Have you ever had this product or service in mind, unsure if people would actually buy it? You’re sailing blind—period—without knowing your market. You might get lost or crash. Market research is your map. It keeps you on the right path and steers you away from danger. That’s where this guide gives you the tools to do market research the right way.
Step 1: Defining Your Research Objectives
But first, make sure you know what you want to achieve. It’s like wanting to know where you’re heading before you get behind the wheel. What do you hope to learn? What decisions will this research assist you in making? Your research will be aimless without clear objectives. It’s not going to give you the answers you need.
Determine the Purpose of the Research
What motivates you to conduct this research? Is it to penetrate a new market? Or tell me about your existing customers? Perhaps it’s to see how a particular change would impact sales? Exploratory research is getting to know something you don’t know yet. Descriptive research describes what exists. Exploring cause and effect relationships is what causal research does. What type of research you do will help to keep it focused.
Setting the Specific Research Questions
Good research question have to be clear and focused. “Will people buy my product?” isn’t a great question. Instead, ask: What do customers want most in this type of product? Or “How much will customers pay?” Consider what you should know about your product. Do your research on your competitors and who your audience is.
Stepping 3: Identify Purpose-Defined Performance Indicators (KPIs)
KPIs are what measure the effectiveness of your research. Some examples are customer satisfaction scores. Some are to do with brand awareness, and market share growth. KPIs are also used to monitor advancement, and to make sound decisions. They give you a metric to determine whether your research succeeded. They help steer your decisions along the way.
Know Who Your Audience Is
Understanding your customers is critical. Knowing they exist is not enough. You must understand their core drive. What do they care about? What hopes and fears do they have? The more you know them, the easier to get to.
Step 1: Developing Comprehensive Buyer Personas
Buyer personas are essentially fictional characters. Every one represents a cohort of your customers. Get names, ages and jobs for them. What are their lifestyles like, and what are their goals? What are their problems? What are the solutions your product provides? The more detailed, the better — full-length mix tapes or deep cuts.
Identifying Customer Needs and Pain Points
What does your ideal target audience need? What challenges (or issues) do they deal with on a daily basis? Figure out their pain points. Next, demonstrate how your product makes their lives easier. Surveys, interviews and social media can help.
Recognizing Market Segmentation
Market segmentation is dividing your market into smaller segments. The two are alike in many ways. Such as age, location, lifestyle, and behavior. You will have a different message for each group. This improves your marketing effectiveness. Consider: Are you marketing to students, professionals or retirees?
Executing Detailed Competitive Analysis
You’re not alone. Other companies are vying to capture the same customers. You have to know who they are. What are they doing well? What are their weaknesses? Competitive research helps you also to propose yourself.
Identifying Key Competitors
What are your biggest competitors, if any? It is more than just direct competition. Indirect competitors offer alternative solutions to the same problem. A coffee shop, for example, competes with tea houses. Both offer drinks.
Dissecting Strengths and Weaknesses of Competitors
SWOT analysis is your friend. To clarify, SWOT refers to Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Get creative and use it to evaluate each competitor. And, what do they do better than you? What are they bad at? Where can you beat them?
Assessing Marketing Strategies of Competitors
What is the marketing strategy for your competitors? What are their prices? What channels do they use? How do they communicate about their business? Analyze their website, social media and ads. On their journey, aesthetic, hip hop, and R&B journeys, respectively.
Gathering and Analyzing Data
Now you collect the information you need. Gathering primary and secondary data You have to choose. Primary data are new data that you gather yourself. Secondary data is information that other people have already collected.
Primary Research Methods
Used to gather information from a large group. Exactly, interviews provide richer perspectives from fewer individuals. Focus groups gather people together to talk about your product. Observation — seeing people use products in the real world. There is individual value to each method.
Secondary Research Methods
Reports from industry provide a macro view of the market. Demographic data comes from government publications. There are plenty of statistics online in the databases. You can save both time and money with these sources.
Data Analysis Techniques
Qualitative data refers to the words and stories. Thematic Analysis to Identify Common Themes in the Data Quantitative data is numbers. You use statistical analysis to identify patterns and relationships. Utilize both so you have the whole picture.
Analysis and Conclusion of Results
Now comes the fun part. Raw data has to be transformed into useful insights. What does it all mean? What should you do next? This is where you take data-driven decisions.
Trends and Patterns to be Noted
What trends are emerging? What patterns do you see? Look for surprises. Are there any surprising facts? These can be great opportunities.
Developing Recommended Steps for Action
(Do your research, what do you do next?) Do you need to pivot your offering? Adjust your pricing? Target a new market? State your recommendations unambiguously and precisely.
How to Communicate Findings Effectively
Clearly and concisely communicate your results. Use of visual data; charts, graphs, summaries. Summarize the key findings with bullet points. Break down what they imply for the business.
Conclusion
Again, this is one more aspect of conducting market research. You have seen the process in this article. Start with clear goals. Understand your audience and your competitors. Gather and analyze data. Turn insights into action. Now go out and start making good choices grounded in solid research.
