marketresearchwatcher - Tumblr blog

[marketresearchwatcher]

Market research Practical guide to help you make better decisions for your New Business or Startup

As an entrepreneur, conducting market research helps you make better business decisions and avoid costly mistakes.

In fact, market research is crucial for your success whether you’re entering a new market, looking for customers or launching a new product. It can also help you to identify opportunities to generate more business with existing customers. Businesses can gather data on such topics as product design, branding, advertising concepts, sales channels, and customer service. In short, the insights gathered through market research can shape your Business Plan or help you to measure the success of your current activities and adjust.

Therefore, it’s critical to have a well‑designed market research plan that will lead you to ask the right questions, in the right way, of the right audience. Poorly designed or shoddily executed research can produce results that steer your business in the wrong direction.

Common market research mistakes

Here are three common missteps that we see:

1. Relying on free data from the Internet

The web is a great starting point, but often this information may be incomplete, outdated or too superficial to be relevant to your business decisions.

2. Surveying your personal network

Again, it can be a great starting point to talk to friends and colleagues. But for truly meaningful insights, you need to hear from sales prospects, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders in your business.

3. Relying only on anecdotal feedback

Businesses often receive feedback from customers and other stakeholders. But a few data points are not enough. Business insights need to be collected in a systematic way.

So how can small businesses conduct market research in a timely, cost‑effective manner?

1. Demographics and Statistics Software

This information can be helpful to businesses when trying to learn more about the geographic areas in which they operate, or those into which it would make sense to expand. Where are other people like my current customers? Where are there people who are a little different from my customer base but might find my product valuable? I’m introducing a new product to an entirely new market — where do these prospects live? Is the size of the potential market big enough to make the investment into a new product worthwhile?

2. Existing Research Reports

There may already be a report that was conducted that can give you some general information into your industry and specific market. By doing a search on “online research reports,” you can find a listing of companies that provide these reports. Usually, they do come at a cost, but maybe less expensive than doing a study from scratch. A good idea is to first peruse the table of contents that often comes with these reports before buying, in order to get an idea as to whether the purchase would be justified.

3. Marketing Researcher tools

There are some excellent resources available, again some of which require a fee, but others do not.

Marketing Sherpa

MarketingProfs.com

II. PRIMARY RESEARCH

At some point, all businesses need to ask specific questions from their customers, as well as those who are not their customers, in order to make decisions about their business and marketing strategies. This is where research can be expensive, though. Many small businesses do not have the necessary resources to studies that provide the most unbiased, accurate data. However, there are ways that companies can get guidance and direction for marketing strategy, based on customer feedback.

1. Talk to Your Customers

Ask questions of your customers when they buy from you if you can do it in a way that is not complicated for them and does not take much of their time. What makes them buy from you? How did they hear about you?

2. Web Logs or Blogs

This is a great way to get customer feedback. Start a blog on your company website, tell your customers about it, and post information about your products and services. I know what you’re thinking, though – what if my customers have negative reactions about what I post? Won’t my warts be available for all to see?

3. Yahoo Groups

Start a group for your customers. This is a great way for them to talk to each other and exchange information. At the same time, you get to see what they’re saying without them necessarily knowing that you’re peeking.

4. In-person forums/ conferences

This is a great way to educate and entertain your customers and provide them value for their attendance at an offline function. While the methods above can often limit the amount of information you get from your customers, these forums and conferences allow you to explore various issues in a more in-depth way.

5. Qualitative

These studies, also often called exploratory research, allow you to research issues with customers in an in-depth manner. While qualitative studies usually aren’t designed to give you precise answers, they can give you great insight into the behavior of your customers, their rationale for making decisions, and factors that can motivate them to purchase.

There are various forms of qualitative studies, including focus groups, one-on-one interviews, and newer techniques called ethnography. What sets these apart from the user conferences mentioned above, are several factors:

They are typically led by an objective moderator, so participants often will provide more honest and less biased feedback.

A trained professional can also handle different types of respondents, from those who tend to be very vocal to those who are less likely to speak.

They are in a controlled setting, and the moderator has a pre-defined script so that the most important issues at hand are addressed.

A variety of techniques can be used, in order to get at the thinking behind customer discussions and behavior.

These studies can be done both on the internet and in person. A qualified professional can help you to determine the right method to use and the costs for your particular situation.

6. Quantitative

businesses need guidance on a set of marketing issues that require clearly defined measures, for example, advertising spending, distribution channel usage, pricing decisions, segmentation sizes, and the product or service

According to the Small Business Administration website, much primary research, particularly “… surveys, interviews, and questionnaires are best left to marketing professionals, as they can usually get more objective and sophisticated results