Market research methods are the first thing on which almost all organizations cut their marketing budgets. Isn’t this surprising? Yes, but it’s a fact since every market research process demands an investment of time as well as monetary investments. But this budget-cutting is obviously not a wise decision as the research process helps organizations to identify, analyze, and evaluate business decisions. In fact, the market research process acts as the backbone of informed and wise business decisions. Therefore, it should be executed by organizations to attain the desired output. Recent research also proves that if the research process is being carried out in a proper manner by opting for the appropriate types of market research methods suiting the specific organization’s needs, then it doesn’t have to be expensive.
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But how to execute the perfect research process? The answer is: by following a few key steps involving different types of market research methods. Though there are several steps and various types of research methods involved in the research process, some steps and methods hold more relevance than others. Here is the list of a few key steps in the process:
Steps in a Market Research Process
Identifying the purpose of research
The first and foremost step in every research process is that the problem and the reason for which the research is undertaken should be clear. When the aim of undertaking the research becomes clear, the outcome is desirable and satisfactory.
Designing an appropriate market research plan
This step of the research process involves the extraction of details to develop a fool-proof plan for research. These details are extracted in various ways such as interviewing the focus group and drafting appropriate research questionnaires.
Data collection for research
This is the most important and risky step of the market research process. Chances of mistakes commitment are maximum at this stage. For example, if the respondent is not available in the survey method of data collection then there would be discrepancies in data leading to inaccurate results.
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Implementation of a plan
After the data is assimilated and analyzed, the next step is of implementation. This is again a very crucial step because if the management fails to execute or implement the plan of research properly, it will fail to meet the desired outcome – and then the need to revise the market research process arises.
To follow the steps in the research process properly, there is a need to embrace various types of research methods that are accurate. This can further help in securing the expected results out of the research process. There are basically two types of methods. Let’s explore what are they:
Types of Market Research Methods
Primary research
The primary research method is also known as field research and involves the first-hand gathering of data from primary sources. Such types of methods are meant for a specific purpose. The data for primary research is collected by conducting surveys, focus groups, interviews, test markets, and user groups. Primary research provides a much higher degree of control over the nature and amount of data collected.
Secondary research methods
Secondary research provides valuable insights and at a much faster rate and lower cost. There are several sources of secondary research like competitor benchmarks, sales data, commercial data, government publications, and statistics.
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