Business Guide to Getting Started with Market Research

Insight into the audience of people that are/would be interested in your company’s products or services is vital for any business – without it you are groping in the dark when it comes to your manufacture, marketing and other key strategic operations. 

There are two attack fronts when building a knowledge bank about your potential customers – primary research and secondary research. This guide by respected UK audience insight specialists Redshift Research will explain how to get started.
 

Primary versus Secondary Research
Primary research consists of strategically generating the right information about your audience demographic to understand exactly what they want and what motivates their buying decisions. We explore the ins and outs of this tactic in our dedicated guide titled ‘Business Guide to Primary Market Research’.
Secondary research is about making use of previously collected data such as census information to get an idea of the market at large. 
 

While it might seem counter intuitive, you need to begin with secondary research and then follow on with primary research. The reason for this is that you first need to get a feel for  the volume of people who might purchase your product/service, how much they would be prepared to spend and whether the marketplace will accommodate your business offering.
 

For example, if you have developed a new product for cat owners, you’ll first need to know how many people in the country own cats, broken down into specific demographics of age group, gender, location etc. Then you’ll want to find out how much this market of cat owners generally spend on their pet products and how much buying power they have i.e. has this market’s collective spending grown of shrunk within the past ten years? Answers to all of these questions will provide an invaluable steer in terms of positioning your product within the existing marketplace, as well as clarify whether your manufacturing output will match the projected demand.
 

Secondary research delivers the foundation for your business direction, and the good news is that in many cases you can conduct this research from existing knowledge banks without paying a penny. That said, you might want to take a professional market research company on board as they will be able to analyse the data effectively so that it can best be leveraged to your advantage.
 

Free Secondary Research Sources
 

You can begin your secondary market research using the following free resources:
•    Internet i.e. keyword search,
•    Census data and statistics,
•    Financial data on relevant public companies,
•    Trade Associations,
•    Industry article publications,
•    Gender or ethnic specific publications.
 

During your Internet research, look out for organisations that provide research reports, many of which are free. We would suggest you take caution when being asked to pay for specific reports however, since as a non-market research professional you would not be sure whether the data you’re investing in is of actual value to your business.

Conclusion
With secondary research as your starting point, you will get a clear picture of the market that you want to break into. Redshift Research advises business ownersto go as far as possible with researching free data in the public domain, then step back and consider where your insight gaps are.From there it might be most cost effective to get professional help to steer you in a targeted direction and make the best use of the data that is collected.