Tips to Writing a Market Research Brief

It always helps to provide a brief introduction to your company which will help research agencies better understand your market and your customers.

Rest assured that we treat everything you tell us in confidence. Your background section should include:

• Company name and website
• Your industry sector and market trends/conditions
• Details about your products and services of interest
• Any other organisations involved in the project (e.g. advertising agency, branding, packaging company or consultant).
• Background information about your customer and target market

Your Business Objectives will give the research agency an important understanding of what problems or issues the research is trying to achieve.

For example, your business issues may relate to problems you are facing, such as; competitor activity, declining sales, low satisfaction or to launch a new product. Alternatively, if there is no obvious business decision then it could simply be about learning new insights to gain a competitive advantage or measuring customer metrics (e.g. customer satisfaction, brand awareness etc).

Whilst your Research Objectives relate to the specific insights you want to learn or measure and particular questions you want to ask in your research. For example, the research objective may be to find out what your customers think of the product service you provide. Or it could be broader in terms of understanding how customers behave (e.g. how they use or shop for your products).

Your research objectives should also indicate who you feel the research should involve.

Is it your current customers or broader target market, lapsed users or even non-users?  You should try to describe your audience in as much detail as possible, such as; age, gender, income, occupation, location, company size, buyer behaviour, etc.

Other things to consider about your target audience are:

• Who do you want to include within the research (and minimum sample size if known)
• Specify if you are able to provide contact details (or whether you need the research agency to provide these).
• Highlight if there are any specific segments or target groups you want to include or exclude

Research is often considered late in the business planning process – so we are used to turning around research projects very quickly.

But also consider internal milestones and deadlines that impact the research process and decision-making deadlines. Also, give some thought to what outputs and deliverables you need such as a presentation/workshop etc.

Include the following:

• The timescale for the procurement process and when you will decide to commence the research.
• Deadlines such as when you want the findings and when business decisions are being made
• Whether you want to receive top-line findings in advance of the main findings or any other updates during the course of the research
• How you would like the findings in a written report format or as a presentation  (face-to-face or online).

Ideally, both you and the research agency should be as transparent as possible and that openness & honesty is the best policy.

With an understanding of your budget, it is a lot easier to find the right solution that works for you. We often offer a few cost options so that the decision is always yours!

Please provide any other details you feel are relevant – at the end of the day, we are here to help! If it is a formal tender process and there are specific requirements to be met, then please specify these in your brief.

For example:

• Provide names and contacts of key contacts on the project team.
• Who should we contact if we have any queries regarding the brief, if not yourself?
• Do you have any payment terms we need to be aware of?