strengths of this approach, as well as any weaknesses in your data collection.

To do this, we first need some background information about market research methods. Market research is essentially the process of collecting information about consumers’ behaviors or attitudes towards a product or service (consumer). 

This may include things such as their purchasing behavior and reasons for buying products or services.

Price sensitivity and other factors can help inform marketing decisions by businesses trying to sell their products/services successfully in an increasingly competitive environment.

Although there are several different types of market research techniques available depending on whether you’re looking at consumer surveys or consumer focus groups; 

These days most companies tend towards online focus groups where members can interact with each other freely without needing someone else physically present saving time & money while still getting valuable insights into customer needs & concerns!

Narrow Down Your Information Needs To A List Of Specific Questions

Once you’ve defined the problem, it’s time to start narrowing down your information needs. You want to make sure that all the data and research that you gather will help you answer your specific questions as directly as possible.

Be ambitious, but stay focused on what you want to achieve with this decision. This is where most people get tripped up they get distracted by other people’s problems or goals and lose sight of their own. That’s no way to make good decisions!

Here are some examples of tangible fitness goals that could be achieved in around three months:

Cardiovascular endurance: run a mile without stopping once (or twice) per week for 8 weeks straight; walk/run for 30 minutes every day for one whole month straight; complete an obstacle course at a local park at least 10 times in 5 weeks; etc.

Identify The Data Sources You Will Use To Answer Those Questions

It’s time to identify the data sources you will use to answer those questions.

This is the point where you take a step back and think about what information you need, whether it’s primary, secondary, or tertiary.

Primary data are created by your organization as part of its regular operations. They may include sales figures, survey responses, and product specifications. 

Secondary data are extracted from other sources business reports and market research reports are two common types of secondary data but they don’t require any additional work on your part beyond finding them. 

Tertiary data are synthesized from both primary and secondary sources (like census data).

Once you’ve decided which type(s) of information to pursue, it’s time to find those sources. 

Primary source documents can be found offline (in a file cabinet or storage room) or online through websites like Google Scholar (scholarly articles) or PubMed Central (published papers). 

The latter is particularly helpful for researchers who specialize in medicine because it gives them full access for free! to all kinds of published papers dealing with their field.(/li

Dive into the details of a comprehensive year-long journey of conducting market research without incurring costs. Gain valuable lessons from our article on how I spent an entire year conducting market research for free.

Who Is The End-User Of Your Report?

The end-user is the person who will benefit from your decision. On a website, the end-user is a visitor who has arrived at your site and wants to learn more about the product or service that you offer. 

In other words, the end-user needs information to make a good decision about whether or not they should do business with you.

Let’s say you’re an eCommerce store selling pet supplies online. Your main audience is pet owners looking for products that meet their specific needs like food dishes, brushes, and leashes.

But there are also plenty of people responsible for buying these items on behalf of their pets: dog walkers, friends who come over regularly to visit their pup (or three), etcetera! 

Thus we have two different audiences: Pet Owners and Buyers (who may fall under one category but not another).

Now it might seem intuitive that those two groups would be interested in different types of content, after all, pet owners care about finding quality food dishes while buyers want details on how much each item costs before making a purchase.

But here’s where things get tricky: both groups need nutrition information just as much as each other when purchasing puppy food online! 

So even though Pet Owners might find value in reading reviews written by others who have experience feeding their pet with certain brands/types/etcetera … 

These reviews aren’t relevant if they don’t lead directly back into our Product pages because they won’t help Buyers make informed decisions based on what they read!

Create The Data Collection Instruments (Surveys, Questionnaires, Report Templates)

The data collection instrument is the tool you use to collect data. It should be well-designed and easy to use, understand, and administer. The following are some important considerations when creating or selecting a data collection instrument:

  • The design of your data collection instrument should be clear and easy to follow.
  • Your data collection instrument should be based on market research that responds directly to your problem statement (i.e., what do you want to know).
  • Make sure it’s not too long the shorter the better! 

This will improve response rates when administering surveys online or in-person because people won’t get bored reading through many pages before getting any useful information out of them; 

Instead, they’ll just get annoyed & quit filling out their responses without giving thoughtful answers about their preferences & experiences with products/services which could have been very helpful for businesses looking for new ways. 

This is to improve their offerings based on customer feedback from those who tried using them first hand before buying something else instead.

Create A Sampling Plan And Sampling Frame To Represent Your Target Population

When you’re working with a marketing research firm, it’s important to understand how market research is done. Essentially, the researcher will use statistical methods and conclude the entire population based on their sample size and results. 

The researcher will decide how to select their sample from the sampling frame (a list of all possible target respondents). They then need to determine how many people they will interview as part of that sample.

To do this, researchers often create a Sampling Plan and Sampling Frame first. A Sampling Plan is an outline for selecting your target respondents the people who will take part in your study from among those included in your sampling frame. 

A Sample Frame is simply an organized list of names or other identifiers that can be used as targets for market research studies such as surveys or focus groups

Collect The Data Do Fieldwork If Necessary

Before you go any further with your decision-making process, it’s important to gather some data. Data collection is the process of gathering and analyzing information about the people who use your product or service. 

This may include anything from observing them in person to asking them a simple question over the phone or online. The following are some types of data that can be collected through fieldwork:

  • Observation – Looking at people’s behaviors and listening to their conversations
  • Interviews – Asking questions directly or through surveys
  • Questionnaires – Providing a list of choices and asking respondents which they prefer (like when you’re choosing between two different flavors at McDonald’s)
  • Focus groups – Group discussions where participants discuss current trends in their industry

Verify And Validate The Data You Collected For Accuracy And Completeness

Once you have collected your data, it is important to verify and validate it for accuracy. Before using the data for analysis, you should check to make sure that:

  • The information is accurate
  • The information is complete (i.e., all of the relevant variables are included)

You can verify and validate it by comparing it against other sources of information (examples include competitor research, focus groups, and surveys).

Checking for internal consistency (for example, if you surveyed people about their feelings toward a product and they say they love it but their answers show they dislike it). 

Checking for external consistency (for instance, if you ask people how much money they spend on shoes and then ask them how much money they spend on clothing overall), or verifying logical consistencies.

Marketing research comes in various forms, each serving a unique purpose. Explore the 16 types of marketing research that can provide critical insights for your decision-making in our guide on 16 types of marketing research and why you need them.

Verify, Validate, And Assess As Many Data Points As You Can

Now that you’ve got your data, you need to verify, validate, and assess as many data points as possible. 

This is crucial because if not done correctly it can lead to disastrous decisions (remember the scene in Apollo 13 when they ran out of air? That’s what happens when good decision-making isn’t followed).

Verify: The first step is to verify that all of your research questions have been answered. Make sure each hypothesis has been tested and that there’s enough evidence for you to make an informed decision based on said evidence. 

If there are any questions left unanswered or something doesn’t seem right about what was discovered during the research phase, then go back over everything again until everything checks out properly.

Validate: Next up comes validation; verifying whether what was collected during the previous step was accurate or not. 

There are many ways this can be done for example one way would be surveying friends who know nothing about marketing but care about pop culture trivia (they should represent who YOU want YOUR customers/consumers/audience demographics). 

Have them answer some questions related specifically to these topics.

So they become familiarized with them before asking them anything else later down the road where confusion may arise due to unfamiliarity with the material covered previously (and thus having less knowledge than someone trained specifically for their role within the company structure).

Conclusion

Hopefully, we’ve got you more excited (and maybe a little less nervous) about embarking on a research project! We know the struggle, and we came to these tips even the one about watching badminton! through our trial and error. 

Remember that the important thing is to keep on trying. As we covered earlier, you don’t have to go super hard on yourself for slip-ups, because this journey can take time and looks different for everyone. 

Plus, don’t forget that the best way to keep yourself on track is to keep it fun, keep positive, and keep yourself engaged with the people and the world around you. After all, caring about others is a great reason to switch to this lifestyle in the first place!

Further Reading

Explore these additional resources to deepen your understanding of marketing research:

Market Research Guide: Navigating the Buyer’s Journey Short Description: Discover how market research guides you through the buyer’s journey, helping you understand and cater to your target audience’s needs effectively.

The Marketing Research Process Demystified Short Description: Uncover the step-by-step process of marketing research and gain insights into how to conduct successful research campaigns.

Introduction to Market Research Short Description: Delve into the fundamentals of market research and understand its importance in making informed decisions in various industries.

FAQs

What is the importance of understanding the buyer’s journey in market research?

Understanding the buyer’s journey is crucial in market research as it enables you to tailor your strategies to each stage of the customer’s decision-making process. By aligning your efforts with their needs, you can improve conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

How can I ensure the success of my marketing research campaigns?

To ensure the success of your marketing research campaigns, start with a well-defined research plan, gather data from diverse sources, and analyze the information meticulously. Regularly evaluate your findings to make informed business decisions.

What are the key stages of the marketing research process?

The marketing research process typically involves problem identification, planning, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and decision-making. These stages help you gather insights, derive meaning from data, and apply findings to your strategies.

How does market research contribute to informed decision-making?

Market research provides valuable insights into customer preferences, market trends, and competitive landscapes. With this information, businesses can make informed decisions, mitigate risks, and develop effective marketing strategies.

What role does data quality play in effective market research?

Data quality is paramount in market research, as accurate and reliable data leads to accurate insights. Poor data quality can lead to skewed results and misguided decisions, underscoring the importance of maintaining data accuracy and integrity.

How Can I Use Marketing Research To Make Good Decisions?

The first thing to consider is what kind of research you need. There are several different kinds, so if you’re not sure which one is best for your situation, it’s important to ask yourself why you’re conducting this research in the first place. 

For example, do you want to know how many people use a certain product or brand? Or perhaps you want to find out how many people would buy something if given the opportunity? 

These two questions have very different answers and require very different types of data collection methods. So think about what type of information will help guide your decision-making process.

Can I Use Marketing Research To Help Me Decide Whether To Invest In A New Product Or Service?

Yes. Marketing research can help you to figure out if your customers want the product or service you’re considering offering. It will also help you know how much they’ll pay for it, and whether they’ll buy it from you at all.

Marketing Research involves collecting information about your customers’ needs and wants and then using that data to make decisions about what products or services should be offered by your company. 

For example, if you are thinking about introducing a new product line, marketing research would help you find out if there is enough demand for that product line among your existing customer base? If not, perhaps it’s not worth investing in this new product line at all!

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