Marketing research as an integral part of the business plan

A business plan is a fundamental document of any investment project, and how accurately and skillfully its basic parameters are calculated sometimes determines the actual efficiency and payback of the described business idea. The volume of the classical business plan is, as a rule, not less than 50 pages. Exhaustive information about current and future financial indicators, production capacities, sales activities in the business plan is usually structured in several sections, including a marketing unit containing a description of the current market conditions, segmentation of potential consumers and interpretation of various approaches to attracting the attention of the target Audience. Without a marketing section, a business plan can hardly be taken seriously by investors, as it is known that it is not enough to develop or produce a product these days-it is more important to show it to a potential consumer in a favorable light and to establish sales. In the marketing plan , the ways of solving the set marketing problems are often described, and also the economic and statistical calculations on the basis of which the sales strategy is built.

Consideration and classification of factors of the market environment usually occurs within the framework of marketing research, which can be field or desk. As practice shows, the best results in the study of subjects and market objects are provided by a combination of the two types of research. This is due to the fact that field and desk marketing research is based on various approaches to collecting market information and its further processing. If desk studies involve working with information of a secondary nature, which is often taken from open sources (media, Internet, television), then for conducting field research it is required to collect the necessary data on consumers and competitors independently by observing, polling or experimenting. The choice of this or that type and method of investigation is determined both by the financial capabilities of the company performing its research, and the purposes for which it is carried out. For example, marketing research on the issues of entering the foreign market may require for its implementation a completely different tool than the development of a small segment of the market for goods or services.

In the marketing section of the business plan, the basis for the application of a particular research method may be indicated, since marketing information used in the development of the marketing strategy depends on this. For example, if there are a lot of sources of secondary information for a certain industry or its segment, then the question of the expediency of field research, which often requires significant capital investments, may be raised. If a decision is made to organize a field study, the business plan may specify the development procedure and the plan for its implementation, and generalize its results with the preparation of reasoned conclusions and proposals. Due to the volume of the marketing part of the business plan, it, in turn, can also logically be divided into several sections, such as sales policy, sales plan, segmentation and positioning, marketing research, etc. To improve the visual perception of marketing information, it is advisable to supplement it with various graphic materials: diagrams, graphs, drawings.

No matter how significant the marketing section of the business plan is, first of all, it should be coordinated with the rest, no less important sections, supplementing and confirming the economic feasibility of the whole project as a whole.