The Importance of Research.

[M.M. Hasan Parvez]

    It is said that if you know your enemy and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.

When Sun Tzu wrote the above words, he spoke of warfare and combat. When modern marketing people reference it ? or any other part of his book ? they speak about business. In business, as in war, knowledge brings benefits. In marketing terms, this means doing an amount of research that would make a doctorate student?s ears bleed until kingdom come.

Research is of ludicrous importance to a proper marketing effort. For one thing, the marketing team needs to know a lot about the product itself. What does it do? What benefits does it give the customer? What little features set it apart from the rest of the market? Is there anything else about it that makes it a more appealing option than your competitors? Depending on various factors, even more questions might need to be answered before a solid, long-term marketing campaign can be put together.

There?s also research that needs to be done on the target market. This involves actually knowing who you want to sell to, among other things. Let?s say you make a product but you?re not entirely sure who would want to buy it. Market research can help find the right demographic to direct your efforts to, as well as identify possible secondary markets. Once you have a target market pinned down, you?ll need to do research on what marketing methods and media work best for that group. If you?re trying to sell PDAs, then a campaign geared towards front line office workers is not the smartest way to go about it.

Research also plays a crucial part in figuring out whether or not a campaign is actually working. Yes, sales records are still a good way to determine if a strategy works, but it lacks a crucial detail. Just how many of those sales were generated by the campaign, as opposed to other methods? Market research can help narrow down which ads or strategies worked best, along with what features mattered most to the target market. The result is a very clear view of what people liked about your product, what made them buy it, and even what they?d like to see in the future.

Obsessive levels of research are part and parcel of running an efficient marketing department. You know what you?re doing, you know if it works, and to an extent, you have an idea of what the competition is doing. Using all of that in the right way ? that?s the solid bedrock upon which market success is built.

Brian Miller is a professional brand coach and an unabashed disciple of Sun Tzu. In a former life, he would have been wearing a Roman Centurion helmet instead of tacky ties.