Market Research

Market research is aimed at determining the needs and expectations of consumers (end users or purchasers) in different marketplaces. A critical component of conducting business, market research is meant to guide what businesses develop and how they market their products. There are two types of market research: primary research and secondary research. Primary research consists of organizations conducting first-hand research to solve specific problems, determine consumer needs, or discover specific opportunities. Primary research is conducted by the organization or is contracted out to a market research firm. Secondary research consists of an organization reviewing pre-existing data and/or information which may help the organization understand specific problems, determine consumer needs, or discover specific opportunities.

• What are the benefits of conducting market research?

Both primary and secondary research aim to help organizations better understand the marketplace and both can be beneficial to product development, design, and the marketing of a new product. Market research may allow organizations and entrepreneurs to identify specific needs of consumers and to design their products to meet those needs. Furthermore, market research may allow organizations and entrepreneurs to identify new markets created by consumer needs that are not being met by an existing product. Other benefits of market research include better understanding of natural settings and implementation environments, evidence-based decision making, and minimizing risk as you get into a new market or product line.

• When should I conduct market research?

Market research can answer questions related to consumer needs, as well as what other organizations are doing to meet those needs. Some examples of market research questions are:

• What are your priorities for this need and which funds would be used to purchase them? What obstacles do you need to address before this decision can be ratified?
• Are the purchase decisions made by classroom or school-based teams or are they district-wide decisions? What mandates and constraints are directing your decisions? Who else is involved in making this purchasing decision and what does the purchase process look like?
• What is the timing process that the team goes through in order to make this decision?

Market research questions take the form of interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and analysis of sales and markets. The following section focuses on designing interviews, surveys, and questionnaires.

• What are the resources needed to conduct market research?

Market research requires both business and basic research skills. Since primary research often uses tools such as surveys and interviews, it is important that those conducting market research are trained in survey development and design, interview protocol development, conducting interviews, and interpretation of survey and/or interview results. Secondary research requires less instrument development, but it does require the ability to locate and interpret pre-existing primary research results. While many professionals and entrepreneurs have these abilities, training is recommended on survey development, conducting interviews, and interpreting findings for your business.

See training resources at:

Education-Portal.com

Analyzing, Interpreting, and Reporting Basic Research Results

Since the goal of market research is to determine consumer needs in order to develop or improve a product that will be successful, it is necessary that the costs of market research are affordable. While some large organizations can afford to conduct large scale primary market research, perhaps hiring an outside firm for additional credibility, most organizations find financial constraints are a leading barrier to conducting market research. Organizations can make use of low-cost web-based tools to conduct market research when applicable. For example, electronic surveys are an inexpensive way to gather information from many consumers. Other web-based tools, such as consumer forums and discussion boards, are also recommended. Time constraints are flexible based on the goals of the research (quick product survey or in-depth inquiry across many stakeholders).

Elements of market research

• Study participant recruitment

Study participants can be recruited from the group of consumers to whom you are marketing. However, a common pitfall is reaching out only to current customers; be sure you are making efforts to reach likely customers as well. Often organizations have pre-existing relationships with many of their consumers, and using your organization’s existing connections to recruit study participants is recommended. Beyond that, social media and crowd sourcing, as well as consumer forums and discussion boards, are useful tools in recruiting study participants. Additional options include collaborating with other organizations that may serve your target audience (such as non-profit organizations, professional associations, school districts, etc.), or even cold calling people you know to be potential consumers of your product. Market research does not just have to take place at one stage in the product development process—it can inform all stages of product development.

Challenges to conducting high quality market research include the potential to reach only existing customers, not potential customers; low response rates on surveys that lead to skewed sample results; and “group think” or socially expected responses shared in focus groups. Additionally, researchers should avoid asking poorly conceived questions that do not lead to reflective answers; conducting an insufficient analysis of data leading to false or hasty conclusions; or gathering an insufficiently representative sample of respondents. These challenges can be addressed with thoughtful planning and reality checking.

See more resources at:

Market Research.com

This site offers a collection of market research reports and specialists’ knowledge on the publishers and reports in respective industries.

Export.gov

This organization helps U.S. companies export their products by using market research to screen and assess potential target markets before developing an export plan.

Inc. Magazine Research Primer

This site holds a compilation of market research articles, starting with an explanation of market research and the reason it is necessary, and including many topics such as introducing a new product, demographic research, bootstrapping, and common mistakes made.

Marketing Research Association

This is a self-managed, non-profit organization which provides services that enable market researchers to develop professionally, gain insight on industry trends, and network and stay connected with fellow researchers.

• Survey data

Survey data can be quantitatively or qualitatively analyzed, depending on the type of survey question. Survey questions with scaled answers (e.g., Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree) can give snapshots of consumers’ attitudes and preferences by looking at basic frequencies (percentages). Open-ended questions (e.g., What are your top five needs?) can be qualitatively analyzed by looking at trends and themes in the data, or by tallying up the most frequent topics across all survey respondents. For more resources on analyzing survey data, see Analyzing Survey Data.

• Interview and focus group data

Interview and focus group data can be analyzed either manually or by using qualitative data software, such as Atlas.ti (for a list of qualitative data software, see http://www.antiochne.edu/cp/qr/software.cfm). Regardless of whether this is done manually or by using analysis software, the purpose of interview and focus group analysis is to find the major themes mentioned in the interviews/focus groups.

Examples and additional resources

• Real world example

Listen to Cheryl Volkman, CEO Emeritus of AbleNet, Inc., describe the marketing research AbleNet conducted when they realized that their client base was changing. NCTI assisted with the data analysis on the AbleNet, Inc. interview transcripts to produce the findings, published as the Consumer Guide.

• Published articles using market research

Overton, C., Volkman, C., Silver-Pacuilla, H., & Gray, T. (2008). Understanding Consumer Needs Through Market Research. Assistive Technology Outcomes and Benefits, 5(1), 4-18.

• Secondary resources

The Software and Information Industry Association compiles domestic and international trends and sales figures for software and technology. See a recent report at http://www.siia.net/estore/globecon-08.pdf.

The World Bank sponsored a global look at how accessible technologies could benefit the developing world, and hosts an ongoing blog on accessible education. Two reports looks at the value of universally designed technology: http://www.thelancetglobalhealthnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/Disability-REV-3.pdf and http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTGEP2008/Resources/complete-report.pdf.

The University of Buffalo’s Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology Transfer created Assistive Technology Industry Profiles drawn from extensive stakeholder roundtables and economic research. See:

Industry Profile on Wheeled Mobility, Bauer, S.M., Buning, M.E. (Eds.) (2009)

Industry Profile on Education Technology: Learning Disabilities Technologies and Markets, Strobel, W.A., Arthanat, S., Fossa, J., Mistrett, S., and Brace, J., (2009)

Industry Profile on Visual Impairment, Strobel, W.A., Fossa, J.L., Panchura, C.A., Beaver, K.A., Westbrook, J.M. (2003)

Deloitte is a global business advisory organization. Their website is full of resources for analyzing business opportunities and trends. See the Telecommunications Media and Technology (TMT) Group web page.

The Entertainment Software Association is one of the largest industry associations of gaming and related media. They conduct and analyze surveys and produce industry trends. See for example, Siwek, S. E. (2007). Video Games in the 21^st century: Economic contributions of the U.S. entertainment software industry.

The Association of Independent Information Professionals consists of members who are owners of firms providing such information-related services as online and manual research, document delivery, database design, library support, consulting, writing, and publishing.