Market Research

Define your target consumers






Market Research

Market research is a broad and far-reaching process. It is concerned not just with finding out, as accurately as possible, whether consumers will buy a particular product or not, but also with trying to analyse their reaction to:


The results of market research can have a great impact on decisions made in all areas of the marketing process:

  1. To reduce the risks associated with new product launches: By investigating potential demand for a new product or service the business should be able to assess the likely chances of a new product achieving satisfactory sales. Although market research cannot guarantee success, market research is still a key part of new product development (NPD).
  2. To predict future demand changes: A travel firm may wish to investigate social and other changes to see how these might affect the demand for holidays in the future. For instance, the growth in the number of single-person households may suggest that there could be a rising demand for ‘singles’ holidays.
  3. To explain patterns in sales of existing products and market trends: Market research is not just undertaken for new or planned products, it needs to be conducted for existing products too. Sales at the fashion retailer Gap had, by the end of 2008, fallen in 28 of the last 31 months. Unless Gap managers were prepared to find out why this happened, they would not be able to take remedial action.
  4. To assess the most favoured designs, flavours, styles, promotions and packages for a product: Consumer tests of different versions of a product or of the proposed adverts to promote it will enable a business to focus on the aspects of design and performance that consumers rate most highly. These can then be incorporated into the final product.

Market research can, therefore, be used to discover information about:


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