As part of the business community, we have the role of empowering ourselves and our colleagues to make sure that we run sustainable and growing businesses all over the world. People who desire to start their businesses have big dreams of becoming giant business owners. To realize such goal, you need to undertake sufficient and comprehensive market research about your product or service in the market in terms of demand, competition, capital extensivity, financial requirements, and the like. It is practically essential to undertake market research on the product or service you want to offer. The third step of developing a business idea mentioned market research for exploring the selected idea.

The article on the role of market research for start-up businesses is one of the series of articles aimed at empowering potential small business owners and those with ideas of starting a new product line or service. In this article, you can learn what market research is and how you can conduct market research. You will also learn why start-ups should invest in market research.

What is Market Research?

Market research is a process whereby suppliers or producers of a new product or service undertake to understand the viability of a new product or service. An individual who desires to start a new business needs to undertake market research. Market research is a necessary guide towards proper decision-making. Through market research, you can discover the target market and get an opinion from potential customers about their interest in the product or service. Furthermore, Market research results facilitate the pricing structure and confirm the suitability of the business location. But how do you conduct the market research?

How do you conduct market research?

How one conducts marketing research is a pertinent question that many new suppliers and producers of goods and services ask. You can conduct market research through surveys and product testing. You can conduct market research in-house, do it yourself, or use a company specializing in market research activities. Market research is a critical component worth investing in, especially for a new product or service. It is more so for start-ups. In some environments especially in the suburbs, you can conduct market research through a meeting of some dwellers from whom you can gather the required information about the product.

Why market research?

You can easily undertake market segmentation and differentiation for your product or services from the market research results. From the market research, you may acquire confidence in the viability of the product or services you are planning to offer. The market research also provides the trust necessary for the pricing process. Through market research, you can determine the forces of demand and supply, which are key in the pricing process.

Why should start-ups conduct market research?

Is marketing research necessary for start-ups? What will happen if someone starts a business without making any market research?

Start-ups who merely generated ideas turned the ideas into business ideas and selected the so-called best idea need to confirm the suitability and reality of the thinking against the market voice. It is common for individuals to start implementing their ideas and find that the idea was not viable. To avoid failure along the way, conducting market research is a vital step for start-up businesses for the following reasons:-

  • As a means to test the viability of the idea.
  • It is also a means to test the level of demand for the product or service.
  • Through market research, you can determine the proper segment for your product or service.
  • Gathering price information of your product or service is also a product of market research.
  • Determining the expected life span of the product or service in the market.
  • It is also a tool for assessing competition .
  • Success of the start-ups is not left to happen by chance, instead, it is predetermined.
  • Most Start-ups established without market research ended up failing before no time.

 Types of research available for start-ups

Start-ups are new in the industry, in trhe market ad in doing business. Thus start-up need to use both primary and secondary research to generate comorehensive information for proper decision making.

Primary research

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Uanzishwaji-wa-vyama-vya-ushirika.jpg
A graduate student who wants to establish a small business conducting market research to the attitude of the potential customers.

Through primary research start-ups obtain information directly from the source of the information; This can be done by the start-ups themselves, or by another company specilizing in data collection. Depending the type of information staret-ups want to gather, specific question necessary for asking direct questions should be designed for that purpose.

Secondary research

Secondary rsearch is also available for star-ups whereby you gather information through reading of written reports. Information can be on the status of the industry that you want to venture into, business growth parameters and the technology in use. Through secondary research you can also know the competitors in te market.

Conclusion

You have seen how vital market research is in ensuring successful and sustainable business operations. You will agree that start-ups require market research more than those already in business to avoid getting prosperity by chance. Of course, we are not saying that you will always succeed if you conduct market research, but the chances are slim for a business established after doing the market research to fail. Thus, this article calls all individuals planning to start their small businesses to undertake market research not only in selecting the business idea but even just before launching the business.

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