Procter and Gamble, the soap company that turned into a consumer goods powerhouse interacts with 5 million customers in 60 countries annually. And they spend the most money in the world on marketing research; $350 million annually conducting over 15,000 studies to find which customer wants which product. Now most companies don't have the resources to compete with that budget but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't try.
Primary marketing research involves gathering original data about your product and your market. Secondary marketing research requires analysis of existing data from government publications, trade association's publications etc... Both types of marketing research are worth the investment. Just think of the missteps that could have been avoided if someone would have performed marketing research on pricing the Pontiac Aztec? They would have figured out that it was too expensive for its target market - Generation X and they wouldn't have had to slash the year after it was introduced, significantly affecting its market penetration. Marketing is part art and part science. A combination of both approaches will yield the best results.
Online marketing research is an inexpensive means of sampling a large population and gathering quantitative data that could be applied to a larger population. On the negative side, the inherent non response error caused by technology (not everyone can view the questionnaire completely because of different screen sizes, resolution etc...) and coverage error (not everyone in the world has access to a computer) cloud the results.
Focus groups are an effective means of probing deeper into perceptions, attitudes, feelings and beliefs. Major drawbacks of this type of marketing research include results that can't be applied to population and focus group sessions that tend to be dominated by one or two influencers which affect the responses of the other participants.
Social media can provide deeper insights into what customers and non-customers want and don't want. When businesses want to know what consumers are saying about their companies and their competitors they use channels such as Twitter to monitor their brands. They could survey their own customers, but they really want to find out what their competitors customers want. Another positive aspect of social media marketing research is its ability to identify current trends in a market, and where the market is heading through channels such as Facebook or Blogger. Identifying trends in surveys isn't easy, but you can often pick up on them through blog and social media research.
Although it consumes invaluable resources in terms of time and money, the real question is, can you not afford to do it?
