Marketing research and why startups should consider it
Marketing research is one of the essential tools to support decision-making. Today society and the world are full of information and data that may or may not be relevant to our daily lives. Everyone needs to make decisions, and the easiest way to do so is to have a clear goal, know what is appropriate to achieving that goal, and ask the right questions.
- In this post, you will understand:
- What is marketing research
- Its importance for startups
- The five steps to running a quality survey
What is marketing research?
Formally stated… marketing research is the “process of designing, gathering, analyzing, and reporting information that may be used to solve a specific marketing problem.” (Burns & Bush
2012).
It’s a business function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information used to:
- Identify and define marketing opportunities and problems
- Generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions
- Monitor marketing performance
- Improve the understanding of marketing as a process
Does marketing research apply to startups?
In previous posts, we commented on the challenges of early-stage startups and highlighted five significant challenges to launch a startup:
- Limited resources.
- Just knowing what to do.
- Finding the “right area.”
- Hiring and managing a team.
- Attracting buyers.
And if marketing research applies to solving marketing problems, it is possible to identify a relationship here. I believe we can apply marketing research to each startup’s challenges, but let’s focus on a specific one and exercise its applicability.
Startup challenge: Finding the “right area.”
Marketing research is all about having a clear objective, identifying the variables that might impact it, and finding a way to measure them. You’re ready to define your research target audience and methodology and prepare the perfect questions with these things in mind.
To execute marketing research, there are five steps needed:
Step 1: Identify a research need
Step 1 is one of the most critical phases considering that this “need” will be translated into a written goal to guide the fundamental research. While tacking the problem of “finding the right area,” the researcher must work side-by-side with the client to understand its meaning. Some questions to guide this step could be:
- What means “right area” mean? Is it a market to be part of, a physical location for a store?
- Why “finding this area” is essential for you? What will you do with this information?
Step 2: Design the research study
Now that I clarified the problem I want to solve and know-how answering this question would benefit my client, it is time to define the methodology. It changes based on the need, budget, and timeline. Research can be developed quantitative and qualitatively, with primary or secondary research and different tools.
Step 3: Conduct the study
Time to invite the participants to be part of this research, following the methodology designed. Emailing a pool of people might be easiest to collect survey answers, but this study could also be conducted with individual interviews or study groups.
Step 4: Analyze the result
Time to cross data, take a deep look into what you got from people. Analyzes will also differ based on the type of research you chose. Qualitative data might require a different approach for analysis while comparing the process for quantitative data analysis.
Step 5: Share the insights!
And note that this phase is about insights, not results. One of the most powerful resources of a company is the data they own, and what catches attention is how they use this data – the type of insights generated with that.
Data is vital to decisions, but data per se does not help anyone. The rear power of data comes out when analyzed and able to generate meaningful insights.
I found marketing research one of the essential tools to give direction for executives while making a decision. And you? What is the question you would like to answer with marketing research?
Share your ideas below!