You teach people before forming friendships, and the same goes when you treat with your target market – UNGET to know them first. Understand how they live and their habits and preferences will better meet your product or service to their needs.
So, how do you get to know your audience? The answer is, of course, market research.
Market research is a process of collecting, analyzing and interpreting information that can help you paint an image of your planned target market. Instead of drawing advertising arrows on the distance and hope the best, you will have a clear target to aim.
Research to reduce the risks
Market research is a risk reduction exercise you are taking in your business, that is, making better informed decisions based on real information on the market for life.
A new product perspective, market research can help help your bright idea to be crumpled by shaping the characteristics of the product and indicating where, in what quantities and at what price it should be sold.
This can also help a business continually improve by understanding the strengths and weaknesses of competition and integrating this information into a business plan and / or marketing.
What kind of research on the market?
The phase of your business and your type of product will also affect the type of search you are committed to.
For a new business, research should ask questions and answer questions about the size of the market, characteristics, trends, customers, sales forecasts and market share. Companies that have worked for a long time may wish more information on the effectiveness of existing practices and emerging new trends.
Market research can also help a mature business coordinate trading hours and locations with customers and determine if there is a scope to increase prices.
Where to start …
From the beginning, my recommendation is to decide exactly what you want to know. This will reveal the research problems involved, the scope of the investigation and all the constraints that limit the search. It will also determine which sources will be used and the measures that will be put in place to collect and analyze the conclusions such as a questionnaire or a discussion group.
The main sources of market research include:
Customers
Employees
Suppliers
Field studies
Focus groups
Interviews
Surveys
Secondary sources of market research
Accounting
Agents
Statistics Office of Australia
the Internet
Library
Newspapers
Commercial newspapers
Corporate recordings
A good way to analyze your results is to put them in tables or categories that will make trends or clear models. Ideally, you will find an answer to your initial questions, but all gaps in the information can also be taken into account and used to make decisions.