Approach Market Research with Deduction or Induction Reasoning

As a corporation or individual, it is important for you to excel in your business. For you to succeed you need to know factors that affect your enterprise. The market research process should include gathering information about your competitors’ activities, consumer preference on product or services, product placement and many marketing issues for analysis.The question that arises is how to approach market research. Proper planning is vital before making any major decisions. Learn more about your customers, what they want, type of budget required, and the scheduled time frame at hand. Then, approach the logic in two reasoning dimensions:

• Deduction
• Induction

Simply put...Deduction = Theory – Hypothesis – Observation – ConfirmationInduction = Observation – Confirmed Pattern – Hypothesis – Theory

Deductive reasoning in market research

When you use deductive reasoning, you develop a hypothesis. Through the use of search tools and literature in libraries, a general view is developed on a particular topic. Previous recordings of research conducted on a particular issue will help you narrow down your test and find out if it is theoretically correct or have additional input to the hypothesis. The market research will be one based on the general knowledge.In deductive reasoning if the data is true then the conclusion is definitely correct. In regard to market demand of a product, if a product is in demand during the holiday season for quite some time based on previous collection, then it is confirmed that you will have higher sales of that product at that period.

Inductive reasoning in market research

Inductive reasoning starts with a general observation and trys to make predictions. For example, when you observe that in general a discounted price of a product boosts its sales, then you analyze data to confirm this. Once you notice a trend in this regard, you can come up with a theory based on this fact.However, it is possible for the conclusion to be false after research based on findings. Probability is often an issue.ConclusionInductive market research is beneficial for gathering information to support your observations, while deductive reasoning requires a deeper dive into why a particular subject was encountered. Both reasoning approaches will help in your decision making. Induction will help you create a theory, and deduction will help you validate the theory.