The exact statistics may vary, but most people that have ever worked in or around sales will tell you that it is significantly harder, more time consuming, and more costly to acquire a new client than it is to retain and grow an existing customer. However, those same people will also tell you how important it is to constantly be growing your account base. With that in mind, anything that can help with client acquisition has to be a good thing. There are many best practices in this area, but market research is probably not the first thing you would think to use. Yet, it can be one of the most powerful.

There is an old adage in business that goes something like: "If you have two managers that always agree then one of them is redundant." Thankfully, this is not employed in most companies today, and it is not a school of thought I agree with or endorse for a couple of reasons.  

The process of conducting market research isn’t always easy, and we know the job of a market researcher certainly isn’t either. There are many common challenges that market researchers face during the data gathering process. We understand these challenges, and that is why our goal at MarketResearch.com is to form relationships with our clients to help make your job a little easier. There is comfort and empowerment in knowing you’re not alone. Others face the same struggles you face on a daily basis.

The use of Profound.com can be a powerful tool for anyone in the Public Sector looking for accurate and unbiased research from key industry experts or to help them write case studies, white papers or cite additional sources for agency publications. Profound is an online business information service from MarketResearch.com that conveniently aggregates more than 200 leading publishers with coverage spanning approximately 28 verticals and 700 industry segments. So, how exactly can those in the Public Sector benefit from Profound? Why is Profound the right information retrieval application for your agency? What is the cost/benefit tradeoff from purchasing the solution?

The term “life hacking” has been around for a while now. For the uninitiated this refers to any trick, shortcut, skill or novelty that increases productivity and efficiency in all walks of life. In 2014, as time continues to remain such a precious commodity, any way of reducing time spent on tasks is very much welcomed. From making a natural alternative to fabric conditioner using salt to editing Google docs, there is a hack available. As the time and pressure for results is paramount to any business, and I am sure that demand will only increase in the coming years, finding the right market research as quickly as possible is imperative. MarketResearch.com's Profound solution provides users with numerous tools and capabilities to help streamline your search for reports.

Whether it's used by professors to educate the next generation of research, business and marketing professionals, or it's used to help offices of technology transfer and commercialization centers research and develop new products, academic institutions have a vital need for current and comprehensive market research. However, many traditional academic market research solutions do not offer the flexibility and diverse coverage necessary to accommodate the various needs of multiple departments within an institution. MarketResearch.com's Profound solution is now being offered to the academic community in order to provide the capabilities and content needed to maximize institutions' budgets while providing the high-quality content that academia requires.

After spending more than 12 years as a Partner of a market strategy consulting firm in Chicago, I am continually reminded of the value that purchasing flexibility would have offered our firm as we worked to solve business issues for clients engaged in a wide variety of industries, ranging from high-tech, building materials, consumer goods, electronics, etc. Plus, consultants are required to obtain very diverse information, very often and very quickly. This can make buying market research a nightmare. The ability to customize market research purchases would have saved us time and money by focusing in on only the specific information we needed. Yet, MarketResearch.com's Profound platform offers the capability to solve this issue through tailored market research purchases and reporting.

We hear it all the time: "But, I am not the buyer..." One of the most common client misconceptions that I have experienced while working in the market research industry is that the MarketResearch.com research specialists are only here to help those within the company library or purchasing department find and buy relevant reports. While we do assist clients in this way, there is also a great deal that we can do for those who are using the reports as well, even if you hold no purchasing power.

A "good" market research report can cost you thousands of dollars.  And when I say “good,” I mean a report that helped you make one of your difficult business decisions: should we buy company X, should we invest in industry Y, who are the competitors we should fear, who are the customers we should go after?  While some may find it hard to determine to what extent, market research is unequivocally helpful when trying to make an affirmative decision (ie: should we enter this market?), and it can be equally helpful in informing on what to avoid.

Yet, often times, defining success when using market research can be a major gray area. Success doesn't always translate into definite measurables. Plus, success can be an extremely subjective concept. What a small entrepreneurial technology company might call success can be vastly different from success as defined by a Global 2000 corporate powerhouse.

Every industry views market research differently. It's necessity, functionality and delivery vary by market, adapting to each industry's specific intelligence needs. However, the reality is that market research is far more easily obtained and applied in certain fields than in others. Probably the most difficult industries to successfully accomplish this are those that run on a project-to-project basis. This ultimately boils down to their fast-paced, ever-changing nature. For instance, just take a look at the Business Services and Banking industries. Whether dealing in private equity, insurance, banking or strategy consulting, these markets' focus is dedicated to high-pressure, project-based needs. So, in order to understand how market research can be used within these types of industries, you have to assess and overcome a variety of challenges.