Market research reports: why you need them and 5 steps to prepare

Market research is an essential solution in every business activity because it provides detailed, clear information about your core market. Accordingly, a market research report helps you refine and polish your marketing strategies. So what is a market report, and why do businesses need one? Let's find out in the article below.

What is a market research report?

It is a tool used to analyze public perception or the viability of a company, product, or service. These reports contain valuable, easy-to-understand information such as customer survey responses along with social, economic, and geographic data.

With market research results, you can engage with valuable trends and gain a deeper understanding of consumer behavior, while visualizations allow you to conduct effective competitor analysis. A complete report template supports the market-oriented research process, giving users data analysis tools to build viable strategies from a wide range of consumer-focused insights.

>>>See also: Effective Social Listening tools

Advantages and disadvantages of a market research report

Advantages

• Identifying business opportunities – A market research report can be used to analyze potential markets and new products. The report can provide information about customer needs, preferences, and attitudes. It also compares your products and services against competitors.
• A clear understanding of your customers – A market report gives your company's marketing department an in-depth picture of customer needs and wants. This knowledge can be used to improve products, pricing, and advertising.
• Minimizing risk – Most small businesses struggle the most during their first years of operation. Why is that? The answer is that entrepreneurs are risk-takers. However, some risks can be avoided. Good marketing research helps you identify those risks and allows you to minimize them.
• Clear data-driven information – Market research covers a wide range of activities, from determining market size and segments to forecasting demand, and from identifying competitors to monitoring prices. All of these are quantified and measured, which gives you a clear roadmap for building decisions based on numbers.

Disadvantages

• The cost is not cheap – Although market research can be carried out for as little as 500 dollars, large markets such as the United States can run into millions of dollars. If a study is conducted for a specific product, the budget can be far higher. The budget also depends on the quality of the research. The more expensive it is, the more time the research takes.
• Some insights may be wrong – For example, if you are running a survey, the data may be incomplete or inaccurate because respondents may simply be dishonest and lie.

Why do you need a report for market research?

"Look before you leap" – that is exactly the purpose of a research report. With a market report, businesses gain a comprehensive view of the market: the target market and an understanding of the various factors involved in purchasing decisions. This allows you to gather the most important industry data.

• Organizing industry information: whether you are looking to grow your brand, improve an existing service, or launch a new product, timing is essential. Through the report, you can visualize your data and format it as a story that helps you gain a deeper understanding of your niche or industry. The features and functions of a market research report help you quickly grasp the information most valuable to your organization, putting you ahead of the curve in the process.
• Validating internal research: conducting internal analysis is one thing, but double-checking with a third party also goes a long way toward keeping you from being blinded by your own data.
• Using data to make informed decisions: once you understand consumer behavior as well as the market, your competitors, and the issues that will shape the industry in the future, you will be far better equipped to position your brand. Combining all of this with the quantitative data you have collected allows you to develop products more successfully.
• Strategic planning: when you want to map out your organization's overall objectives, kick off the development of a new product, plan geographic market expansion, or even pursue mergers and acquisitions — all of this strategic thinking needs a solid foundation to meet the many challenges that lie ahead.
• End-to-end consistency: collecting, presenting, and analyzing your market research data in a smarter, more interactive, and more cohesive way ensures that your customer communications, marketing campaigns, user journeys, and services meet your audience's needs consistently across the board. The result is faster business growth, greater customer loyalty, and higher profits.
• Brand reputation: In the digital age, brand reputation is everything. By making meaningful improvements across all of the key areas above, you will meet customer needs consistently while finding creative ways to stand out from your competitors. These are essential ingredients for long-term success.

Kompa — An effective market research solution

So what exactly is Kompa, and how can it help with your market research? Kompa is a company that applies data technology (AI, machine learning) on a big data platform to deliver data analytics solutions and equip clients with valuable "insights" to optimize their business operations across many areas such as Marketing, Finance, Operations, and more.

Kompa partners with small, medium, and large enterprises in Vietnam, including: Vingroup, Masterise Homes, Vinamilk, SSI, MB Bank, Tân Hiệp Phát, Shopee, and Vietjet Air.

5 steps to prepare a market research report

Step 1: Cluster your data

Your first step is to group all available information into a manageable set. Clustering is the process of grouping information together in a way that highlights commonalities and minimizes differences. In market research, this helps you organize all the information you have about your product, service, or target market and identify your key focus areas.

Step 2: Create an outline

Include background information right from the start to explain who your audience is and what problem you are trying to solve for them.

In the body of the report, include a description of the methodology – explain to readers how your research was conducted, what it involved, and why you chose the method you used.

Also in the body of the report, include your market research findings. These can be quantitative or qualitative, but either way they must answer the questions you posed at the outset.

Include an executive summary – a condensed overview of the entire report.

Step 3: Describe the research methodology

The market research methodology section covers details on the type of research, sample size, any limitations of the study, research design, sampling, the data collection process, and the statistical analysis used.

Step 4: Include visuals with narrative explanations

Visuals are an essential part of the presentation. Even the best-written text can be hard to follow. Charts and graphs are easier to grasp than text alone, and they help readers see how the numbers fit into the bigger picture.

But visuals are not the whole story. They are only one part of the presentation. A visual is a cue for the reader. The narrative delivers the story, not just the numbers.

Step 5: Close the report with recommendations

Recommendations tend to follow logically from the conclusions and respond to a given problem. They must always align with the research basis, meaning they should be grounded in the findings reported in the body of the report.

Summary

The above provides an overview and the basic steps for building a market research report that you can draw on and apply to your own business to gain useful information and make sound business decisions.

See more >>> Effective market research methods