For any company that needs to have an optimal brand position on a particular market segment or who wants to gain valuable insights about consumers, it is ideal to adopt more grounded and accessible research market services. Research results lead to effective brand communication, to reach the proposed goal and to make the best business decisions.
But sometimes both research and communication strategy can be too costly. It is often advisable for companies with limited financial resources to test the market through their own strengths, with appropriate research methods and not to use a marketing research dedicated company. Sometimes companies ask for market research in order to make a further decision that will involve low budgets, even comparable to the cost of a market study, which is not viable.
When is professional marketing research justified?
Marketing research is only justified if the budget subsequently assumed is clearly higher than the cost involved in the actual research. Even if you are using a professional marketing research company, or you want the research process to be done with your own resources, which is more affordable, it is definitely necessary to define the list of goals to be achieved, as clearly as possible. Needs must be understood and clearly stated so that the process of calculating a research offer will be extremely transparent.
If the company does not have a budget for research marketing, in-house research is the best. In practice, in-house affordable research can involve direct customer and target group meetings, simple discussions with relevant customers, behavior analysis, divided by domains and criteria of importance, research of competitors’ offers over the Internet, social media or even by phone, various desk research, or simply involves analyzing sales figures correlated with the major influence factors.
Also, whenever a decision is made to achieve a certain marketing goal, to change a long-term strategy, or redefine the market segmentation, the target group needs to be made aware of the existence and availability of the products or services through promotion and communication.
Who? why? how? and where? – are the questions that start the foundation of a strong research and communication strategy.