by Timothy Ijala

Created on: July 31, 2008

Market research is like a road map. Without a road map it is very difficult to know where you are going especially if you have never been there. Similarly a company needs to define its marketing strategy in order to know which direction it is headed for. In other words if an organisation is in business to sale certain goods or services, it needs to answer questions like, how many of this goods and services do we want to sell and to whom do we want to sell to? Do people really need these goods and services and if so in what quantities? Are there others who are providing the same goods and services and if so is there room for us? Market research helps you answer these questions. For example on the question of who to sell a good or service to, say if it is a cloth, market research helps you know which age group likes that cloth, how popular is it, how much are people willing to pay for it. Without market research you may find that people like the cloth but because of the price are not willing to buy it. You may conclude that it is the fashion of the cloth which is not popular whereas it is the price that is letting you down.

Market research helps you identify a niche market who you can sell to rather than just selling to the mass market.A niche is a group within a market segment that you choose to concentrate your sells. In business selling to the mass market is dangerous because when for example it comes to advertising you are not sure which advertising mediun to use so you just choose any which may or may not reach the people who are interested in buying from you and so you will spend money which you do may not recover and at the end of the day you have to close the business.

Additionally you may launch a new product in the market which may seem popular to the public. But to what extent does the market like it or how successful has the product been since its launch? Without market research some of these questions cannot be answered. It would be like flying a plane without instruments. You will end up crashing because you have no direction. Market research gives you the direction because it tells you what the markets response to your product is.

Nowadays people are doing business across borders. And that is not just with the neighbour next door. Business is done across continents, in countries that have different languages and cultures from ours. Most likely we may not be familiar with those cultures. Without doing market research we may find ourselves conducting business in a manner that is offensive to some culture in some country which may damage the reputation of our company in that country and force it to close its business operations.Woe is that company if it has invested a lot in that business!

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