The key to running a successful business is a thorough understanding of your market. There is not much needed to be said about the importance of market research as its significance in making informed business decisions is obvious. The more you know about your market and the psyche of your customers, the more you can improve your products and services accordingly to suit your market. As a result you will be able to increase your sales and reduce your marketing expenses by knowing exactly which demographic population and geographic locations to target for your type of business.

Market research is not as simple as it may seem initially. It requires effort, time and market research expertise to generate functional market intelligence. It’s better to leave market research tasks in the hands of experts primarily because they have the expertise, resource and knowledge to generate precise market intelligence within a short amount of time. For businesses that generate their major source of revenue by selling on the internet, online market research is the most suitable option.

Doing online market research in-house would consume a lot of your resources in terms of your time and money, so it’s recommended that you outsource your online market research tasks. There are many online market research companies in the UK to choose from. First you need to determine what type of market research would be suitable for your business amongst the following types

• Competitor market research
• Consumer market research
• Market trends research

If you require competitor analysis, you should outsource your market research task to a company that specializes in this type of online market research. Competitor market research is about gathering qualitative or quantitative information on your existing competitors in the market and analyzing its effect on your business so you could change your business strategy to stay more competitive. Similarly, if you require consumer analysis or market trends analysis, you should outsource to a market research company that specializes in this type of online market research.

Now the question arises about what factors you should look into when choosing to outsource your online market research tasks to an online market research company. One hassle free way to selecting an online market research company in the UK is to use a UK based facilitating agency, such as Quote Bean, that specializes in hooking up clients with the right suppliers according to the requirements of the clients. If you want to evaluate and select the right online market research company in the UK on your own, you may want to consider asking the following questions to a number of different companies and reach your decision based on their answers:

• What type of online market research does that company specialize in?
• What is their way of collecting market information?
• Do they generate primary data or do they rely on secondary sources of data?
• How would they make collected data useful for you?
• Do they have enough expertise to do your type of market research?
• Do they have a high enough number of research analysts?
• Can they provide references and examples of their previous similar work for you to verify?
• Are they a member in good standing of a market research regulatory body? What will be the estimated time they will take to do your market research and analysis and what will be the cost involved?