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1. How To Guide
Engage Targets with Market Research
Executive Summary:
This report has been designed to provide practical advice for gaining
insight from market research initiatives.
Read this brief 9-page report to learn:
 Market Research Defined
 Benefits of Market Research
 Primary vs. Secondary Research
 Common Market Research Projects
 Market Research Tools & Best Practices
Read this report to learn how to leverage your information assets to
support decision-making, identify connections between actions and
outcomes, and listen to your customers.
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2. 2
Table of Contents Page
Market Research Defined 3
Benefits of Market Research 3
Primary vs. Secondary Research 4
Common Market Research Projects 4
Market Research Tools & Best Practices 6
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3. 3
Market Research Defined
Market research is the process of systematically gathering, recording,
and analyzing data regarding customers, competitors, and market
conditions, to help organizations make better business decisions about
the development and marketing of new or existing products and
services.
Benefits of Market Research
 Drive Customer-Centricity - use our Customer-Centricity
Checklist to learn 12 proven strategies.
 Identify Market Opportunities - read our report: Market
Segmentation, Targeting, & Positioning, to learn how to
identify new opportunities.
 Reduce Time-to-Market - leveraging the “voice-of-the-
customer” streamlines the product development, testing, and
marketing processes, increasing velocity.
 Monitor Competitive Advantages - regular competitive
analysis ensures that your organization will not lose or fail to
communicate key advantages.
 Provide Decision-Making Insights - making decisions without
adequate market intelligence can be disastrous. Base your
decisions on facts, not gut instinct.
 Better Allocation of Resources - by analyzing which products,
programs, channels, and markets are most lucrative,
organizations can focus their precious resources on profitable
activities.
 Increase Profitability & Growth - having a solid
understanding of market needs is critical for meeting and
exceeding customer expectations, and leads to customer
retention, increased profitability, and growth.
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4. 4
Primary vs. Secondary Research
There are two categories of market research: primary research and
secondary research. Primary research involves the collection of data that
does not currently exist or is unavailable to an organization. Secondary
research involves the collection, analysis, and summarization of existing
data derived from third-party research firms or other sources.
Many organizations do not have the resources in-house to conduct
effective primary research campaigns, and glean insights from full-
service research firms such as Gartner, Inc., IDC, Forrester, Harris
Interactive, AC Nielsen, Datamonitor, Dun and Bradstreet,
Millward Brown, NPD Group, or TNS.
Common Market Research Projects
Following are a list of common market research projects designed to test
or validate assumptions made by the business:
 Market Sizing & Segmentation - how large is our target
market? How should we segment our market? What are our
customer profiles? Use our Market Segmentation Tool to
analyze market sizing, market segments and customer profiles
 Competitive Analysis - who are our direct/indirect competitors?
What products/services are eroding our market share? What
messages are competitors sending? Who is growing quickly and
needs to be watched?
 Product Positioning - how much price power do we have?
Where do customers position us? What is our price elasticity of
demand?
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5. 5
 Product Penetration - what is our market share? Are we
gaining or losing share of wallet? What geographies are not
penetrated?
 Brand Awareness & Preferences - what brand attributes are
most important? How aware is our market of our brand?
 Consumer Behavior - how do our customers use our products?
What products are usually purchased together? How does
placement affect sales?
 Customer Analysis - how many customers do we have? What
customers are most profitable? What is our customer lifetime
value?
 Customer Satisfaction - what is our retention rate? How does
customer satisfaction affect profitability? Are we getting
referrals?
 Demand Forecasting - what were our previous sales by product
line? What staffing will we need to deliver on sales? What is our
sales forecast?
 Distribution Channels - which channels are not producing
results? How can we increase promotion of our products?
 Decision-Making Process - how do our customers prefer to
buy? What are the top buying criteria? Is our sales process
aligned?
 Marketing Effectiveness - how effective was our last
campaign? Where do the majority of our leads come from? What
is the ROI from marketing?
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6. 6
Market Research Tools & Best Practices
1. Define Responsibilities - Use our Marketing Analyst Job
Description to define key responsibilities and set the direction for
this function.
2. Identify the Problem - a clear statement of the problem is the key
to effective market research. Examples of common research
problem questions are:
 What competitive advantages do we have?
 Who is our target market? What makes them unique?
 Where do our prospects position us in the market?
 What is our market share? Is it being eroded?
 How likely are customers to refer us business?
 Which sales channels are most effective?
 How can we improve our sales process?
 What new products should we develop?
 How effective are our marketing campaigns?
 What is the optimal price for our products?
3. Establish Research Objectives - set objectives that once
achieved provide the information required to solve the problem.
Generally, your objective is to validate a working hypothesis. For
example, your objective may be to test a cause-effect relationship
such as: if we reduce our price, what will the impact be on sales
volume and profitability?
4. Set Research Project Timelines - based on your problem and
objectives, develop a project charter to schedule resources and
set timelines for execution.
5. Select Research Design - there are three main types of research
design: exploratory, descriptive, and causal.
Exploratory research involves collecting information in an
unstructured and informal way, such as reviewing competitors.
websites to gain further understanding of their offerings.
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7. 7
Descriptive research refers to methods that analyze marketing
variables like consumer attitudes, behaviors, and intentions.
Customer satisfaction and brand perception surveys are
examples of descriptive studies.
Causal research is conducted by controlling various factors to
identify cause-effect relationships that affect the problem. Testing
the effect of marketing campaigns on sales in a specific geographic
region is an example of causal research.
Causal research is most informative but can be very expensive and
can require complex experiments to ensure validity. Start with
exploratory and descriptive research designs if your organization
does not have an existing market research function.
6. Determine Data Requirements - determine what information you
will need to solve the research problem and estimate the cost of
gathering that data. Primary research data is typically more
expensive and time-consuming than secondary research data, but
provides much more accurate insight. Depending on your timelines,
budgets, and resources, decide if purchasing an industry
benchmarking report from an analyst firm will provide a better
cost/benefit than conducting primary research for your project.
7. Download Tools & Templates - following are some market
research reports, tools, and templates that you can download and
quickly customize to suit your specific needs:
 Advertisement Evaluation Matrix
 Business Requirements Template
 Brand Perception Survey
 Competitive Ad vs. PR Analysis Tool
 Competitive Analysis Tool
 Competitive Product Positioning Map
 Competitive Website Analysis Tool
 Customer Profile Template
 Customer Satisfaction Survey
 Market Requirements Document
 Market Research Report Template
 Marketing Analyst Job Description
 Market Segmentation, Targeting, & Positioning
 Market Segmentation Tool
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8. 8
 Practical Product Management Tools Report
 Product Development Charter
 Product Development Schedule
 Product Feature Priority Tool
 Product Feature Request Form
 Product Launch Checklist
 Product Positioning Tool
 Product Requirements Document
 Product Sanity-Check Tool
 Sales Analysis Tool
 STEP Industry Analysis
 SWOT Internal Analysis
8. Choose a Research Method - there are two methods for gathering
information: observation or asking questions. The most common,
and cost-effective tool is the questionnaire or survey. Structured
surveys are quantitative and list close-end questions, such as
multiple-choice, yes/no, or scale rankings. Unstructured surveys
gather qualitative data and allow respondents to answer in their own
words. Depending on your research objectives and problem, either
type of survey can be effective.
Some organizations find that mixing these types provides both
measureable results and real-world insights that can be missed by
setting specific questions. If you require primary research data,
consider each of the following research methods:
Telephone Surveys - consider Harris Interactive.
Online Surveys - Question Pro, Key Survey, SPSS.
Personal Interviews - use our Business Requirement
Document to collect data directly from discussions.
Focus Groups - create a customer/prospect advisory panel
that represents a cross-section of your target market and
their needs.
Video Cameras - watch consumers USE your product.
9. Collect & Analyze Data - once you have selected your research
method, built your data-collection tool, and performed the study,
gather all the data together to glean insights. The first step is the
ensure data quality and accuracy; verify that raw data was correctly
entered into the data-collection form and that there are no
respondents who are looking to skew results.
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9. 9
Next, aggregate the data to determine averages, slice-and-dice by
demographics, and do other statistical analysis. Ensure that there is
a large enough sample size to provide a real statistical
representation and determine the margin of error. For a survey of
100 people, expect a margin of error of +/- 10%. For a sample size
of 600, expect +/- 4%.
10. Report to Senior Management - based on your findings, create a
report summarizing the research problem, objectives, research
design & methods, information sources, and results.
Focus on providing a high-level overview rather than getting into the
low-level findings. Assess the implications of your results on
business opportunities and risks, and make recommendations for
improving business operations. Send your Market Research
Report to the relevant stakeholders, and invite them to meet to
discuss further.
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