Market Research Business Plan Examples in PDF
According to Statista, as of 2018, Wix is the leading website builder in terms of the market share with a 22.61% market share. Squarespace, Weebly, GoCentral, Google Sites, and Blogger completed the top six with the highest percentage. We all know the number of people who has access to the internet is increasing as time goes by. This phenomenon pushes businesses to create an online store to increase their sales. Although building an online store is a promising investment, many businessmen, especially those who run a small or startup company, cannot afford to execute this development just yet. This time is where the web designers and developers that offer services to firms with lower budgets come in. By including affordable services in their web design market research business plan, they managed to increase and stand out with their market share.
What is Market Research Business Plan?
Obtaining a market analysis is a crucial part of developing a business plan. This type of research allows you to get detailed information about your target market and its affecting factors with an end goal of attaining the marketing business goals. To materialize this objective, you need to build a market research business plan. This plan contains detailed information on how your market research will proceed, making it an essential part to include in your market research proposal.
Market Research Questions for Business Plan
As mentioned earlier, market research intends to understand the factors revolving around your business’ potential customers. The question is, how can we say that a research project has served its purpose efficiently? Determine the success of your market research by asking yourself the following basic market research questions.
1. Who are your customers?
This question is one of the crucial ones that you should ask yourself to ensure that you are doing your research right. Your investigation should have a profile persona about your customers to obtain a more specific target market. Represent these individuals with personal information such as age, gender, occupation, income, lifestyle, educational attainment, etc.
2. What do they buy now?
Dig deeper into the existing industry of your proposed business. You can start by knowing the buying habits of your potential customers that are relevant to your product or service. Identify the sellers, current prices, and features of the existing products. You will also include the number of units they buy with the current products.
3. Why do they buy the products?
If there is no demand for a product, there is no business opportunity. You should know why the customers will buy the said product to determine its demand level. What are the uses of the product? How important is it that they will buy the product given the budget that they have.
4. What will make them buy from you?
To answer this question, you should identify the unique features or characteristics that your product or business has that will make them buy from you instead of your competitors. This question will allow you to know if your company will survive.
2+ Market Research Business Plan Examples
Test and observe the following templates and examples to know if these market research business plans are efficient based on the market research questions that we have discussed in the previous section. You can download these documents in PDF format.
1. Sample Market Research Business Plan Example
2. Basic Market Research Business Plan Example
3. Formal Market Research Business Plan Example
Tips on Executing a Market Research Company Business Plan?
Before you go ahead and spend your money on carrying out your research, read the following tips first to ensure that you are doing it correctly.
1. Determine the Important Details About Your Market
There are tons of information that you can get during your examination that can help you with your business. However, some of this information can complicate your investigation, making it a hindrance to attaining your goal. Therefore, it is crucial to focus on the essential details that you need on a specific marketing goal in mind.
2. Focus on the Outcomes of the First Step
As we have mentioned, there is much information that you can get throughout the research, which can distract you from attaining your goal. Thus, you must concentrate on the relevant data that you have obtained.
3. Consider Using Cheaper Market Research Alteratives
Investing in this type of research can be essential to your business. However, it can be too expensive for a small company. Thus, you can consider seeking help from organizations such as the Small Business Development Centers or Small Business Administration. These agencies give support to entrepreneurs and small businesses.
4. Study the Cost of a Market Research
As a businessman, you should know how much you need to spend on conducting market research. Consider using a cost analysis template to determine if you can afford this type of business activity. It is also essential to know that the internet has a vast amount of free information that you may use in conducting this type of research yourself. However, if you want to hire a research consultant or a market researcher, you have to keep in mind that it is your goal, and you don’t want to spend your money on something that you don’t need.
Understanding your target market is a crucial part of your business plan. This business step is indeed a good investment. However, as the digital world rises, better methods are emerging. With that said, knowing more about market research through the internet, either on your own or with the online courses, is way more practical. Be realistic and decide what is best for your company.