Market research

DESIGN A SUSTAINABLE AND CUSTOMER FOCUSED STRATEGY

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Introduction 1. Become market aware 2. Informal research 3. Formal research

Introduction to 'Market research'

What is your market? It’s the area or sector you work in. It also includes the people you’re trying to reach and the products or services you want to sell them.

Knowing your market is key to success. It starts with finding out what your audience really wants. You can then use that to improve your service to meet their needs. Seeing how your competitors work can help, too. With this information, you might find ways to make your products better and give you an advantage.

In this lesson, we’ll look at the different types of market research you can do and how they can help you.

What you'll learn

  • What market awareness is.
  • The types of research you can carry out.
  • Survey creation and research methods.

How long it takes

9 minutes

Chapter 1 - Become market aware

Become market aware

Chapter 1

How long it takes

2 minutes

Introducing market awareness

What is market awareness? Think of it as learning more about your sector or industry.

Doing research on your market will help you to grow your market awareness. You’ll be able to create effective adverts and find new ideas for your products. It will also help you get to know who you’re competing with. This in turn helps you gain an advantage.

 

You can gain market awareness by:

  • Online research.
  • Reading newspapers, journals and trade magazines.
  • Speaking to friends and peers.
  • Talking with your customers/users.
  • Checking out your competitors.
  • Analysing sales.
  • Noting trends in your business.

Improving your market awareness

 

You'll need to research:

Your customers

Your market

Your competitors

Your customers/users

To know what users want, you need to collect all the relevant information you can. You can do this by phone, email or face-to-face chats. There are data protection laws about making unsolicited calls, so make sure you’re not breaking them. Check out the Information Commissioner's Office  for more information on this.

Your market

It’s good to look at how your sector is doing right now, plus any recent trends. Are more people buying or using these services? Have prices gone up or down? Can you see signs of growth in the industry? The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has current data on this.

Your competitors

You need to know how others in your sector work. How they sell and deliver products, and what discounts and credit arrangements they offer.

 

You can:

Go online

Look at trade websites or local sites like InYourArea.

Read about them

Read journals, trade magazines and the business pages of local papers.

See how they're doing

Check out trade listings and note any changes.

Be a customer

Try out their services as a mystery shopper.

Get their news and offers

Get on their mailing list to see their offers and marketing messages.

Chat with them

Although they're your rivals, they’re also your peers.

Look them up

Find out more about them on Companies House.

Introduction - Market research
Chapter 2 - Informal research

Informal research

Chapter 2

How long it takes

4 minutes

Why do informal research?

This is a great way to keep things fresh. It’s when you gather facts and ideas through conversation, surveys or simple research methods. So, you might read a book about your market. Or send a survey to users every so often, to get their feedback.

An example

Carl used informal research to help set up his new business 'The Badger' – a wine bar and craft ale house. He used Facebook to gain feedback. This showed a gap in the market, so he built his business to fill that gap.

How to do informal research

Here's a few ideas and tips on how to get started.

Collect feedback and run surveys

Talk with your users at the right times to ask them gently for feedback. Chat with retailers and suppliers. Make sure you note down your feedback. Doing this helps you work out how to improve your services.

Even if your business is growing fast, you should always keep in touch with users yourself. This helps you know if you’re still meeting their needs. Free online tools like SurveyMonkey and Google Forms are a great way to collect feedback.

If you take customers' contact details at the point of sale, this may help. You can then ask them for their views every so often. Keep your surveys short and anonymous. You could even offer prizes, to encourage people to take part.

Be aware

Note that if you collect this type of data, you must keep to data protection rules. Check the GOV.UK site for more information on this.

Be on the lookout for issues

Watch for even the smallest signs of unhappiness. People will often stop buying from you, rather than complain. Try asking people what their ideal would be. Ask them 'If you could change one thing about our products/services, what would it be?' Then work towards meeting it.

Track your sales and check your data

Look at your accounts. Compare year on year, month on month. What are the seasonal trends? Is there a product in long-term decline? If so, why do you think that is?

Review what you've learnt at a fixed time each month. Discuss it with your team. See if you can draw conclusions and agree on what to do next.

Use customer feedback

We share feedback all the time. This can be on social media, through review sites or comments on your own website. People do look at those reviews when they decide what and where to buy. A bad review might make them go elsewhere.

Feedback can help you see gaps in your service and improve what you do. It can have a negative effect though. It only takes a few harmful comments to start putting people off your brand completely.

Not all negative feedback is fair, but removing it isn't really an option. This makes it look like you’ve got something to hide. At the same time, people may be suspicious if you have all 5-star reviews. If someone is constantly leaving you unfair feedback on a review site, most of these sites let you submit a report. Check their rules and contact them to find out more.

Search for and deal with reviews

The way you handle a complaint can show everyone what your business is like. If you don’t address criticism, it looks like you have no answer or don't care. Tackle the comments head on. Express regret and say what you’ve done to put things right. Regularly check in on sites with reviews. This will show that you reply promptly to issues and work to resolve them.

When you connect online, a little authenticity goes a long way. Start by showing you care about the person making the complaint. Make a connection with them. Show your personality and add a touch of humour if it feels right to do so. When we're tapping away at a device, it's easy to forget this is just two people talking to each other.

Remember

When you talk to someone, you speak for your organisation too. Everything you say or do will reflect on how people see your business. So be warm and friendly, yet professional. Posts on social media are more relaxed, but do avoid gossip, slang and over-familiarity.

Turn a negative into a positive

It’s no fun reading criticism of your hard work, but there are lots of ways you can turn negative comments into a positive. You can use comments to improve your profile. Those who complain but had their comments handled well could turn out to be your best supporters.

Test your knowledge

Try again - that's not quite right!

Hint: this type of research often involved conversations or surveys.

Try again

That's right!

Asking users for feedback through conversations or surveys is a great way to check that you're meeting their needs.

Chapter 1 -How to become market aware
Chapter 3 - Formal research

Formal research

Chapter 3

How long it takes

3 minutes

Why do formal research?

Writing a proposal? Maybe you have an idea for a new product or service? Think about doing some formal market research or paying a research expert to do it for you.

This kind of research can support a key project or decision. It does need careful planning, though.

 

If you ask someone to do this for you, make sure they know:

  • What you want to find out.
  • What your research budget is.
  • How long they have to complete and present their research.

Idea

Looking for someone to help with this type of research? The Market Research Society has a list of agencies in their Research Buyer’s Guide.

What to think about in your research

The economy

This kind of research can help you allow for a slump or boom in the future. Try to focus on trends in your sector. Doing this, you’ll see results that match the type of work your business does. Look at industry sites, plus the Office for National Statistics (ONS) website.

The population

Data on spending and consumer trends might help you to pin down the areas of your market to target. Not sure where to start? Try tools like Google Trends and AnswerThePublic, or the Statista website.  

Other research

Try to find what others have researched in your sector. So, if you sell tools for the building trade, compare them to industry standards. Or if you run a pub, look at the stats on hospitality trends. The British Library’s site has a set of guides that can help you research in your sector.

Idea

Already have a website? Google Analytics is a free tool that can help you see the pages people look at and how long they spend there.

Related learning links

Using web analytics to understand your users

View lesson

Understand customer needs and online behaviours

View lesson
Chapter 2 - Informal Research

Want to learn more?

There are many more lessons to help you tailor your business to your target customer.

Go to this topic Design a sustainable and customer focused strategy

 

Lloyds Bank Academy is committed to providing information in a way that is accessible and useful for our users. This information, however, is not in any way intended to amount to authority or advice on which reliance should be placed. You should seek professional advice as appropriate and required. Any sites, products or services named in this module are just examples of what's available. Lloyds Bank does not endorse the services they provide. The information in this module was last updated on 19th May 2025.

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