Before you launch your business, a new product, or an expansion you need to make sure that your marketing research has shown that your idea is reasonable and that your idea is going to sell. When I purchased my arena football team, I purchased it blindly pursuing my dream and strictly looking at the numbers (that were fudged) and made a choice. The result? My investors and I lost one million dollars. (Ouch) Yeah, its still kind of painful to talk about.
But, had I done a little marketing research I would have realized that arena football was not as wildly popular has the franchise owner had projected. I want to save you years of life experience, thousands of dollars, and a whole lot of stress. Here are 6 Marketing Research Methods to help you invest your time and money into a successful business.
6 Marketing Research Methods
- Books – If there are no books selling on the subject then you are going out on a limb and the branch will more than likely break. Let the New York Best Sellers List tell you what is popular.
- Magazines – Look at both the articles and the advertisements. If you have a eyeshadow line and cosmo is not writing anything about eye makeup then don’t launch. They spend millions of dollars seeking what people are looking for. Use their investment dollars to help you determine what will sell and what will not. Likewise if you are looking at the advertisements and you notice 1 or 2 dealing with natural/organic makeup then maybe a new market is forming. Get in on the up-curve.
- Google Trends – Google Trends is an interesting tool where you type in a keyword and then Google shows you on a graph how popular it is based on Google searches. You can also compare it to various other keywords to see what is the most popular.
- Surveys – If you don’t know ask. But, don’t ask randomly or you will come to faulty conclusions. Write out 3 or 10 questions and then write down the responses that people give you. Survey enough people and then you will notice a pattern. Follow the pattern to success.
- Forums – Spend some time in forums and observe what people are talking about. Look at what topics are getting the most responses and what questions people are asking.
- Competition – Who is the competitors in your arena? Find the most successful businesses then mimic what they are doing. Well, correction…mimic and improve what those businesses are doing. If there is a successful construction company who is marketing the fact that they offer financing, then you know that they are finding success with that strategy. You could then offer financing without interest or offer financing with special terms that your marketing research has concluded your potential customers need.
When you are conducting your marketing research methods do not come to any conclusions on your own. You have an idea now let your potential customers tell you what they want. All you have to do is ask and then do what they say.
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