Customers and Market Research
Define useful market segments and target markets, then select desk or field research methods for a decision.
How to study National 5 Business Management
Learn the concept, apply it to a real organisation, trace the consequence and make a decision supported by financial or qualitative evidence.
Core concepts
Concept 1
Market segmentation divides a market into groups with shared characteristics; a target market is the group selected for attention.
Exam cue: State the segmentation basis and the target group precisely.
Concept 2
Desk research uses existing information such as sales records, internet sources and newspapers.
Exam cue: Choose a method that can answer the stated decision.
Concept 3
Field research gathers new information through surveys, focus groups or personal interviews.
Exam cue: Explain the value or limitation using the source and context.
Concept 4
Research choices involve trade-offs in cost, time, relevance, sample quality, detail and possible bias.
Risk pitfalls and guardrails
Calling all potential customers the target market.
Guardrail: Check the organisation type, objective, stakeholder, time period and whether the evidence supports the strength of the judgement.
Confusing existing desk data with newly collected field data.
Guardrail: Check the organisation type, objective, stakeholder, time period and whether the evidence supports the strength of the judgement.
Claiming a large sample is automatically representative.
Guardrail: Check the organisation type, objective, stakeholder, time period and whether the evidence supports the strength of the judgement.
Memory anchors
Market segment
A group of customers sharing relevant characteristics.
Target market
The segment an organisation chooses to serve with its marketing.
Desk research
Uses information that already exists.
Field research
Collects new first-hand information for the research purpose.
Research value
Judge relevance, detail, currency, reliability, time and cost.
Sampling caution
Sample size matters, but selection method determines whether the evidence represents the target market.
Checkpoint rule
Do the check-up only after you can summarize each concept in one sentence and identify one dangerous pitfall from memory.
Knowledge Check (after reading)
Short check-up to confirm understanding of this module.
Check-up Questions
What is market segmentation?
What is a target market?
Answer all questions to submit.
Next step personalized recommendations
Continue learning
Move forward only after this module is stable.
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