Numerous people in the business and scientific areas are divided on the topic of market research vs. market analysis. Each of these ideas generates essential data and intelligence for firms and is required to keep a business running.
Market research and market analysis both enable firms to study sectors of their industry, forecast future trends, fine-tune their business procedures and efficiently lead companies to success. They both manage massive data issues occasionally. Both of these ideas also enable organizations to examine and meet industry requirements.
Despite the fact that these concepts are used frequently and provide similar economic advantages, they are not the same thing because they reflect different important variables, procedures, objectives, and approaches.
This will help you to understand the difference between market research and market analysis.
What is Market Research?
Market research is the practice of investigating a specific market's consumer base. It is intended to provide a comprehensive grasp of the target market in terms of both current and prospective clients. It employs primary, secondary, quantitative, and qualitative research approaches to do this.
Market research assists brands in determining:
- Consuming buying behavior: How do customers learn about companies? Why are there more consumers in online stores than in physical locations?
- Customer preferences: Do your customers want to pick it up or have it delivered? How many consumers have made mobile payments their preferred way of payment?
- Consumer sentiments: What is the average customer perception of the brand in comparison to other brands? Which of their values do customers cherish the most?
Why Perform Market Research?
There are numerous reasons why market research is required. Here are a few examples:
- Obtain New Customers
It is expensive to acquire new consumers. It's no surprise that creating brand awareness, building credibility, and providing a great customer experience costs more than retaining a client. Does this imply that corporations must reduce their focus on client acquisition? Not if there are methods to cut costs.
Market research can assist you in increasing conversion rates and lowering the expense of customer acquisition.
- Enhance Customer Satisfaction
Consumer acquisition is challenging, but customer retention appears to be simple. The average retention rate is around 60%. But is it actually that simple to sell to current customers unless they are pleased with their earlier buys? Consumer satisfaction is what drives brand loyalty, advocacy, and a strong customer connection.
Through direct feedback, the attitudes of their colleagues, and present consumer trends, market research can help you better understand your consumers.
What is Market Analysis?
Market analysis is the procedure of analyzing all the variables in a certain market and how they communicate to generate current and future circumstances. Its goal is to gain a clear picture of the environment in which a firm operates in order to determine the true size of the market, the status of the competition, and its growth direction.
The market analysis uses the insights collected through market research to achieve this ambitious goal. It examines business strategies, production processes, the technology used, collaborations that are being formed, and the resulting achievements.
Why Perform Market Analysis?
Here are three primary reasons why you must conduct market analysis.
- Understand Product Demand
Product demand indicates whether or not there is an unfulfilled requirement in the market. Product market fit is the process of fine-tuning your offering to ensure that it fits that requirement, thereby making it the popular choice among competitors.
The market analysis explains why there is an unfulfilled requirement. Is this a lost opportunity? Or is someone attempting but failing? You must learn from this information in order to avoid making the same costly blunders.
- Build your Business Model
Pricing and costs are two major factors to consider when developing a solid business plan. Additional elements that you must consider are product category and target market. Most companies in a market economy must determine prices depending on the market instead of internal reasoning. And market analysis can provide you with the data you require to make these critical decisions.
- Explore New Possibilities
When it comes to hidden possibilities, the industry is filled with them. A hidden opportunity is similar to a market gap that seems untouched by others. It can also be a helpful feature that you never believed could be packed on top of your primary business. Furthermore, it is possible that your team's creativity will result in unexpected breakthroughs.
You must be inspired before you can pursue these hidden possibilities. And nothing compares to the strength of market intelligence.
The Major Difference Between Market Research and Market Analysis
Considering that some market research programs may contain a market analysis and that market analysis includes market research, there is a significant overlap between market research and market analysis.
You can also perform a market analysis and market research to form a business strategy. Both of these insight-rich methodologies can be used to support a wide range of documents and reports. Depending on the information you collect, both of these can steer you in the right direction.
However, these two concepts are not similar and must not be confused.
The primary distinction between both is that market research focuses on acquiring customer-specific intelligence. Market analysis, on the contrary hand, takes a far broader view of a market, requiring greater resources to carry out all potential business predictions and explore every growth prospect.
Market research is far more precise and fine-tuned than market analysis. Market research is thus constrained by the demographic of studies, emotions, time, and various types of human interactions.
Market analysis compared to market research works by putting vast amounts of data into a large storage system. Market research is conducted by gathering precise data points required to answer specific research questions.
Market analysis frequently produces long-term results, whereas market research produces data that is valid for a few months to years, based on the demographic and subject of the study, considering that public opinion can change rapidly.
Finally, the market analysis aims to provide a comprehensive image of the majority of a market, whereas market research focuses on analyzing its client base and potential opportunities.
Author's Detail:
Aparna Dutta / LinkedIn
Experience in Blog creation, Article Submission and Blog posting. I specialize in writing engaging blog posts for Market research and business insights. A person who believes in the principle of time and works towards perfection.
Author's Detail:
Aparna Dutta /
LinkedIn
Hello, I am a content writer with 3.5 years of experience. I have experience in various fields of content writing. For example, I have worked in a market research organization where I had to write content related to the reports that the company used to generate to improve their Google ranking. Other than that, I have also worked in website content as well as technical content for print and digital media magazines. Apart from this I am very flexible as a person and can adjust easily.
