I’m pretty sure you see a number of surveys magazines and newspapers and on websites, and chances are that you might have taken some. And then, you see questions like your age, income, what you eat for breakfast, how many times you wear cologne, if and what you buy online, etc. Of course, though these might look like pointless superficially, they are actually well designed to do something: market research.
Alright, you have an outstanding products, well tested, low priced, and you’ve done your strategic planning, you have a fantastic sales force… yet your product is lost in the marketplace. How does that happen? Now, coming back to that ’silly’ questionnaire, if you have studied the answers you got from there, you’d have defined the exact person who’s most likely to buy your product. If the message of your product has not reached that person, your product has simply ‘not made it.’
The so-called ideal market research in conducted in phases. The first is market information. You collect information about your customers, where are they and how you reach them, What quantity (and quality) do they want and whether they’re seasonal buyers.
Market research also means studying market trends. During any given period of time, the market has its ups and lows. Your research results will tell you when the time is ripe to hit the market, in addition to the inventory you ought to carry. And what about the competition? Though I wouldn’t lable it business espionage, market research should be able to tell you what your competitors are up to.
The odd thing about market research is that the results may not be immediately tangible. But if you have done your homework, you’ll be equipped to take decisions when you have to. I’m not saying they will always be the right decisions–but the fact that you’re not taking them based on your gut feeling can make all the difference between success and failure.
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