When you are about to start a business , launch a new product or open your store to the public, it is always common for you to be invaded by doubt and the uncertainty of knowing if your venture will be successful.
Doubt and insecurity are usually bad company, but there are smart ways to ensure that your business starts with the wind in your favor and that way is knowing your market.
Today I want to share 5 tips to carry out a market study in a practical, simple way and with very little investment that will help you take safer steps. It is worth remembering that the market study is a fundamental part of the business plan .
What Is A Market Study?
It can be summarized as a method or a series of techniques that allow you to discover, visualize and analyze the commercial potential that you will have with your business or product.
A market study carried out effectively can reveal important aspects that you must consider in your business plan and that sometimes you cannot consider at first glance.
The Convenience Of Doing A Market Study
Suppose you want to sell bicycle tires. Where is your market? Who are your clients? Would you offer them in a property for heavy transport trucks? Would you perhaps offer them to housewives or would you perhaps open a store near a highway where it is dangerous to cycle? Of course not!!
Of course, this approach is very obvious, but it is intended to illustrate the importance of effectively locating and identifying who and where your potential market is .
The reason many businesses fail is not because they have a bad product or because the business itself is bad. Many businesses end badly because they started badly. Doing a market study can be easier and cheaper than you think and doing it is a job that is well worth it:
How To Do A Market Study:5 Tips
1. Take a personal tour of the area.
The first advice recommended to start a market study is to personally visit the area where you plan to locate your business. Preferably be accompanied by someone else you fully trust who knows the purpose of your journey to help you visualize important details.
In this journey, it seeks to identify : businesses similar to yours that already exist in the perimeter or businesses that offer complementary services. Analyze their location and their hours. Observe how many people they serve and try to sense if their customers seem happy or dissatisfied. In short, a tour of the area will reveal extremely important information and ideas for your project that you may not have considered.
2. Conduct opinion polls.
Prepare a survey that allows you to detect and measure the demand for your product or service in the area where you plan to locate. The survey must be short, concise and the questions must be asked in such a way that they reveal the interest of the people.
Remember that people’s time is important, so your survey should not have more than 10 to 15 questions that can be answered in a couple of minutes (maximum).
It is also recommended that you avoid compromising or embarrassing questions or asking for private data from your respondents, which could cause rejection with the consequent negative effect. Select a reasonable sample that allows you to measure opinion in a meaningful way.
3. Use an undercover client.
You can talk to a friend, partner or collaborator who will help you carry out the research work by appearing covertly in the premises of your competition as if they were a client.
The objective of this investigation will be to determine: prices of services or products , opening hours, quality of customer service , value-added aspects, product quality and any other important element that you should know before launching your own venture. This type of strategy offers excellent results and is often called mystery shopping.
4. Make calls to request information.
Another interesting way to gather information is by making calls to your competitors. With one call you can obtain a lot of important information such as the one we have mentioned and additionally you will be able to measure the level of effectiveness of your sales advisors. Remember that the quality of your sales force is very important for the success in promoting a product .
5. Analyze your advertising resources.
Search and request all advertising material related to the products and services offered by your potential competitors: newspaper ads, brochures, catalogs, web pages and, if possible, analyze the presentation of their products.
In general terms, a basic market study like this will allow you to find a large amount of information that will be very useful to determine if your business strategy is appropriate or if you need to make some important adjustments. Additionally, it will allow you to determine with greater impact the demand and possible acceptance of your business or product.
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