Small Businesses Need Market Research Too

By Article Specialist

Before venturing into a business, one of the important phases is to have the necessary information on your prospective target market. By doing market research you can determine and find out exactly what your potential customers need, what they want and don’t want and why to put you in a better position to make the necessary adjustments to market your product.

The three common methods of market research are surveys, questionnaires and focus groups. You can also obtain specific information and data by visiting competitor’s websites. Your business’ marketing and product development plans should be the end result of an exhaustive market research.

There are additional factors that have considerable impact on your marketing plan such as budget, type of products or services, geographic market (local or global), turnaround volume, methods of distribution and lead time, and personnel.

By doing a comprehensive market research you can gather and study important information about product pricing, market movement and competitor’s strategies that allows you to develop a competitive and customized pricing scheme based on scientific data. You can then decide to undersell, offer volume discounts or provide value added services and strong after sales support if your product price is higher.

Market research helps you gain a better knowledge of the actual value of your product or service in the marketplace. Make sure to perform ongoing market research as your business goes forward in order to have a clearer heads up understanding of what changes occur in the market that affect your service or product, no matter how insignificant it may seem at the time.

You can either use primary or secondary research methodologies to gather your data in performing your market research. Primary research is gathering data based on surveys, focus groups and through other means. Primary research data includes information about customer inclination, buying behavior, feedback of current and prospective customers. On the other hand, secondary research is gathering data from available reference books, industry and trade periodicals, local chambers of commerce and government agencies. Information available from these sources include specific industry sales trends and growth, demographic profiles, regional business statistics including the number of businesses with the same products or service that you plan to offer. Most businesses, big or small, use a combination of primary and secondary research methods to compile a realistic data base of their markets.

Although good instincts, business acumen and intuition play important roles in successfully managing a business, these are not sufficient to minimize risks and improve chances of business success in today’s highly competitive business world. Market research has become a necessity not only to gather objective data about a business but also to be able to secure capital funding loans from banks and other lending institutions. Market research is the process of collecting and analyzing information and data about your projected target market. The data and information you gather allows you to make informed decisions about your product and target market. Doing a comprehensive market research helps you formulate a comprehensive, realistic and marketable business plan.

The results of your market research puts you in a better position to penetrate your primary target market and take the necessary steps to make your company grow and succeed.

The process of finding and studying potential customers for your business is extremely important and should not be overlooked. Customer patronage is the backbone to success of any business venture. Briefly, you have to find out everything and anything you can about your customers demographic, geographic and lifestyle information. Once you have all the data and information, you have a better chance of cornering and maintaining customers for your business and expanding into other related markets. These factors are highly important in putting together a focused market profile for a successful business.