Market research

Market research is any organized effort to gather information about target markets or customers. It is a very important component of business strategy. The term is commonly interchanged with marketing research; however, expert practitioners may wish to draw a distinction, in that marketing research is concerned specifically about marketing processes, while market research is concerned specifically with markets.

Market research is a key factor to maintain competitiveness over competitors. Market research provides important information to identify and analyze the market need, market size and competition.

Market research, which includes social and opinion research, is the systematic gathering and interpretation of information about individuals or organizations using statistical and analytical methods and techniques of the applied social sciences to gain insight or support decision making.

History
Market research began to be conceptualized and put into formal practice during the 1920s, as an offshoot of the advertising boom of the Golden Age of radio in the United States. Advertisers began to realize the significance of demographics revealed by sponsorship of different radio programs.

Market research for business/planning
Market research is for discovering what people want, need, or believe. It can also involve discovering how they act. Once that research is completed, it can be used to determine how to market your product. Peter Drucker believed market research to be the quintessence of marketing.

There are two major types of market research. Primary Research sub-divided into Quantitative and Qualitative research and Secondary research.

For starting up a business, there are some important things:

Through Market information one can know the prices of different commodities in the market, as well as the supply and demand situation. However, not market research reveal more than economic information. Market researchers have a wider role than previously recognized by helping their clients to understand social, technical, and even legal aspects of markets.
 * Market information

Market segmentation is the division of the market or population into subgroups with similar motivations. It is widely used for segmenting on geographic differences, personality differences, demographic differences, technographic differences, use of product differences, psychographic differences and gender differences. For B2B segmentation firmographics is commonly used.
 * Market segmentation

Market trends are the upward or downward movement of a market, during a period of time. Determining the market size may be more difficult if one is starting with a new innovation. In this case, you will have to derive the figures from the number of potential customers, or customer segments. [Ilar 1998]
 * Market trends

Is a written analysis of the Strengths,Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to a business entity. Not only should a SWOT be used in the creation stage of the company but could also be used throughout the life of the company. A SWOT may also be written up for the competition to understand how to develop the marketing and product mixes.
 * SWOT Analysis

Besides information about the target market, one also needs information about one's competitors, customers, products, etc. Lastly, you need to measure marketing effectiveness. A few techniques are:
 * Customer analysis
 * Choice modelling
 * Competitor analysis
 * Risk analysis
 * Product research
 * Advertising the research
 * Marketing mix modeling
 * Simulated Test Marketing

Market research for the film industry
It is important to test marketing material for films to see how an audience will receive it. There are several market research practices that may be used: (1) concept testing, which evaluates reactions to a film idea and is fairly rare; (2) positioning studios, which analyze a script for marketing opportunities; (3) focus groups, which probe viewers' opinions about a film in small groups prior to release; (4) test screenings, which involve the previewing of films prior to theatrical release; (5) tracking studies, which gauge (often by telephone polling) an audience's awareness of a film on a weekly basis prior to and during theatrical release; (6) advertising testing, which measures responses to marketing materials such as trailers and television advertisements; and finally (7) exit surveys, that measure audience reactions after seeing the film in the cinema.

Top 9 of the market research sector 2009
From the Honomichl Top 50:

Other reading

 * Bradley, Nigel Marketing Research. Tools and Techniques.Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010
 * Marder, Eric The Laws of Choice—Predicting Customer Behavior (The Free Press division of Simon and Schuster, 1997. ISBN 0-684-83545-2
 * Young, Charles E, The Advertising Handbook, Ideas in Flight, Seattle, WA, April 2005. ISBN 0-9765574-0-1
 * Kotler, Philip and Armstrong, Gary Principles of Marketing Pearson, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2007 ISBN 978-0-13-239002-6, ISBN 0-13-239002-7