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Know Your Market

Posted On : Jul-22-2011 | seen (400) times | Article Word Count : 369 |

At the heart of any advertising campaign there are two little demons that position themselves on the shoulders of advertising managers arguing in different directions. With a restricted amount of cash to spend, which demon should you listen to?
At the heart of any advertising campaign there are two little demons that position themselves on the shoulders of advertising managers arguing in different directions. With a restricted amount of cash to spend, which demon should you listen to?

In one corner there is the miniature devil of advertising companies. This one supports the theory that a business must put all the money on the ads, that way the business can secure an astonishingly successful advertising campaign.

On the other side is the demon who argues that the essential element is market research...understand your market, and, equally importantly, be able to monitor the success of your adverts. Unfortunately, this voice is not very interesting and tends to talk about 'qual' and 'quant' in a bit of a boring fashion.

It's an age old challenge, and deciding which way to follow is difficult. Often, executives struggle to get the balance right, with the result of less appealing campaigns.

Market research, as most people know, is about knowledge. If you know your demographic, you can pitch at it, and if you can examine the success of the prior pitches, you can amend your campaign, and next time be a bit more successful.

In finance people use the words 'leading' and 'lagging' indicators, market research companies claim to do both. In simple terms, they are able to predict what will happen, and they can inform you of what happened in the past.

The counter argument is that it doesn't matter if you know everything concerning your market, at some point you need to actually influence them, so that you will need a campaign of some variety. Of course, it depends on your demographic, but for many companies the internet has changed advertising into an open game, with no clear rules and no way of guaranteeing success.

As you would expect, too often managers go with the advertising devil and ignore the importance of market research. After all you can discover how effective it was by future sales, right? Maybe, but marketing doesn't ever just stop, and you need information for the next turn...market research might be less showy, but it shouldn't be ignored.

Article Source : http://www.articleseen.com/Article_Know Your Market_68024.aspx

Author Resource :
Robert Davies is a freelance business journalist who specialises in education in the business sector, he recommends MBA and Co http://www.mbaandco.com/case-studies for market research.

Keywords : Market research, MBA & Company, Know Your Market,

Category : Business : Careers

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