By Dan Boudreau
It can be a lot of fun to research your own business idea, but it can also be intimidating if you don’t know where to begin. If you’re thinking about starting or growing a business, here are nine ways to research your market.
1. Search Engines. A search engine pours instantly through billions of web pages to bring information to your browser. Different search engines can bring different results. Try Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
2. Internet Surveys. If your customers, suppliers and competitors are online, you will save time and costs by using Internet surveys. Once your survey is set up, you’ll still need to attract people to participate. You can test free options at Survey Monkey or Zoomerang.
3. Email Surveys. Email surveys are attractive because you can reach a lot of people at a minimal cost, and it can be effective if you select your target audience carefully. However, as inexpensive and easy as email is for the sender, it is also effortless to ignore or trash on the receiving end. Count on low response rates, and absolutely avoid spamming by emailing only to those who’ve agreed to receive your email.
4. Observation. Although some people might feel like they’re spying (perhaps they are), sometimes the simplest way to learn is by observing other businesses, customers and competitors. It’s inexpensive and you learn firsthand.
5. Personal Interviews. This method is also inexpensive if you do it yourself, and it has a few advantages: it gives you an opportunity to get to know potential customers, it can also lead to sales, and because it’s more personal, people might share the information more readily.
6. Work Experience. This is a way to get a front row view and earn while learning. While learning on the job can take a bit of time, the biggest pitfall is that you are almost certain to alienate your ex-employer once you become a competitor.
7. Offline Mail Surveys. Mailed surveys are relatively inexpensive to distribute to a selected audience, and they can make it possible to survey geographically distant people you might not reach otherwise. They are sometimes too easy to throw in the garbage, resulting in low response rates.
8. Focus Groups. While group facilitation skills are needed, focus groups enable you to gather a lot of information quickly and the interaction between people with different perspectives can bring interesting and surprising results.
9. Telephone Surveys. Because they’ve been used and abused for so long, telephone surveys have to be handled with care. Anyone who’s gotten the legendary dinnertime call from marketers will understand the challenges of surveying by phone. Its attraction is that you can survey a lot of people with a relatively low cost. Communication skills and a bit of a thick skin will help get through the negativity.
You’ll be gathering information about your customers and competitors for the life of your business. Taking time to hone these skills now will serve you well in the marketplace.