2.1.4 The marketing plan: Market research

Question 1

1. Define market research.

Answer 1

Market research is the process of gathering information to assist business owners in making informed decisions about the marketing of the business.

Question 2

2. Explain the importance of market research to a business including your business that you developed
   as part of the Online Social Enterprise Business (OSEB) project is considered a social enterprise.

Answer 2

1. Without adequate, reliable and correct information
   - Businesses will not obtain a return on their marketing investment, cost and time to produce the good or service
2. Inability of a business to maximise net profit due to costs tending to exceed revenue when market research is not conducted effectively
3. The importance of market research for our social enterprise is that without it we could eventually have the inability to provide our service and therefore we will be forced to shut down as we are not making enough profit without conducting reliable, accurate, and adequate information.

Question 3

3. Describe the three stages of market research. Apply these stages to your business that you developed
   as part of the Online Social Enterprise Business (OSEB) project is considered a social enterprise.

Answer 3

1. Determining information needs
   - The issue must be explicitly and accurately stated to determine what needs to be monitored and the problems involved.
2. Collecting data from primary and secondary sources
   - Researches already know the facts that are needed and those that are already available

• Devise a plan to help them acquire this missing information
• Using primary and secondary sources can be an effective way to gather this information needed.

3. Analysing and interrupting data

• The facts along do not always give you a solution to the marketing issue.
• They have to be analysed and interrupted to determine what they mean
• We used determining information needs for our business to enable us to realise that we need to monitor our time we give up to tutor and the problems we have when we are not making enough profit.
• We used collecting data from primary and secondary sources because this enabled us to collect that information when we are not making enough profit
• We realise that we now need to sell our tutoring sessions for more
• We used Analysing and interrupting data because this enabled us to have a deeper understanding of our issue