Market research is a key component in developing marketing strategy for any buisnes by
providing a fact-based foundation for estimating sales and profitability. In fact, it can make
the difference between making wise decisions that drive business forward and poor decisions
that can damage your business. I recently watched a show on Netflix about PEPSICO and
their 1980 war with COKE. The main goal of PEPSICO was to win over the cola war
against COKE and gain more traction with the new generation by influencing more
PEPSICO sales over COKE sales. The marketing team for PEPSICO then came up with the
PEPSI POINTS (some might recall this), the idea of the PEPSI POINTS was for the
consumer to gain points by the purchase of product and then get items off a catalog based on
how many points they collected. The prizes originally offered where sunglasses, shirts,
coats, and simple stuff like that, where the issue arises was when the marketing team then
wanted to push the purchasing of PEPSIC products further and made a commercial offering
a military jet for X amount of points and did not make a disclaimer anywhere on the 1st
aired commercial. What happened here was that because the disclamer was so carelessly not
added by the marketing team a young guy did in fact end up collecting all the needed points
and came forward to PEPSICO causing the company headaches and going as far as suing
them. The case ended in PEPSICO correcting the original commercial to show the
disclaimer stating it was a joke. We see here why its so important to DO the needed research
and have an accurate view of your business and your marketplace and the marketing offers
made. It is next to impossible to come up with a market strategy when you haven't done any
market research. Let me correct myself, it is next to impossible to come up with a good
market strategy when you haven't done any market research. Where I live in Northern New
York, we have a very interesting demographic of people, we have some big cities, and we
also have a large area of rural land. I am a beer wholesaler and having this strange
demographic, our area is often used for market research and product releases and product
test runs. The breweries will send us a sample pallet of product for free and we will
distribute it out to various different retailers within our geographical area. We then send the
brewery back our sales data after a certain amount of time and they take that and decide how
they want to proceed. This data shows them which groups and areas sold the most of the
product, which sold the least, should they stop producing the product, or should they carpet
bomb the united states with it because its so good. I am sure most of you have heard of
white claw, we were one of the first distributors in the nation to carry it as a trail run and
look at it now. My current employer offers our quarterly market research reports for free to
our members. For non-members, this report is approx $2,000, and companies regularly pay
that who are not our members. The report monitors key measures in order to identify current
industry strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, the report explores and demonstrates the
latest adjustments in the market and valuable insights of the consistently evolving
opportunities for growth as well as the challenges that the industry is experiencing. For
many businesses, market research is a key component in developing marketing strategy by
providing a fact-based foundation for estimating sales and profitability. In fact, it can make
the difference between making wise decisions that drive business forward and poor decisions
that can damage your business. Marketing research is important to the development of a
marketing strategy the same way a coach studies the opponent team's past games to create
his plays before the match up. You have to know your audience and the needs and wants of
the market you are trying to attract. Performing market research is a part of building your
plan by pinpointing the who, the what and the why. For example, if a business's market area
was now booming with new parents, they would not want to market adult-geared vacation
spots to build in the area. If they conducted a market research, they would find that a more
family friendly vacation option would be better and more needed by the market they serve.
As another example, lets use the current status of the price of groceries. In a market where
there is a high number of families, promoting a grocery discount card may be a better choice
than promoting a new store credit card. Market research is all about knowing the market you
serve and building a marketing strategy that will fill the needs and wants of that market.
There are many reasons marketing research is important to the development of a marketing
strategy. For several companies, market research is a very important component in
developing strategies for marketing by creating a fact-based foundation for estimating
profitability and sales. This will make the difference when it comes to making smart
decisions that pushes business forward and poor decisions that could potentially harm your
business. Marketing research gives important information and insights to the business. You
can gain a more in depth understanding about your competitors and customers in the market
environment. At the same time it can assist with recognizing new opportunities for your
company. The market changes over time so you will have to continue doing research to
determine ways to improve your offering depending on the changing preferences of
consumers and/or market dynamics. Overall market research is critical when developing a
marketing strategy. Some benefits are being able to identify gaps in what customers expects
and identifying how new and existing customers view your company. Great marketing
intelligence helps to lower risks when making important business decisions.
