8 Market Research Tips for Entrepreneurs

Market research is defined as an information-gathering process which reveals the possible reaction of potential customers to your goods and services. The aim of market research is for a better understanding of why final users will want to go for your product or service, and the only way this information is revealed is by studying consumer behavior. Here are a few tips to help you started with your market research strategy.

Understand how market research works

Market research has two branches – namely primary, which targets your customers directly and secondary research that analyses information about them. Primary research can be accomplished through online polls, telephone interviews, and study of your own sales records. Secondary research can be accessed through research that is available from experts or from blogs focusing on the industry

Assemble the right team

It is vital for any business owner to have individual skills and talents, but teamwork will definitely kick it up a notch higher. For your marketing plan to be successful, the right team needs to be put in place, and the following factors should be considered:

• Identify which roles are necessary to achieve your goals.
• Conduct interviews to ascertain each person’s skills, strength, and experience.
• Regular assessments should be conducted for team members.

Check what the competitors are doing

More than likely, yours is not the only business existing in the vicinity; there may be others that are offering similar products and services. It is now your duty to keep constant surveillance on your competitors; find out what they are doing and try to offer better goods and services to get a bigger share of the market. 

Define your marketing goal

Ensure that both your marketing and business objectives are defined. For example, do you leverage on social media to relate with target customers? do you have plans to boost your followers? what about traffic for the website: what plans do you have to generate it? Reaching out to prospects and converting them to go with your goods or services calls for a specific objective as well as well defined approach.

You can also set a time limit on your market research to two or five years, and once your end goal is in place, you can conveniently leverage on landmarks and marketing strategies that will aid in reaching those goals.

Determine your prospects or target audience

It is not possible to achieve much without having the right prospects. It doesn’t matter how good your marketing plan is or how fantastic your goods and services are; customers are part of the most important aspects of any business. In fact, a business without a solid customer base cannot succeed. But you have to identify your customers, so as to be in a good position to meet their needs through your marketing strategy. But first, you will need to:

• Identify your prospects’ basic demographics like age, gender, and location.
• Analyze their personalities and manner of shopping so as to understand how to relate with them.
• Get your brand’s message established after your research.

Use the most suitable social media channels

Many entrepreneurs leverage on the power of social media marketing to sell their products. However, you should ensure that the platform you use is the right one for your business.

Each social media platform is targeted at diverse audiences and personalities who engage with the channels differently. You need to decide which will work best for your business. The major channels include:

• Facebook – Almost every type of audience is on this platform. However, your product is not for everyone, so you should determine where your real prospects are and reach out to them.
• Twitter – This is another good channel on social media, but you need to be consistent to maintain a considerable audience. Ultimately, you should ensure that your content is relevant to them.
• Instagram – When it comes to advertising, Instagram is a great tool. Once you register and start posting, your target audience will naturally follow.

Build a referral network

The powers of word-of-mouth cannot be underestimated in advertising since people are known to make buying decisions based on credibility and trust. Try and take advantage of such a network to earn referrals. However, this involves two steps:

• Clients must get top quality results from you and as well as constant communication during the course of their purchase.
• Feedback is key. Use it to understand your customer’s personality and the satisfaction they derive from your services. It can come in handy for future improvements.

Reach out to influencers

Well known personalities can influence your prospective customers to make a buying decision; so they are equally important. They include television personalities, radio anchors, YouTubers, bloggers, and much more. You can call, send emails, send package-free goods, and services because a single mention from these influencers can put your business on the right track.

Create adverts that appeal to the emotions of your prospects

It is a known fact that emotional ads can outsell logic. Facts and information play their own role, but emotions play a bigger role in a prospect’s decision to buy. A business can leverage on emotional content to connect with its prospects; however, they should also adopt factors based on emotional awareness, particularly relating to happiness, friendship, inspiration as well as warmth.

• Happiness – Positive content that engenders a mood encouraging, laughter, smiles, and general happiness can boost user engagement.
• Surprise, Fear – Fear is that impulse which activates our reaction to possible threats enhancing our odds of survival. However, you have to apply caution with this method to avoid upsetting prospects or turn them off your product.
• Anger – This emotion may be negative, but people have been spurred to action through anger.

MindSpace Associates is a leading provider of business coaching services. We offer business entrepreneurship programs to small-to-medium businesses to help take your business to exceptional levels of performance. For further information, contact us or refer to some of our best books for managing a small business.