Market Research

Market Research
Market research is a key part in which business use for developing a successful marketing strategy. Market research is about collecting information from a selected or general group of consumers, which allows understanding of what the customers are thinking so that business can recognise what they want. Furthermore it is also used to gain a better knowledge of the trends in the certain industry sector. This information collected can be evaluated and implemented in creating the foundation for excellent business decisions. In this, market research is used to investigate the student’s perceptions of their first year experience at Macquarie University. (Ann M. Heirdsfield 2008) University leaders are only now realising that they also need to invest money and time in supporting and retaining new students.
The type of research technique that would be used for this task would be that of an online questionnaire as many university students nowadays are incredibly technologically savvy which can be done either on their phones, laptops or tablets. Furthermore by using an online questionnaire this eliminates candidates of the survey standing around filling out a paper survey as many people may be turned off as this will take time away from them, instead opting to do it at a more convenient time on their electronic devices.
There are many pro’s and con’s that can be linked with this type of technique being used. The pro’s of using an online survey is firstly it is less expensive and faster in the response time than other methods. Secondly online or web-based surveys can be seen as environmentally friendly due to the online nature and no use of paper. Continuing online surveys can perfectly present a well laid out and visually pleasant survey design stimulating the responder. Also the survey is dynamic meaning that it can provide statistical results and findings on an instant basis. Lastly the online survey can be emailed to each first year student in the...