Researching Demand

Market research involves: 

 - Collecting information
 - Recording information

These two points will help a business understand its market. 

Market research sets out to answer questions like these:

• Who makes up the target audience?
• What do the customers want? 
• When do they need it? 
• Where does the product sell best? 
• How is our market changing? 

Collecting your own data, or make others collect the data for you. 

For example: 

• Observations
• Postal surveys
• Face to face (Questionnaires)
• Focus groups

Also known as: desk research. 

Much of the information can be looked up. 

• Internet searches (Google)
• Government departments
• Trade associations
• Trade press and magasins
• Competitor websites
• Market research reports (Mintel)

Can be used to gather a lot of information, but which often uses fairly closed responses. 

This can be related to questionnaires. 

Questions such as: 

• How many? 
• How often? 
• Who?
• When?
• Where?

Intensive methods involving small samples.

For example, a focus group discussing their feelings about a particular product. 

Questions like: 

• Who?
• What?
• When?