The processes of collecting and analyzing information on general customers, target audience, competitors, and market environment are called marketing research. Marketing research is one of the best ways to understand the market potential, audience behaviour, and demand for specific products or services. Marketing research plays an important for any business whether it’s on a small scale or a multinational corporation. No matter how great and unique is your product or service if you don’t know whom and where to sell them?
As a process, conducting a market research comprises of several important steps such as:
- Defining a problem and objective
- Determine the research design
- Collect available information and resources
- Analyze the collected information
- Present and evaluate the findings
- Making a decision and execute
These steps are crucial to provide the data which is necessary to make certain decisions and findings. With those findings, a business can make and set its initial priorities to move further.
For small business owners, it’s essential to gather market insights and all the risks related to the business. Rather than make their decisions on guesses or hunches they should have solid data. They should be confident in their final decisions because as a small business owner they don’t have anything to lose. Let’s extract how marketing research can help small businesses to grow and lead the way of success.
- Identifying possible business opportunities
- Finding out the survivability for a startup
- Taking strategic actions
- Leading in the competition
- Finding out your customers
- Spotting risks ahead
Identifying possible business opportunities
This is the first benefit and also the first step of the market research that one must carry out before working on some business plan. While performing the initial steps of the market research process, like defining a problem and determine the research plan, you can find a variety of business opportunities that reflect your idea and halo you scale in them.
Similarly, the market research process also involves conducting a SWOT analysis. With SWOT analysis. Your business opportunities can be discussed under microscope that they will work or not.
Finding out survivability for a startup
This is the key for any startup or small business which is trying to penetrate in the market. Finding ways to survive during a crisis is very crucial for any business model, especially the smaller ones. Because the small business is started with small investments by middle-class people. They are not the inability to lose tons of their dollars into waste.
Thus, once before launching a business, market research is necessary, that helps in measuring the overall risk for the survival of the business and finding out the break-even.
Taking strategic actions
Taking important and serious decisions are yet very crucial for leading a successful business. For a small business, even making smaller decisions could be very strategic and risky. Like making a partner, raising a fundraise, removing some resources or buying some, building a new team or firing old team etc. All these decisions could be termed as strategic decisions for small business owners.
So, making your analysis before starting it is another smarter move you can take to avoid any future risks related from strategic actions.
Leading in the Competition
Keep your eyes close to the competitors. Checking out your competitor’s strategies, strengths, weaknesses, and tactics is part of marketing research and a great place to start. By sorting out your major competitor’s weaknesses you can turn them into your strengths. It gives you a competitive advantage over your opponents.
By running market research, the report shows that the content of your main competitor’s site is totally a promotional description. By creating user-friendly and engaging content you’ll have an edge over your competitor. This way you can drive more traffic to your site through competitive advantage.
Finding out your Customers
Before launching a new product or service, big organizations run multiple testing on new products or services. Like focus groups, surveys, or social experiments. Companies look for statistics about whether these focus groups or surveys give enough data about the benefits of the product or service that makes them purchase it.
The owner of a small business can do the similar in a less formal way by directly approach the potential customers on an individual basis. Without spending big cost on surveys you can ask them what your business could do to better meet their desires.
Spotting risk ahead
A lot of small businesses didn’t survive the first year by the low performance and direction of the local and national economy. The most common reasons for such failures are because of poor market research that startup founders avoid before getting into it.
To avoid potential future risks and manage your business to survive in bad times you need marketing research. This step can also be named as risk analysis or risk assessments.
In a nutshell
Though we have discussed the crucial importance of conducting market research. This is clear and obvious that small business owners must do it or they can consult some marketing consultant to do it for them. This will be a key step in order to successfully growth hack your startup from the day first of takeoff!
Salman is a prolific environmental writer, and has authored more than 500 articles in reputed journals, magazines and websites. He is proactively engaged in creating mass awareness on renewable energy, waste management, sustainability and conservation all over the world.
Salman can be reached on salman@cleantechloops.com
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