Wednesday, July 10, 2013

The Importance of Market Research in Business

Market research is of paramount importance to starting up a business. Before we start let us look at the meaning of market research. What is a market research is the process of identifying a product or service that is yet to be offered to the public, identifying the target audience that will need your product or services, identifying your competitors and their way of doing business and planning a strategic move to be in business by satisfying your customer needs.

From the above explanation, we can see that market research is indispensable in starting a business and even being in business for the next twenty years or more. There are many reason for you as a business person to conduct market research. They are as follows-

* Identifying your target market

* Identifying the methods you will employ to bring in prospects to your business.

* Identifying ways to turn your prospect to buying customers.

* Identifying way of adding values to customers experience in your business.

* Helps to provide information for planning.

* Helps you figure out new opportunities.

* Serves a basis for product development.

All these and more are reasons you should study your market before going into business and even while in business. Coming to the action of market research for business start up or existence, there are stages and sources you need to carry out these research which includes

* Reading trade journals, business papers and checking up on classified ads on journals.

* Researching using the internet on the particular business.

* Joining and participating in online business and general forums.

* Chatting up with distributors.

* Joining groups and participating in these groups will also help.

Mind you, market research is not synonymous with business plan as this might be just a chapter of the business plan. But it is an essential chapter in a business plan. 

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