How to conduct desk marketing research yourself

Marketing research is of 2 types: field and desk. Field - polls, questionnaires, etc. Cabinet collection, the study of information from secondary sources. Marketing research is satisfied with a complex procedure, which has its own characteristics and difficulties.

Having conducted desk marketing research, you can get information about the situation on the market (rising or falling); about actions, advantages and disadvantages of competitors; about the "portrait" of a potential consumer, his desires and possibilities. Of course, to obtain such information, it is better to contact specialized companies or marketing agencies, but if you need not so complete and voluminous information, then you can do this work yourself. To do this, you need to take time and delve into some of the nuances.

You will need

• To start research, you need to draw up a so-called brief. Those. a list of questions that need to be answered during the study. the following items should be reflected in this list:

• 1. research objective

• 2. whom we are investigating

• 3. research region

• 4. what we want to get as a result.

• Next, stock up on time, the Internet and patience.

Instruction manual

1

We are writing a brief.

Purpose of the study. It can be different - determining the volume of solvent demand for a product or service, studying competitors, figuring out what is happening with the market (market analysis), etc.

Without a goal definition, conducting a study is quite difficult. You can direct your forces not to those areas that are really needed.

The subject of research is what or whom we will study, analyze. These are soap buyers, the market for banking products, competitors of an accounting company, etc.

What territory should be investigated in the work? City, region, region or the whole country.

After conducting a marketing research, a conclusion should be made about why all this was done and what happened. At the end of the study, the specialist should receive information about further actions of the company regarding the subject of the study. Those. conclusions should be drawn about the level of competition, about the strengths and weaknesses of the initiator of the study, about a possible marketing strategy, about ways to influence customers, etc.

2

Preparation and conduct of desk research, includes:

1. Collection and analysis of state statistics (2011- 1 quarter 2013):

• Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation (FCS)

• Rosstat (Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation)

2. Media monitoring: federal, regional and specialized print media;

3. Specialized databases;

4. Industry statistics;

5. Collection and analysis of data from price lists;

6. Data from rating agencies;

7. Search work in open sources of information, including professional publications, websites of market participants, electronic media and other sources;

8. Search work on inquiries in the infrastructure organizations of the market being studied (marketing agencies, serving markets, expert companies, individual experts, analytical companies, etc.).

3

After filling the brief, we proceed to the study itself.

If the subject of research is the market, then we open sites on the subject of research, we study various newspapers, magazines, in which there is information on what we analyze. in these sources we are looking for information about where the market is going, what legislative acts and decrees related to the research topic have been adopted or are under consideration. we determine what can happen after the adoption of a legislative act. As soon as something is accepted or submitted for consideration, then an expert will necessarily speak out in the media. it will be necessary to collect all the statements and make a conclusion based on their logic and practice, which of them is right.

If we examine the buyer of a product or service, we determine the gender, age, social status, income level of the consumer. After that, we calculate in quantitative terms the market share. Usually it is determined in the number of potential buyers and the amount of money that these buyers can give the company. This stage of research is clearly tied to the geography of the study. The market can be of several types: the whole market (for example, the Russian Federation, women), the potential market (the Russian Federation or women from 18 to 35 years old), accessible (the region or women interested in sports), the target (city or women involved in sports), the main (district of the city or women living in the right area).

4

We convert all received information into a research report. Typically, a report contains the following sections:

Project summary (goal, geography, subject of study; desired outcome)

Section 1. Description of the project.

Description of what we are exploring. Study subject portrait

Section 2. Market analysis of the subject of research.

2.1. The current state of the market, the main trends.

2.2. The main factors of market development (factors of growth and market inhibition);

2.3. Demand analysis.

Conclusions.

The content of the report should correspond to the research brief and reflect all the information received during the work.

note

When conducting desk research on your own, a situation may arise when you do not know where to look for the necessary information, how to work with the source data.

Useful advice

When conducting market research, you need to clearly understand what and why we are researching. To receive and thoroughly analyze the information received If there is an opportunity it is better to entrust this work to professionals. Indeed, for incorrectly determining the portrait of the buyer or market trends, you can lose much more than the fee for this service. If you still decide to conduct the study on your own, be careful and take your time.