When NOT to do market research

Market research is an important part of a company’s decision-making process. However, there are times when you need to do market research and others when you don’t. When it keeps you at the forefront of the markets in which your company operates; helps you achieve a strategic marketing advantage; allows you to select the course of action that achieves your key marketing objectives; or you clarify issues or research market trends that affect your marketing goals, you should, by all means, do your research.

However, there are certain times when you should NOT conduct an investigation. First of all, you shouldn’t do market research if you haven’t defined the problem you need to solve first. Defining the problem is the most important step in the market research process. If it is not done, or is done incorrectly, any research conducted will be futile. Of course, sometimes companies have no idea what the problem of marketing is, so they must do exploratory investigation, to help them identify the problem. In that case, there is a business problem, and that is determining what is causing the current marketing situation of the company.

You probably don’t need a market research either if:

You have access to readily available marketing information.

Your sales force can know their territories very well, and each sales rep can understand the environment in which they are calling. They can know the price of competing products in those markets, as well as the relevant competitors there, and how much it costs to acquire customers there. In addition, the Internet has made all kinds of marketing information freely available, and data sources such as Dun & Bradstreet’s Million Dollar Database or ABI’s ReferenceUSA have made it easy to find information about potential competitors and customers. As a result, secondary research may be all you need to do to find the solutions to your marketing problems.

There is not enough time or resources to conduct an investigation.

If time is an issue, doing a detailed investigation won’t do any good. Sometimes a situation arises in which a decision must be made quickly. In such a case, it would be best if you convened the business experts of the company for an urgent discussion of the situation, alternative courses of action and the selection of the course to follow. In other cases, you may not have the financial resources or in-house staff to conduct proper market research. In these cases, you can also rely on the business experts and secondary research you already have at your disposal.

Research adds little to no value

If the decision you want research to help you make has little impact on sales, profits, market share, customer loyalty, brand equity, or any other indicator of marketing performance, then it doesn’t make sense. do marketing research. Research can be costly in terms of both time and money, so if the benefit of research at least doesn’t pay for itself in dollars and labor expended to conduct it, it is worthless. You also need to consider the opportunity costs of that research. If you investigate a problem whose solution adds little value, time and money could have been better spent investigating a different problem with a higher payoff, and that opportunity is lost.

Know when you need to investigate

Develop an internal monitoring system for your marketing environment. If you have a system to collect information about your company and your competition, it will alert top management to problems that market research can attack. These days, you can set up email alerts with Google and many major newspapers to keep you informed of any news or blog posts about your company, your competition, and your industry. Also read your industry trade publications and attend trade shows and conferences. Talk to your sales force, your suppliers, and your customers. You can get a lot of information for free from these sources.

Knowing when not to do market research is just as important as knowing when to do it. When market research adds significant value or improves your competitive position, it is an opportunity; when it’s just “nice to know”, it’s a no!