In the modern world of the market system, the last word is always up to the buyer, because it is he who decides which product is better for him to buy in the end. Consumers carefully study the product they need before spending money on it, they research all the information about it, consult with friends, or seek help from the Internet community. Please note that this list does not include a sales representative. Given these statistics, can you tailor your sales strategy by referring to the way shoppers search for product information?
To run a successful business, you have to know your audience well, know their preferences, product selection methods, and general behavior.
This guide will help even a beginner to understand the processes of studying the consumer market. You will receive step-by-step instructions for a clear definition of exactly your buyer, as well as competitors in your chosen niche.
What is Marketing Analysis?
Marketing analysis is an activity in which there is a search and analysis of data about the market in which you plan to develop your business. This includes data about the target audience, direct buyers of the products you offer, as well as information about the competitiveness and productivity of your brainchild in a given market system with these consumers.
● What is the use of marketing research?
● The main positive side of marketing research is obtaining extremely important information for subsequent analysis and successful business conduct, with the maximum level of income.
● The main questions to which the study answers:
● How and with the help of what resources do consumers seek information about the products you offer?
● Find out your contender in the sales market.
● From who do your potential customers shop and how do they benefit from choosing one or another service provider?
● Trending directions in your area
● What does your audience look like and what problems do they have?
● How and why do your potential consumers choose in favor of a particular thing?
● It is due to these two points that it is possible to conduct several market research. We will consider this further in the article. Therefore, you need to define what type of research is appropriate for your sphere.
Thus, for a better understanding of the structure of research, let's understand such concepts as primary and secondary market research. This will help keep you from confusion and give you a complete picture of what's going on. First of all, let's examine the differences between these two types of analysis.
Features of primary and secondary analysis
As we highlighted earlier, information retrieval can be carried out using primary or secondary data analysis.
Primary research
Gathering data about features and customer base from the source is a primary analysis. This form of research will help you understand the characteristics of your audience, as well as divide the consumption market into parts. Typically, this type of analysis is divided into special and research categories.
Research-type primary analysis
This study is characterized primarily by the apparent propensity of buyers. This initial analysis is aimed at solving problematic issues that may appear in the future. This is the very first step at which the market research process begins. To obtain the information you need, you can use a questionnaire, survey, or interview.
The primary analysis of a special type
This type of information analysis is carried out immediately after the previous study of already known market problems. To do this, it is necessary to select a specific part of consumers, whose answers will help you in further research and search for solutions to certain problems.
Secondary study
All the data that you can find in the public domain, and begin to study them refer to secondary analysis. This includes ready-made reports, sales data, and various statistics. You can't do without this type of research if you plan to research your competitors. Fragments of secondary market analysis consist of:
Resources available to all
These resources will form the basis for your secondary research data. This kind of innovation can be found in the public domain on the Internet, in print media, etc. One of the main proven resources from where you can get information is government statistics. For example, in the United States of America, such resources are the census office and the labor office.
Paid resources
This may include official company reports that are collected by various research firms. To obtain such valuable information, you need to pay a certain amount.
Internal resources
Information resources of this kind are of great value because they contribute in every possible way to the analysis of market affairs. This is because they include materials that your institution is already working with.
This includes information about consumer retention statistics, as well as all data on the state of a particular segment of the company. Based on these resources, you can establish the needs of your customers, which they need in a given period.
After such a thorough analysis of the areas of market analysis, let's move on to familiarizing ourselves with all kinds of marketing analysis. You can find a lot of useful information that will be useful for your research.
Types of marketing research
1. Interview
This type of market research makes it possible to conduct a personal conversation with the required subject. You can not only receive the necessary answers to your questions but also monitor the reaction, facial expressions, and gestures of the interlocutor during the survey.
2. Focus groups
This method of collecting information implies polling a specific group of consumers. You can personally select the buyers you need and study their responses and comments about your products.
3. Analysis of the disposal of the offered products
Analysis of the disposal of a specific product helps to understand the reasons why customers use your services. It gives you an understanding of which direction to keep moving to achieve success in your food.
4. Observation
Observational consumer market research is one of the simplest and most accessible types of research. It shows exactly how consumers of your product use it in their lives. You can easily figure out the barriers your business and its customers face, and take steps to eliminate them in the future.
5. Explore the personality of the consumer
This kind of studying is based on a thorough understanding of the characteristics of your main consumers. You will see the problems that your customers face, and you will also be able to indicate motivates them when choosing a particular product.
6. Studying the division of the market into separate groups
Studying the division of the market into separate groups will allow you to categorize your customers. This can be done by analyzing the special and defining features. Find out their goals, needs, preferences, problem points.
7. Study of pricing policy
Studying the pricing policy allows you to find out the cost of certain goods on the market. Besides, you can study the attitude of buyers to pricing policy, find out how much they are willing to spend on certain types of services. This will help you set a reasonable price tag for your products.
8. Study of competitors
Exploring the activities of contenders is an important point in marketing research. You can find out the leader of your niche. You will be able to follow the development of their business and set your improvement strategies.
9. Exploring how consumers are satisfied with your offers.
This stage of research will help to retain as many customers as possible who are already using your products, as well as provide an opportunity to attract new customers, for this you must meet the expectations of your customers and fully satisfy their needs. You can create incentive or reward systems for regular customers, or find other ways to keep your target audience with you for a long time.
10. Exploring how recognizable your brand is
Examining how recognizable your brand is to ensure that all potential buyers know exactly about your organization's existence. You will be able to find out what your brand name is associated with, as well as understand what your customers think of you. It is also a kind of assessment of your work.
11. Campaign analysis
Campaign analysis means viewing reports of all campaigns that have been carried out over a specific period. Explore their pros and cons and the impact they have on your clients. To achieve the maximum level of feedback and response from your purchaser, you need to conduct several experiments. They will help you prepare for future actions. Remember that your first concern should be what your consumer is concerned about and needs.
And finally, we can move on to the most important part of our article, namely the studying process.
For your attention, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with detailed plans for conducting marketing research.
1. Find out everything about your consumer.
Before studying the process of choosing a product by buyers, study the portrait of your target consumer.
Here, a "marketing character" will come to your aid. This is your idea of ideal customers. It will naturally be very generalized and, to some extent, not yet real. This will significantly improve your understanding of your company's customer base, which will lead to improvements in the entire segment.
Check out the list of signs that will be useful for studying the portrait of the target audience:
● Gender
● Place of residence
● Specialty and position
● Income level
● Age
● Having a family
● Requests and problems of their implementation
The main idea of this study is to understand what you should focus on and in which direction you should promote your business. In the process of processing the data, you may see that only a certain group of consumers are using your services, and this is quite normal. Already in the process of optimizing and developing your business, you can adjust its segments so that as many people of a different social stratum as possible are interested in it.
2. Identify a customer group with which you should work.
Once you have identified your clients, it will be easier for you to select the right buyers for your marketing analysis. This group should include your main clients. Only then will you be able to get the most accurate info and direct this information in the right direction for the development of the enterprise.
The list of persons you interviewed must include those who have recently used your services, as well as those who have refrained from cooperating with you.
How do you recognize the ideal survey respondent?
Select small groups for analysis (approximately 10 people each).
First of all, it is worth contacting those individuals that have similar characteristics to the personality of your regular customer. It is certainly best to focus on one portrait of the target customer. But if your research needs to analyze more than one type of customer, you can do so.
Select clients who have recently worked with you.
It is important that clients clearly remember all the details of cooperation with you. Therefore, it is necessary to choose those who buy your products several months ago.
Try to achieve a diverse audience.
Collect clients who purchased from you, also do not forget about those who preferred your competitors or did not make a purchase in your segment at all. You can easily find your regular clients, and those who have not bought in your company will be able to help with the best analysis of the marketing market.
How is it possible to assemble such a group?
You will need to view the records in which all of your clients are located recently. And following a selective method to select the necessary candidates.
Also, you should familiarize yourself with the list of potential buyers who appreciated your services but refused to purchase. These should be customers who went to competitors, as well as those who refrained from purchasing the product at all. You can find all the information you need by looking at your enterprise archives system.
Also, it will not be superfluous to search for participants through the Internet connection.
Invite your followers or people that visit your site to the survey. Among them, there will be those who did not want to buy your products, so they can tell you in detail why they made such a decision.
Use the popular LinkedIn network today.
Here you can inform your colleagues about the survey. You can find a suitable research participant.
Motivate your customers
In everyday life, it is difficult to carve out even a couple of extra minutes for something. Therefore, you need to develop a motivational tool that encourages consumers to give you a few minutes of their time to conduct a survey. It can be a reward or a bonus offer from the company that any user will be pleased to receive.
3. In advance, decide on the questions for the participants.
Preparation is the key to productive communication without wasting time. Be sure to refer to the prepared discussion guide, no matter what form your survey takes. Remember that you should get the most useful information. It is not necessary to spell out every word or project a prepared script, just make small preparations for your speech or letter so as not to miss important points.
Open questionnaires should be used.
If you want to get the most out of your research activities, forget about closed testing. It is completely uninformative.
4. Identify your contender
You should have a list of your top competitors. At first glance, this may seem like a fairly simple task, but in reality, it is not entirely true.
It so happens that one of the sectors of a corporation can create competition for all your products, while its main efforts go to the development of a completely different type of product.
A prime example of it can be the opposition from Apple Music, which is being developed by Apple, which makes high-quality mobile phones and laptops, with the world-renowned music app Spotify.
To clearly understand your main competitors, you need to be clear about which niche you are working in.
Go through all the fields of activity you know, from the restaurant business to media services. Determine the category that is closest and most suitable for your project and research everything that concerns it.
How do I create my list?
Use the G2 Crowd. It will be the ideal starting point for a secondary study of the marketplace.
Create a marketplace report. Many well-known analytical companies offer free or paid market forecasts. We recommend that you store the received reports on your PC.
Use the internet to find competitors.
Just write in the name of the niche in which you work on LinkedIn and you will instantly get information about competing companies.
In Google, you can find almost any information about a particular company that may be your potential competitor. This is secondary market research.
After this you need to:
Search for data on the net.
You need to know which sites pop up first on the monitor window when you enter the scope of your activity and which companies are hiding behind them.
Be sure to analyze the information received and your portrait of a potential consumer.
Right now, the data that you collected through the primary market analysis will come in handy. If the site of the company that you are researching can interest your client, then this is a clear sign that you have found your competitor.
Pay attention to those sites that are in the first positions of the search system. They are the ones who carry the greatest "threat" to your business and are the main competitors in your field of activity.
5. Conclude.
Immediately after compiling a list of competitors, you may feel a little oppressed. To drive away pessimistic thoughts from yourself, you need to take action and create new ideas to advance your business. Write a step-by-step list of actions.
To create a report on the research done, you can use a presentation or any other element with the ability to multimedia and create diagrams. Use your imagination to create a creative report that will motivate you to new achievements.
We have prepared a step-by-step plan for writing conclusions for you:
Introduction: the goals and objectives of your analysis.
Participants: List all participants in your study. It is best to provide this information in the form of a table.
Conclusions: What valuable information have you been able to learn during the study period? How can you use the received data?
Awareness: Write motivational quotes that will get someone to participate in the assessment.
Description: mention the main questions you worked on, as well as the reminders that consumers use when choosing and evaluating a company.
Decisions: Explain how shoppers choose to use a particular product. Include in this description influential people who can make or get around the deal.
Plan for further activities: analysis of the work done. After carefully studying the mechanisms of work of companies and target audiences, you can suggest the best direction in which to move your firm. Be sure of your words with clear charts, graphs, and numbers.
