Market research is for discovering what people want, need, or believe. It can also involve discovering how they act. Once that research is completed, it can be used to determine how to market your product.
Questionnaires and focus group discussion surveys are some of the instruments for market research.
For starting up a business, there are some important things:
* Market information
Through Market information one can know the prices of the different commodities in the market, as well as the supply and demand situation. Information about the markets can be obtained from different sources, varieties and formats, as well as the sources and varieties that have to be obtained to make the business work.
* Market segmentation
Market segmentation is the division of the market or population into subgroups with similar motivations. It is widely used for segmenting on geographic differences, personality differences, demographic differences, technographic differences, use of product differences, psychographic differences and gender differences.
* Market trends
Market trends are the upward or downward movement of a market, during a period of time. The market size is more difficult to estimate if one is starting with something completely new. In this case, you will have to derive the figures from the number of potential customers, or customer segments. [Ilar 1998]
Besides information about the target market, one also needs information about one's competitors, customers, products, etc. Lastly, you need to measure marketing effectiveness. A few
techniques are:
* Customer analysis
* Choice Modelling
* Competitor analysis
* Risk analysis
* Product research
* Advertising the research
* Marketing mix modeling
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_research
