Guest author, Jason Phillips, shares his experience on market research flubs.
Any serious business person knows that no matter how lucrative a business idea or starting a new business line is there will always be risks involved. Yes indeed this is the cold reality of the matter and carrying out market research will only help you sort through the risks that are involved. More so, as small business people you need to do this since the funds and resources that you have at your disposal is limited.
Now there are quite a number of benefits associated with conducting market research as far as any small business is concerned. One is it helps build customer loyalty, while another is that it helps such small businesses in discovering hidden niches that they might never have known existed before just to mention a few. Okay so before taking this plunge, it is imperative that you are aware of the common errors made by small businesses when carrying this out. Here, they are below:
1. You consider it too expensive
Since you consider it too expensive you try to do it by yourself and carry out a poor job. Yes, although market research can cost you as much as tens of thousands of dollars annually, it is better to do a good job of it, otherwise make use of a professional if you know you can’t. It should pay off in the medium to long-term.
2. Not establishing clear objectives
Okay for as many small businesses that will be carrying out market research they have not really sat down to consider what they really need to have knowledge of, or how such information will be used. Vague objectives such as “understanding your customers better” is too broad. Is it that you want to know who these are in terms of age, gender, occupation, etc. or you want to find out how much they like your service, etc?
3. Asking the wrong people
A common mistake you should avoid whenever you are carrying out market research is involving people who are close to you. Just put yourself in their shoes and imagine for a moment what you will do if faced with a similar situation. So you see this isn’t a wise choice. Such people will naturally want to protect your feelings.
4. Making use of wrong respondents
Sometimes entrepreneurs or small business people will talk to as many people as possible or involve the wrong respondents in order to get a robust data that they can act on. Thinking this is the right way to go. However, involving people who do not constitute your target audience or market will only produce the wrong result. One which if followed could have an adverse effect.
5. Making use of web searching
Yes, the World Wide Web has made it possible for just about any information to be found online. No doubt making use of Google, Yahoo or similar platforms to search out information will save time as well as money for small businesses. But information available through this means only makes a portion of what you can find online possible. For a more productive effort that involves no cost visit your college, local library, etc. to get quality information.
6. Not using the right methodology
It happens sometimes that because small businesses have their clients’ email addresses they will choose to conduct online quantitative studies. Thinking this will help meet all their goals. However, this might not be the case. This is because some research goals or objectives are more suited with a qualitative methodology, more so when this has to do with exploring people’s ideas or attitudes.
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The post is written by Jason Phillips. He is a marketing research analyst with over 10 years of experience in los angeles marketing agency. He is the father of two cute children and madly in love with his family.