Running a business is not that easy. Many people, especially young people think that starting a business is the idea, finding a suitable place as a headquarters, then finishing the legal, and now the business is done, as the next step is sales. This can waste time, effort, and lots of money.
The first step in any business plan is coming up with resources. This helps to make effective decisions in setting the strategy. To do this you should conduct market and marketing research, so what is the difference between them? And what’s their importance?
Difference between Market Research & Marketing Research
Although they include almost the same letters (M, A, R, K, E, T) they have different meanings, here is the difference:
- Market Research: it is a process of identifying a target for your service/product, You do this through some research, collecting data, and writing your conclusion. This helps you to narrow the funnel thus identifying the target audience exactly.
- Marketing Research: It is wider than market research as it involves the whole marketing process for the business, not only identifying the target. It includes the marketing 4Ps which are product, place, price, promotion.
Why is market research important?
When it comes to launching a new product or new service, you must identify your customers who will purchase, including their needs, goals, interests, and other data. This helps you in creating a buyer persona later, setting a perfect strategy to make selling goes smoothly, these benefits include:
- Good communication with your current customers and your expected customers (your target).
- Catching opportunities: Market research can help you to identify opportunities, thus use them in the SWOT analysis.
- Lowering risks: when you collect data and conduct your analysis, this helps you to identify the methods you will follow in your marketing strategy, without time & effort wasted.
Importance of marketing research
Doing marketing research is very important to identify what is missing or doesn’t work well, it is wider than market research, as it include it beside including other marketing aspects like:
- 4Ps and PR.
- How to develop services or products.
- Brand awareness.
- Sales.
What are the steps to do perfect research?
To conduct a perfect marketing or market research method, you have to follow some steps as the following:
- Know what you are researching for. It’s important to identify what you are focusing on, this structures your questionnaire and research.
- Know your budget and time: What is the budget you can afford to do this research? What is the research timeline?
- Identify your methods. How will you collect your data? There are many methods to do research, you can use one or more of them. They can include Surveys, interviews, Phone calls, and focus groups.
- Data analysis. After collecting your data, how do you analyze them? Identify your tools and your methods.
- Reporting. The last step in any research! After analyzing your data you have to create a final report, this report can be included in the marketing strategy.
