Business Revision Guide 2.2

• Market Research

  The collections of data on customer habits to help decision-making in marketing
• Target market

  Group of customers to whom a business aims to sell its products/services. This may also be other businesses as well as consumers
• Primary research

  Data that is collected first hand, often in the form of questionnaires, interviews and focus groups. Often referred to as 'field' research
• Secondary research

  The collection of data using research and information provided by others e.g. magazines, internet etc. Often called desk research
• Qualitative data

  Data based on the opinions of those being asked
• Quantitative data

  Data collected that is based on facts or numbers, it is usually easier to analyse than qualitative data
• Market research provides information about: the market itself (size and make-up-i.e. age, gender, income, tastes), customer feedback, promotional methods, sales data, competitors, effect of price on market
• Businesses use the information they gather to design new products and modify existing ones. This approach helps to maximise the potential success of products and services.
• Qualitative data is usually primary as it involves finding out the opinions of customers
• Quantitative data provides facts e.g. what do customers want to spend
• Marketing involves the 4Ps

  • Product
  • Place
  • Price
  • Promotion
• Market research aims to find out information about the target market

  • Their age
  • Their economic status
  • Their culture
  • Where they are
  • What they want
• Good market research helps a business to be successful and avoid expensive mistakes by finding out: the product the customers want, the price its customers are willing to pay, the design of the product that will attract customers, how many products customers will buy, how to target customers, where and how to sell the goods and services
• Qualitative research


  • Helps the business understand what customers are thinking and what they want
  • Information may only be provided by a limited amount of people
• Quantitative research

  • Easy to analyse and can be gathered from a lot of people
  • Limits how much people can say about what they like or dislike
• Primary/field research

  Information that is first-hand, collected by the business for a specific reason
• Primary research methods

  • Face-to-face interviews
  • Postal survey
  • Focus group
  • Hall test
  • Telephone interview
  • Online survey
  • Observation
• Primary/field research

  • Only firm that collects data has access to it
  • Collected for a specific purpose
  • Expensive to collect
  • Time consuming
• Secondary/desk research

  Information that is second hand, already collected by someone else
• Secondary research methods

  • Sales figures
  • Newspapers
  • Websites
  • Government publications e.g. social trends
  • Commercial publication e.g. Keynote and Mintel reports
• Secondary/desk research

  • Saves time
  • Relatively inexpensive
  • Widely available
  • Not specific to the business
  • May be out of date
  • May contain bias
• Secondary research sources

  • Census data
  • Newspapers and magazines
  • Websites
  • Internal data
• Census data

  The national census finds out information about all UK households every 10 years, including information about the numbers of people living in the household, their income and where they live
• Census data

  • Information comes from a lot of people almost the whole population of the country
  • It is already collected and analysed, reducing the cost to the business
• Newspapers and magazines

  Articles in publications often describe peoples interests and current fashions
• Newspapers and magazines

  • Up to date, cheap and is a good source of ideas
• Websites

  Information about other companies can be found, including what they sell and the prices they charge
• Websites

  • Cheap to collect and readily available
• Internal data

  Data collected by the business about, for example, its past sales and profits as well as customer feedback
• Internal data

  • Cheap to collect
  • Readily available
  • Specific to the business
  • Data is historical - it looks at what has happened, not what will happen
• Primary research methods

  • Questionnaires
  • Interviews
  • Trials
  • Focus Groups
• Questionnaires

  A set of questions sent out to selected people in the post or online, or in the street
• Questionnaires


  • Cheap to carry out
  • The questions can be explained
  • It is easy to target certain types of consumers
  • People may not understand the questions
  • People may not be interested in the product, so may answer dishonestly or not at all
• Interviews

  A person asks an individual or a group of people questions in person or over the phone and records their answers
• Interviews

  • A good way to see if the product is what people want
  • Not everyone likes being interviewed
  • It is an expensive method
• Trials


  A product is sold for a short period of time, usually in one region of a country. If it sells well the business will go into full production
• Trials

  • It reduces the risk involved in producing large quantities
  • Very expensive to set up
  • It will only be a small group of people
• Focus Groups

  A small group of people are asked to use a product or think about an advertisement and give their opinion. The feedback helps the business to re-design the product or advert
• Focus Groups

  • The people chosen will be representative of potential customers
  • Detailed feedback can be obtained
  • It is usually costly to carry out
  • It is hard to arrange a time when everyone is available