Three Steps to Do-It-Yourself Market Research
Hiring a market research company for thousands of dollars is out of the question for most small firms, which oftentimes are buried just in keeping up with day-to-day operations. But companies willing to do a little extra legwork and get creative in their approach can benefit from much of the core data a formal market research program can deliver without making that kind of wholesale investment. Here are three suggestions for facilitating valuable customer and prospect feedback and capturing data on your market just by taking a do-it-yourself approach.
1. Tap into secondary research.
This is information already published about the industry or product you’re involved in. Pre-Web, business owners could expect to spend hours at the local library poring over directories and research publications to uncover nuggets of information on everything from potential customer demographics to key industry trends. Today, a lot of that same information is accessible online. Some recommended sources of secondary research include census bureau reports for information on metropolitan, county, and central city areas; chamber of commerce market profiles; magazines such as American Demographics; and the U.S. Industrial Outlook for growth statistics and forecasts for key industries.
2. Leverage the Web.
The Internet can be an unprecedented tool for gathering this kind of secondary market research. In one example, a couple of entrepreneurs were looking for basic information that could help them evaluate whether or not there was a market for selling pizza dough to restaurants in their area. The pair used Yahoo Yellow Pages to search for potential customers—pizza places—in a 50-mile radius to gauge market size, then followed up with phone calls to a smaller sample to drill down with specific questions regarding potential order quantities. “We would have never had access to that kind of information so quickly 10 years ago without the Web,” says Matt Burke, an independent marketing and public relations consultant in Portsmouth, NH.
3. Get creative about leveraging customers and suppliers.
Suppliers can be a great source of information about your market since they do business with others like you. Regularly canvass them, whether by phone or in person, about how their needs are being met, and get insight into what some of your competitors are facing. Existing customers can be tapped for similar kinds of feedback without having to do any kind of official roundtable. Snowboard manufacturer Bigelow Mountain Partners LLC, for example, leverages a special research and development council it created among its core customers to get feedback for evolving its equipment instead of hosting and paying for formal focus groups. The R&D partners are given a questionnaire every year that solicits feedback on the board’s performance. Any changes that come from the R&D council are highlighted with a special icon in the next year’s catalog, which empowers the participants to spend time giving feedback. “We do 80 percent of our R&D in terms of design in this manner,” says Bigelow Mountain Partners President Chris Lorenz. BA
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