When goods and services are transferred from producers to consumers, sales activities are formed. In sales activities, enterprises will face many problems such as market, products, prices, channels and consumer behavior. In order to solve these problems, enterprises collect relevant information by themselves or entrust investigation companies to record, analyze, measure and evaluate them. The investigation company provides relevant analysis conclusions and suggestions for the decision-making of enterprise operators. This process is called market research.
Market research function: provide comprehensive information and assist scientific decision-making. Market research is a technical activity! Technical work, in the process of operation, there are more scientific components and technical components. Market research can objectively and comprehensively collect information about the respondents, sort out the collected information, and use some analytical methods and software to summarize and refine the information, thus forming convincing conclusions and suggestions combining theory with practice, which is very helpful for scientific decision-making. For example, market research can be used for market opportunity evaluation, consumer behavior research and enterprise market strategy evaluation. ...
Common market research activities include: (1) research on market potential and consumption characteristics; (2) product research; (3) sales research; (4) Research on consumers' buying behavior; (5) advertising and promotion research; (6) Research on sales environment; (7) Sales forecast ...
These contents are the topics that every enterprise has encountered or will encounter in the course of operation. For example, product research includes product design, development and testing, consumers' preference for product shape, packaging, taste or taste, suggestions for improvement of existing products, comparative analysis of competitive products and market research, so that enterprises can design and produce products with moderate taste, packaging and price that consumers like; Without market research, products produced only by designers, researchers or leaders will have problems in the sales process.
Such as: advertising and promotion research, testing and evaluating the effect of commodity advertising and other promotions, seeking the best promotion method and promoting consumers' effective purchase behavior. Through market research, make good use of scarce market input resources to achieve the effect of "just using it on the cutting edge"; Without market research, you will never know where "50% of advertising expenses are wasted?" . Take a very common example: the survey found that consumers in northern rural areas generally watch TV after 9 pm in summer and go to bed before 1 1. Enterprises should focus on TV advertisements that affect rural consumers, but we can see that many enterprises arrange advertisements at the prime time of 7: 00-8: 30 pm. Waste? How can we know if we don't investigate
Small and medium-sized enterprises learn to believe what others have summed up in practice. Often, after the enterprise makes a personal decision, the product appears "inappropriate" in the market, and the product returns to the company for investigation, gradual improvement and gradual marketing until the product is finally sold normally in the market. There are simply too many aborted products, but the "development speed" of new products is also relatively fast. "Don't be afraid of falling down! I'm up again! " One day, I came into contact with a research company or a marketing company. Others explained the importance of market research, and the person in charge of the business felt the same way: "A few years ago, the sales staff of our company suggested to me to pay attention to market research. Now I understand the role and importance of market research." In fact, after taking a detour, we still use the theory summarized by others to guide our work.
Second, how do SMEs arrange market research?
(1) "All members are soldiers"
There is no special investigation department, which is not terrible. What is terrible is that there is no awareness of market research. Enterprises should instill the idea of market research from top to bottom, "Only when there is investigation can we have the right to speak", and strive to cultivate the awareness of all employees to attach importance to market research.
Everyone is a market researcher. It doesn't matter that small and medium-sized enterprises can't arrange special market investigators. All salespeople can be trained in market research knowledge and skills, so that everyone can act as a market information collector. In this way, when the enterprise wants to conduct market research, as long as the task is assigned, the sales staff will complete the investigation task. After collection, it will be analyzed and summarized by a special person to form conclusions and suggestions for decision makers' reference.
(2) Primary database
Small and medium-sized enterprises may obtain first-hand information through field investigation. First-hand information cards are designed, and some open-ended questions are listed on the cards, so that salespeople can use observation and questionnaire to investigate during regular visits, thus completing the correct and accurate filling, collection, analysis and filing of information cards.
The collection of first-hand information should be continuous and long-term. Only through long-term data collection can we make a comparative analysis, sum up the similarities and regularity, and also test the correctness of different strategies in different periods from the data.
(3) reuse "experimental method" and "trial sale method"
Experimental method: In an experimental environment, the stimuli of various conditions are preset, and then the stimuli are changed systematically and planned to study the various reactions of consumers. The causal relationship of consumer behavior can be obtained through experiments.
Trial marketing method: market researchers will need to investigate the project in a given place, launch product trial marketing under a given sales condition, and draw conclusions on the results for decision-making reference.
These two methods are feasible for small and medium-sized enterprises. Select several typical regional markets as experimental points, and make sales tracking records by changing one or several factors such as promotion, product price, advertising and point-of-sale packaging, analyze and draw conclusions. Trial sale is a marketing method adopted by most enterprises before the product goes on the market, which is especially useful for small and medium-sized enterprises. It also conforms to the market strategy of "local (base)-diffusion-national sales", and at the same time, the products can be modified to reduce the risks brought by non-programmed product development.
(4) "exploratory investigation" verification decision
Exploratory investigation: the enterprise assumes the causes of sales problems in advance, then conducts market research to verify whether the assumptions are valid, and then adopts improvement methods to improve the problems. Small and medium-sized enterprises can ask the leaders questions and draw a preliminary conclusion, and then send personnel to conduct market research to test the effectiveness of the leaders' conclusions. Investigators and leaders can fully communicate before the plan can be implemented in the market. This method not only does not lose the artistry of decision-making, but also has practical guarantee for decision-making and reduces the risk of decision-making.
(4) Return visit
The return visit mentioned here is what we often call a return visit, which is similar to the same survey in market research, that is, a long-term concept survey with the same sample, focusing on the changes of the sample. The experimental method takes an experimental market as a sample to study the changes of consumer behavior through experiments, while the return visit takes a single consumer as a sample to understand the changes of consumer behavior by recording the changes of objective facts with time and other factors.
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Market research is a powerful guarantee for decision-making, and enterprises cannot "do nothing because of smallness". No matter how the organizational structure of an enterprise is set, every salesperson and every enterprise decision-maker should pay full attention to market research. The current market has not given us time to slowly correct and explore, and there is no chance to get up if we fall.
Let us always remember that "no investigation, no right to speak"!