Qualitative Market Research Analyst & Business Counseling

There are two ways to look at the process of market research: From a business standpoint, market research is a way to get answers to important questions before investing a lot of time and money creating a new product or service.

From a consumer standpoint, there are many people who enjoy being a part of the market research process. And they can even make a little money by participating in focus groups and surveys.

There really are only two ways to answer marketing questions ahead of time. You can find out directly or indirectly.

Directly : To find out if people like a specific idea, it is necessary to talk to people and see what they are thinking and feeling. The the many different ways to reach people include:

• Calling people on the phone
• Talking to people face to face
• Sending an e-mail
• Sending a letter through the mail
• Assembling people in a group and talk to them

No matter which technique is being used for market research, the goal is to ask a set of questions and get back: A) a set of answers to the questions, and B) new ideas. Part B is important. In many cases you learn things that you never thought about by talking to people.

Indirectly: The indirect way to learn about the marketplace is to look at what’s already out there. How many companies are making a competing product? What are their products like? How do they market them? The fact that there is a competing product tells you that there are some customers out there, and you can access your competitor’s market research by looking at the products your competitor is producing. Assuming, that is, that the competitor did any market research.

Normally a set of questions come up that help you understand how the audience is thinking and feeling about a product. The goal of all of these questions is to gain intimate knowledge of the customers. It is important to know exactly what they are thinking and feeling, and why. Once there’s a list of questions, the job is to figure out the best way to ask them.

With effective market research, it is possible to determine the need for a product or a service, a product’s likelihood to sell, target-market demographics, and desirable store locations. There are numerous ways to uncover this information, from online research to focus groups to counting customers.

The market research  Roe Smithson & Asociados Ltda. carries out offers your business to stay in the loop, keeping in touch with the wants and needs of potential consumers. It can halt production of a product that the public shows little or no interest in, or change it, improve it, or lower the price as necessary based on market research information.

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In order for a business to stay competitive it is necessary for it to constantly analyze the existing market for any relevant changes. In addition, for  a business to survive and to be successful, it shall adapt to any changes in the market.

The key is to gather and analyze information about the market and about your business’ competitors for sources that are open to the public. This process is called Competitive Intelligence.

This process is much more than merely gathering information. It is not only necessary to know where to go to find the data but it is also necessary to interpret it. The continuous change of the market makes also necessary to have a way to gather the data on a constant basis. Once the data is taken, is analyzed and the business owner learns how to use it to increase its knowledge about the company and the market, then he will be engaging in Competitive Intelligence.

There are different types of Competitive Intelligence tools and techniques:

• Contacting Government Agencies can yield valuable data but may often require excessive lead time.
• Searching Online Databases is a faster method of finding competitive information, although it is more expensive. Database search does not provide information that has not been released to the public or that has not yet been collected.
• From companies and investment community resources – Some types of data that are not widely available from databases can be procured by contacting the corporation itself or from investment community sources.
• Surveys and interviews – Surveys can yield plenty of data about competitors and products, while interviews can provide more in-depth perspectives from a limited sample. – Drive-by and On-site observations of the competitor’s parking spaces, new construction-in-progress, customer service at retail outlets, volume and pattern of suppliers’ or customers’ trucks, etc. can yield useful Competitive Intelligence information about the state of the competitor’s business.
• Competitive Benchmarking is used for comparing the organization’s operations against those of the competitor’s.
• Defensive Competitive Intelligence involves monitoring and analyzing one’s own business activities as the competitors and outsiders see them.
• Reverse Engineering of competitor’s products and services may yield important Competitive Intelligence information about their quality and costs.

This is an important process because without the proper knowledge to back any business decisions, an organization will be at risk for losing money. Therefore, to avoid failing to take advantage of a current trend, so your competitors could reap the benefits and might leave you out, talk to our group of capable professionals at Roe Smithson & Asociados Ltda that will carry out the process of Competitive Intelligence for you including a series of steps such as data collection, organization, analysis, application, etc.

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Mystery shopping is a performance evaluation process that allows the owners and managers of service organizations to really understand how their customers are treated in their shops, offices or practices, on the telephone, in writing or online. By learning about its customers a company can:

• Improve its customer service
• Improve its product knowledge
• Improve the communication of promotions and new product launches
• Improve the selling skills of its employees

As a business intelligence consulting company, Roe Smithson & Asociados Ltda offers customer experience evaluations (mystery shops), market research, compliance audits, reward programs, competitor shops, pricing audits, business verifications, physical inspections and merchandising.

We specialize in designing and implementing tailored performance -measurement programmes, which will provide you with the feedback you need regarding your customer-facing staff. The research may be undertaken through a single service or, increasingly, across a number of services to ensure that an overall picture emerges.

Our service works in partnership with your business to increase your customers’ positive experiences and boost your sales. We will help you build and develop a valuable research program in an honest, objective and ethical manner.

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Market Intelligence provides a company a view of a market by using existing sources of information that will lead to understand what’s going on in a market place, what the issues are and which is the market’s potential.

There are two different spheres of market intelligence:

• Market Intelligence from external data: it is information gathered through desk research to build a picture of a market to try to answer some specific commercial questions such as what is the market potential. The success of such desk or “published” research depends on the ability to track sources of information and to provide the right level of analysis. For example identifying who your competitors are and analyzing their market position against yours to find strengths and weaknesses and indications of new developments.

Related to desk research is list building. This involves seeking out lists of likely prospects or partners for relationship or network building and finding out key information about the company for marketing purposes.

• Market Intelligence based on internal data: Through database analysis you can understand where you have cross-sale and up-sale opportunities, or you can understand what type of customers are your most profitable. By performing cross-analysis and looking for missing data it becomes easier to spot weak spots and points of vulnerability.

The information from your website can be as valuable as the database information as a source of market data.
Web site traffic analysis can help you understand what customers are looking for and why. Collecting and disseminating the information that your staff has about customers, markets and competitors can help businesses focus far more on what the customer wants and says.

Roe Smithson & Asociados Ltda enables its clients to compete more effectively and make better decisions regarding investments, partnerships, and new product launches. Our market intelligence-oriented consulting services help our customers become more competitive.

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