There has been considerable improvement in the field of marketing research in Iran in the past 10 years, and many businesses have come to realise its importance. However, it is still challenging to convince some business owners that doing marketing research is a matter of necessity.
The crux of the matter is that many economic players are in small size businesses and have rarely participated in marketing research projects; consequently, they have not experienced the positive results they can offer, which naturally culminates in a lack of robust belief in its use. On the other hand, they are not financially strong enough to carry the costs of marketing research projects. This all results in them taking traditional actions, which can lead to a doubling of costs in some cases.
It should also be noted that due to external economic factors, the market for market research shrank considerably between 2018 and 2019. Many companies have postponed their development plans or suspended them, and those which have tried to expand their scale of work have done so through by getting capital via reevaluation of their assets rather than offering more shares in the stock market. This shows there is no investment from those companies for which substantial money is offered.
Iranian companies can be divided into the following six groups when it comes to propensity to run a marketing research projects:
Technically speaking, although some Iranian companies enjoy the opportunity of having a marketing research unit to run the research projects, the employees do not specialise in research methods and solutions that are required for the projects. As a result, constant training for the staff in marketing research units through holding workshops seems to be inevitable.
Methodology
Regarding the variety of projects, although both quantitative and qualitative methods are being used in Iran, quantitative research has gained more popularity in many organisations. This is because business owners mostly deal with numbers and statistics, and quantitative results seem more tangible to them.
Considering the methodology of projects, some business owners still insist on traditional paper-based research methods even though their companies endeavor to run the research in a modern way based on today’s technology. The possible reason might be the traditional mindset of the employer and insufficient trust in digital data as it seems intangible to them. According to research done by Idealween Company amongst 50 employers in national and international companies regarding their research projects, the spread is as follows:
In terms of the geographical scope of projects, 30% of marketing research projects have been run in Tehran, 60% in Tehran and other big cities, and 10% have taken place all over the country.
In addition, speaking of variations in marketing research projects in Tehran compared with other cities, there are points like cultural differences, interviewers’ fees, recruiting costs, the amount of incentives, duration of the project, number of interviewers, finding the proper target group, access to technology and many other issues which cannot be all covered in this article.
