Market Research

Richard O’Callaghan
Hook Head Training and Consulting Limited
Collect certain information about your
customers, market and competitors
Tells you about your potential market,
prices, trends, competition, target
customer, its preferences, income, habits,
accessibility, convenient time and plans
This information should be accurate, and
reliable to help you make the right
business decision

Market Research
What type of information do you think
would be useful on your market?

Question for Everybody

 What kind of business  Who are my competitors
should I do? and what kind of product,
 What is the demand for price and service they
my business? offer?
 Who are my customers?  How I differentiate my
/Is there a market? business from my
 What are the market competitors?
forces that will affect my  What types of service do
business? my customer prefer?
 Where should I locate my  What types of advertising
business? attract my customers?
 How much profit can I get  What is the market price
at different locations and and how I can change my
times? price accordingly?

First Step – What do you need to

know
 What are the new trends, product, time, location
and service in the market? And how I adapt
them?
 What are my weaknesses and strengths in my
business compare to my competitors?
 How I can differentiate my business and make it
unique?
 Should I change and redirect my advertising
campaign according to the recent situations?
 How can I change my customers’ spending
habits?
 How can I expand my business with minimum
cost?

An Existing Business
Would it really matter if you didn’t do any
Market Research?

Why?

Question
Quantitative
◦ Based on numbers – 56% of 18 year olds drink
alcohol at least four times a week - doesn’t tell
you why, when, how
◦ Absolute numbers
◦ The Likert Scale
Qualitative
◦ More detail – tells you why, when and how!
◦ What did you think?
◦ How did you feel?

The Nature of Research Data

The public library Wholesalers and
Vocational schools manufacturers
Observation Government
/questions agencies
Chambers of Trade associations
commerce Business
Potential publications &
consumers/ survey magazines
Business Web
competitors

Sources of Information
What kind might you find on the Internet
to find information for your market
research?
Do you think there are any issues in using
this information?
If you do what are they?

Question
Types of Research
Primary and Secondary Research
Secondary Research
◦ Use existing research for your own purposes
◦ E.G. CSO Household Survey
Primary Research
◦ You go out and do the research yourself
◦ E.G. Survey on South Street

Research is Conducted in Two

Basic Ways
Generally you do secondary research first
◦ Why?
What are good sources of information for
your market?
What do you want to know?
◦ Macro trends?
◦ Competitive activity?
◦ Competitive pricing?
◦ Commentator’s views?

Secondary Research
 Who do you think your customers are?
 What others do you need views from?
 How are you going to approach getting their
views?
 How many people’s views do you need to get?
 What do you want to know from each?
◦ Who/what groups do you need to talk to?
◦ What do you want to know?
◦ What are you going to do?

Primary Research
Secondary Research
Using other peoples work
Secondary data is data which has been
collected by individuals or agencies for
purposes other than those of our
particular research study
It is possible that much of the information
we required has already been collected
Secondary data is much cheaper to collect
than primary data

Secondary Research
Accounts
Internal Reports and Analysis
Stock Analysis
Retail data - loyalty cards, till data, etc.

Internal Sources
 Government Statistics (CSO)
 EU - Euro Stat
 Trade publications
 Commercial Data - Gallup, Mintel, etc.
 Household Survey
 Magazine surveys
 Other firms’ research
 Research documents – publications, journals,
etc.
 Suppliers

External Sources
Itwas not created for us so we are
making assumptions regarding it’s
applicability
Bias
There may be error within the research
Might be out of date
The methods used might be flawed

Problems with Secondary

Research
Primary Research
Doing the job yourself
Primary Research
◦ First hand information
◦ Expensive to collect, analyse and evaluate
◦ Can be highly focussed and relevant
◦ Care needs to be taken with the approach and
methodology to ensure accuracy
◦ Types of question – closed – limited
information gained; open – useful information
but difficult to analyse

Market Research
Surveys
Experimentation
Observation
Focus groups
In-depth interviews
Projective techniques
Physiological Measures

Primary Research Methods

Ifyou wanted to design a questionnaire in
order to conduct market research for your
new carpet cleaning business, what 5
quantitative and 5 qualitative questions
that you might ask people walking down
North Street?

Quesiton
 Keep your questions very  Make your questions only
short, understandable, in your subject matter
and clear  Customise your questions
 Ask direct questions to encompass more
 Ask questions that can be than one group of people,
answered easily, male/ female
open/close-ended  Be honest with the intent
 Ask questions that do not of the questionnaire
have more than one  Give enough time answer
meaning  Be courteous and friendly
 Make sure your questions when asking people to
do not offend anyone participate in your survey
 Ask questions in different
repeated ways, so you
minimise missing data

How to Design a Questionnaire

For research to be effective your sample
groups must be appropriate
Random Samples – equal chance of
anyone being picked
◦ May select those not in the target group
◦ Sample sizes need to be large to be
representative
◦ Can be very expensive

Sampling - Here comes the

Science Bit
 Stratified or Segment Random Sampling
◦ Samples on the basis of a representative segment
◦ Still random but more focused
◦ May give more relevant information
◦ May be more cost effective
 Quota Sampling
◦ By segment
◦ Not randomly selected
◦ Specific number on each segment are interviewed
◦ May not be fully representative
◦ Cheaper method

Sampling
Conclusion
Helps focus attention on objectives
Aids forecasting, planning and strategic
development
May help to reduce risk of new product
development
Communicates image, vision, etc.
Globalisation makes market information
valuable (HSBC adverts!!)

Advantages of Market Research

Information only as good as the
methodology used
Can be inaccurate or unreliable
Results may not be what the business
wants to hear!
May stifle initiative and ‘gut feeling’
Always a problem that we may never
know enough to be sure!

Disadvantages of Market Research