How To Complete Simple Market Research

One of the first things you should do before forming your company performs market research. This doesn’t have to mean spending a fortune on professional market research reports from big-budget companies, either.

If you follow the tips in this article, you’ll learn how to perform market research on your own. You’ll also understand why you need to do it and which opportunities are best for learning more about your market.

How To Do Market Research! (5 FAST & EASY Strategies)

Takeaways
1. Start with a clear research objective.
2. Define your target audience and their needs.
3. Choose appropriate research methods.
4. Gather data from reliable sources.
5. Analyze the collected data objectively.
6. Use insights to refine your marketing strategy.
7. Regularly update your research for relevancy.

Table of Contents

Picture Your End Goal

What is the most important thing you want to achieve? What is your vision? How will you know if it’s working or not? What does success look like? What is the primary goal of this project/campaign/website etc.? If someone gave you a million dollars and asked that you do one thing with it, what would that be?

If you’re new to the world of marketing research, understanding the basics is crucial. Dive into our comprehensive guide on What Marketing Research Is & How to Do It – Step by Step to grasp the fundamental concepts and step-by-step process.

Research Your Market

As a marketer, you must be familiar with the various aspects of your target market and its behavior. You should be able to understand who they are, what they do, what they buy, and why they buy it.

Here are a few important questions that you have to answer: Who are my customers? What kind of people purchases my product or service? Where do they live? How old are they? How many of them might I reach with this message? What is their annual income level?

Do I know anything about their lifestyle habits, like favorite pastimes or hobbies (if applicable)? Do I know how much money is available for buying this type of product/service and where does that money come from (income sources)?

What factors affect purchasing decisions most strongly for these potential buyers (price sensitivity; competitor offerings; availability channels etc.)

Find Out Who Your Customers Are

Once you have your target market figured out, it’s time to dive into the research. At this point, you should be able to answer questions like:

Who are my customers?
What do they want from me?
What do they need from me?
What do they hate about what I’m providing them?
What do they love about what I’m providing them?

To learn more about how to get a better understanding of who your customer is, read our article on how to conduct customer research.

Make Sure There’s A Demand For What You Do

You should know your customer. Who are they? Do you know their age, gender, and location? How do they measure success? What are their frustrations with current solutions in the market? Knowing these things will help guide the direction of your product or service.

It’s also important to understand what your customers want from a solution that would solve their problems. What does it look like when they have this solution in hand? Can it be delivered quickly enough for repeat purchase? Is it easy to use out of the box so there isn’t a steep learning curve for first-time users (or frequent users)?

Discovering a market that is genuinely interested in your product is a game-changer. Learn how one marketer found success by identifying the right market in the article How I Found the Market That Had a Demand for My Product.

Ask People What They Need

By asking people what they need, you are getting down to the core of what your product or service is supposed to do. The answers you receive can be used as a reference point when designing the final product.

Ask people what they want, like, and dislike; this will help you understand if there is a market for your idea. Ask people about their experiences with similar products or services to learn more about your potential customer’s wants and needs before creating your design concepts so that it will be easier for them to adopt when finished.

Look At Trends

Google Trends is an excellent resource for finding out how a concept or product is trending. It shows you the relative search traffic over time for any keyword or topic and allows you to compare related terms side by side.

UberSuggest is another tool that will give you insight into what people are searching for on a particular topic. It provides suggestions based on your initial query, helping you explore different angles of inquiry without the need to manually type in every variation of your search term.

You can also use Google Alerts to get notified whenever a new article mentions specific keywords, which can be helpful when tracking trends in news coverage or social media mentions of your topic or brand name (or both).

You should also check out Quora if you’re looking for answers from experts in certain areas they’ll be able to provide insight that would otherwise take hours of research on their part!

Create A Questionnaire.

Create a questionnaire. When it comes to market research, the first step is usually to create a questionnaire that you can send out to your target audience (the people who will be participating in the research).

Ask the right questions. You want to ensure that your questions are well thought out and ask for specific information only you don’t want any ambiguity here.

Questions should be open-ended and not leading or opinionated in any way; they should also flow logically from one question to another so that each response can easily lead to the next question.

Ask follow-up questions. If a respondent answers ‘no’ or ‘I don’t know, always ask follow-up questions such as: Why do you think this? Can you give me an example? What would have made it easier for you?

How often do things like this happen at work/home/school etc.? This will allow them more freedom with their answers without feeling pressured if they feel uncomfortable answering certain ones directly because there will always be another chance later on!

Sometimes, focusing too much on your competition can hinder your progress. Explore the Top 11 Reasons Not to Research the Competition to understand when and why it might be beneficial to shift your focus elsewhere.

Survey Current Customers

The first step to market research is to gather information from your current customers. Ask them what they like about your product, what they don’t like about it, and what they would like to see in it. Ask them how often they use the product and the length of time between purchases.

The next step is to find out how much you can charge for a product or service without losing money on each sale. Find out if there are competitors in the same field who charge more than you do for their products/services (or less).

Then ask why this is so and determine whether or not there’s a way that you can adjust accordingly while maintaining profitability with little risk involved (i.e., by changing something about your product/service).

Ask People What They Hate About The Industry At Large Or With Competitors

Asking about frustrations and pain points is a great starting point. The answers you get to these questions will help you understand the limitations of your industry and/or competition, which can be helpful when it comes time to develop solutions.

Ask people what they hate about the industry at large or with competitors. What do they wish would change? What are their goals for themselves or their business? How do they measure success in their business? Do they have happy customers? In what ways does your product or service make them feel more successful than others in the market?

Asking people how they feel about competitors is also important because it can give you some insight into how much attention those companies pay to solve problems that matter most to customers (i.e., not just creating new features).

Ask Them To Tell You Their Frustrations And Pain Points

Asking people what frustrates them and what pains they are feeling is a good way to gauge the market. People are more likely to tell you their frustrations and pain points if you ask them directly. This information can be used in a variety of ways:

You can use this information to create a better product or service.

You can use this information to improve your marketing and sales pitch. For example, if customers are constantly complaining about long wait times for customer service, then maybe it’s time for an improvement in that area.

You can also use this kind of info when improving your customer service by either hiring more employees or automating it so that customers don’t have to wait so long on hold (and therefore don’t get frustrated).

et Promoter Score (NPS) is a widely used metric, but it may not always provide the insights you need. Uncover the shortcomings of NPS and potential solutions in the article Why NPS Sucks as a Measure for Marketing and How to Fix It.

What Are Their Goals? How Do They Measure Success?

You’ve already asked them what they want to achieve and how they measure success, but it’s important to understand their goals at a deeper level. To do this, ask them what they hope to achieve in the next 6-12 months, 5 years, and 10 years.

Then, ask them how they plan on achieving these goals. If someone says that their goal is for their company or organization “to grow” or “to make more money” without explaining how or why this would happen over time then it could mean one of two things.

They don’t know exactly where they want their business/organization to go yet, or You’re talking with an imposter who doesn’t know anything about the industry in which you work so stay away from fools like that.

Keep On Top Of Current Affairs And Trends In Your Area Of Interest

Keeping on top of current events and trends in your area of interest is essential for any marketer. A simple Google search can be all you need to get started, but if you want more detailed information about what people are talking about online, there are a range of tools available that can help.

You can use Google Trends to find out which topics have been gaining popularity over time, UberSuggest (formerly known as Trend Watch) to find trending terms and keywords within specific categories like technology or news stories related to your industry, and Google Alerts.

So that whenever someone mentions your brand name or uses a particular word or phrase in any form (for example: “how do I”, “what is”, “my business”, etc.), you’ll receive an email notification straightaway!

Use Facebook And Linkedin Groups To Ask Questions And Get Insight From Industry Peers, Potential Customers, And Influencers

Use Facebook and LinkedIn Groups to ask questions and get insight from industry peers, potential customers, and influencers. Find Facebook groups that are related to your company’s industry or category. Use the search bar to find relevant groups or browse them by topic.

On LinkedIn, you can search “groups” under the search bar in the top right of your profile page. You can also use these platforms as a way of getting advice from others in your industry about what kind of market research is most effective for your business type: “I’m looking for information about market research.”

You should also be keeping an eye on the most popular keywords in your industry or topic. This is called “trends” and it’s a great way to see what people are searching for online related to them vs how often certain topics have been searched for over time and if you see an upward trend.

That’s a good sign that there’s ongoing interest in those topics or specific keywords related to those products or services which indicates that there’s still room for growth and new players in the space.

To do this, head over to Google Trends (trends.google.com) or UberSuggest (neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/) and enter your topic of choice into their search bar as well as any other related terms like synonyms, misspellings, etc., then hit “enter” (or click “search”).

At the top left corner of either side, you’ll see an option labeled “Explore”. Click on this then choose “Searches” from under options listed in the dropdown menu at the top right corner where it says “Select type”.

Next select either “All time” (to view results based on total searches across the entire date range), “Past year” (to view results based on total searches within the last twelve months), or “Last month”(to view results based on total searches within last thirty days) or even down further toward the bottom right corner where it says “Unlimited display size.”

Market research doesn’t have to be complex or expensive. Learn how to find valuable insights quickly and affordably in our guide on How to Find Cheap and Easy Marketing Research in Five Minutes.

Final Thoughts

If you’re ready to start your own business or take your existing business to the next level, market research can be a valuable tool. Market research is not just for big companies it can help small businesses too! It will help you understand what your customers are interested in and how they make purchasing decisions.

The key is to use this information wisely: don’t rely solely on it as the sole guide for making decisions about how best to serve them but rather consider it along with other factors like intuition and experience of the industry when creating products or services so that they will resonate better than those offered by competitors.

People Also Ask

What Is Marketing Research?

Marketing research is a systematic process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data to answer specific questions about the product or service. It is a major source of information for companies to make informed decisions related to the product or service.

Why Do We Need Marketing Research?

Marketing research helps companies understand what their customers want and need. It provides the information needed to make important business decisions such as:

Pricing products or services appropriately
Making changes in advertising campaigns
Improving customer service; planning promotions and events
Entering new markets; developing new products or services
Understanding customer satisfaction with existing products or services
Determining how well current products or services are working for customers to improve them based on feedback from customers about what they want or need next time around (from a product perspective).

What Are The Sources Of Information Available For Marketing Research?

There are five sources of information available for marketing research: primary, secondary, internal, external, and consumer-generated data.

Primary data refers to information collected by the researcher firsthand from respondents in a survey or experiment. Secondary data refers to information collected previously by someone else and stored in a library or archive (e.g., census data).

Internal data refers to information collected by an organization itself through market research departments or departments within the firm such as sales or production departments

What Are The Objectives Of Marketing Research?

The objectives of marketing research can be categorized into two broad categories:

Decision Support: Marketing Research helps in making decisions about the products/services by providing objective and accurate information about consumers’ needs, preferences, and buying patterns.

The information obtained from marketing research helps in identifying new opportunities, product design, manufacturing processes, etc.

Planning & Control: Marketing Research also provides necessary information which helps in planning and controlling the operations of the organization. It provides the data that can be used to develop strategies for growth, survival, and competitive advantage.

How Do You Find Out What Your Customers Want?

There are several ways to get feedback from customers: online surveys and polls; physical surveys; focus groups; interviews with staff members; observation (watching customers use your product); customer satisfaction surveys; etc…

What Are Some Things I Should Keep In Mind When Completing Simple Market Research?

You should always keep in mind that the goal of market research is to get information, not necessarily answers. You’ll never find out everything there is to know about a given topic, but that’s okay.

You can always do more research later on if you find something interesting during your initial investigation into a topic or idea. You also shouldn’t feel bad if you don’t have an answer for every question that comes up during your research sometimes there just isn’t enough information out there yet.

What Are The Benefits Of Market Research?

The benefits of market research include:

Identifying potential opportunities and threats in the marketplace
identifying new markets for existing products or services
Learning what customers want so you can meet their needs more effectively

Costantine Edward

Costantine Edward is a digital marketing expert, freelance writer, and entrepreneur who helps people attain financial freedom. I’ve been working in marketing since I was 18 years old and have managed to build a successful career doing what I love.