What is Market Research?
Let’s start with a concrete example to get acquainted with marketing research.
In 2012, when Samsung wanted to introduce the Galaxy S3 mobile phone, its powerful competitor, Apple, introduced the iPhone 5 at the same time. The Galaxy S3 was better than the iPhone in terms of features yet Apple was still able to attract more potential customers with its strong branding, effective advertising, and design creativity.
Samsung, which found itself in a losing position, decided to run a good advertising campaign against Apple. Samsung did some marketing research before launching the ad campaign. Research to better understand Apple customers.
Samsung was able to uncover the most important demands and weaknesses of the new iPhone by conducting interviews, reviewing thousands of user tweets and discussions of Apple fans in online forums.
This marketing research helped Samsung target exactly what could change the approach of Apple customers. With all that it has gained in this marketing research, Samsung has launched a campaign against the iPhone called “The Next Big Thing Is Already Here”.
Promotional videos or paper and banner ads all focused on better features, bigger screens, and making the iPhone look silly.
For example, in the famous Samsung promotional video, they show a young man in the line of iPhone customers who owns a Samsung and is in the line to get an iPhone for his old parents. Or in advertising posters, it compares the features of the iPhone and Samsung against each other, while the list of features of the Samsung Galaxy S3 is significantly longer than the iPhone 5.
This was an example of relatively simple marketing research that had a huge impact on Samsung’s sales and branding. Samsung continued this trend in advertising the next models, and each of these campaigns went viral.
What Samsung did before the campaign was market research.
Marketing research, in simple terms, is the process by which we try to understand the market and customers by gathering data or information; This understanding means discovering opportunities, exploring problems, finding ways to sell more, evaluating ongoing marketing work, and summarizing research for anything that will help improve marketing.
Well, this dry and formal definition does not help us much! We do not yet know what to do in marketing research. So, let’s begin by taking a closer look at an example of why market research is so important.
Why is Market Research so important?
Some important questions that market research can answer include:
- What is common in your industry?
- What do your target audience and customers want from your products and services?
- What influences their decision to buy?
To answer the question, “why is Market Research important” let’s look at an example of what not doing marketing research looks like. Tropicana decided to replace the old packaging of an orange with a straw in it, to an image of a glass full of orange juice.
They spent $35 million on a new packaging advertising campaign. It was just a few days after the release of the product with the new packaging when the sales of orange juice began to decrease.
People criticized the packaging on social media, and polls showed that many were unhappy with the change and some could not find the same brand in stores.
The Tropicana brand lost 20% of its market share. A few months later, they decided to return to their old packaging.
The company conducted marketing research after failing to change its packaging. The study found that, first, regular customers of orange juice had a deep emotional connection to the packaging and branding. The change in packaging damaged this relationship for more detailed reasons.
Removing an orange from the packaging, changing the logo, removing the phrase “pure premium” and using the phrase “100% orange” instead, was unnecessary advertising and a complete change of packaging instead of a slight change. Altogether it made old customers turn to competitors of Tropicana and other products.
If the same brand had done marketing research before changing the packaging, they would have realized that the new packaging was not good and would have prevented this loss. Even now, we do not cite this company as an example.
What is the use of this research?
Many companies go straight to production without spending time fully understanding their customers and their needs. They base their plans on conjectures that have a chance of success. They spend a lot of time creating and fundraising a product and are optimistic that everything will go as planned. But guessing can be expensive!
You work on your idea for weeks or months and make it a reality. The unveiling moment is amazing. You are very excited. You expect to meet the interest of users and prepare yourself for the celebration. But this only happens to a small number of start-ups! You will probably encounter something unbelievable at first. Malfunctions, bugs or worst of all: nothing! If you still do not understand the market, be prepared for the fact that no one cares about your product.
In general, we pursue several important goals in marketing research:
- Reduction in costs
- Risk reduction
- Increase revenue
- Evaluate an idea or product
In conclusion, the difference between a successful and unsuccessful company can be attributed to doing market research beforehand. Fully understanding your customers and demographic will not only help you improve your product but also further enhance your chances of a successful launch. Here at Kiuloper, we pride ourselves in tailoring and designing your website to attract the greatest number of customers as possible. We do so by conducting market research on your future or existing clients and customizing your designs accordingly. We hope you learned a thing or two from reading this article and always remember to do your market research.
