Market research has always been considered an expense. This is primarily because it’s not possible to measure return on investment in a direct manner. As a result, investment is generally made in areas in which return can be measured more easily.

Research can determine which products have the best possibility of success in the market and which areas improved their service or resulted in greater client satisfaction. As well, it can help optimize advertising messages so as to make them more attractive to potential clients. However, all of these actions can not be measured directly by an ROI analysis.

In fact, researchers have not even been able to calculate the return on a correctly implemented Focus Group or Survey.

Advertising is an expense, however companies increase their investment in advertising when sales are insufficient. Generally they don’t know if investing in advertising will result in an increase in sales, though what everyone does know is that by increasing Brand Awareness it’s possible to halt a drop in sales and even increase them. Generally, there is faith in the idea that investing in advertising will generate an acceptable ROI.

ROI on Research comes from being more intelligent at the moment of making decisions on products and services. Thus ROI can be measured as the result of an intelligent decision that has been made. One example.

If market research that has been carried out resulted in information that made it possible to make a successful decision, the ROI generated for this “success” is the ROI on Research. Without the information obtained it would not have been possible to even consider the options weighed in the decision-making process. Therefore the economic result was largely obtained as a result of the time and money invested in Market Research.

Information puts a price on future situations which will enable decisions to be made. It is therefore impossible to separate Market Research from a regular ROI analysis.