Most new internet marketers ignore a systematic three-step approach to market research when they embark on an online business. They either have no clue as to where to start or end up creating a product with little or no demand.

It is essential to follow through this three-step approach, namely niche market identification, opportunity identification and lastly production creation. You will save much effort and disappointment by not jumping the gun on the sequence.

Market research is about niche identification. Big brand names create demand. As small business owner, we do not exert the same market influence. Instead our focus should be finding a specific market with specific need and creating a solution to target this niche market. Use free tools that provide these research functions

http://www.FreeWordTrackerTool.com
http://www.FreeAdwordsTool.com
http://www.FreeKeywordDiscoveryTool.com

Start with a single keyword e.g. Guitar. Say, you have an interest in blues guitar. The natural instinct will be to research keywords – blues guitar. By doing that though, you have precluded yourself from other potential market opportunities associated with guitar e.g. second-hand guitars, guitar chords, guitar lessons online.

Look for less competitive keywords that appear in the search results. They represent potential niche markets that may yet to be fully exploited. Do a Google search to verify your suspicions using this method – type allintitle: keyword. This will return websites with your targeted keywords. This gives you a feel of your competition especially if you are planning to use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to promote your product.

Extend your research by exploring micro-niche markets with common root words e.g. Blues guitar + learn/teach/online class. Some useful root words to help identify niche markets are: fix, help, learn, buy, solution, solve, successful, prevent, problem, get rid of, do it yourself, recipe, unrevealed etc.

Take advantage of other valuable tools you can use to uncover niche markets:

http:// www.google.com/press/zzeitgeist.html
http://buzz.yahoo.com
http://www.blogpulse.com
http://www.eBay.com
http://www.amazon.com

Now that you have identified your niche, the second step is to identify the problems faced by people in that niche market. You can research through search engines, forums, blogs and even offline resources e.g. Papers, advertisements, magazines and TV. When you have identified a problem, you have identified an opportunity!

The final step is to find/create a product to satisfy your niche market. There are several approaches to accomplish this.

– Create content websites (Content Publishing)
– Promote other people’s products (Affiliate Marketing)
– Selling other people’s product through resale license ( Resale Rights Marketing)
– Sell your own products/ services (Product Creation)

It is important to get the first step right as it gives you confidence and a clear goal to work with. Once you have defined your niche market and target audience, creating the perfect solution that will bring you money and credibility would be much easier.

About Author

Vince Png(www.vincepng.com)
Learn with me how to start a profitable online business with no prior experience and little money in your pocket.

The key to running a successful business is a thorough understanding of your market. There is not much needed to be said about the importance of market research as its significance in making informed business decisions is obvious. The more you know about your market and the psyche of your customers, the more you can improve your products and services accordingly to suit your market. As a result you will be able to increase your sales and reduce your marketing expenses by knowing exactly which demographic population and geographic locations to target for your type of business.

Market research is not as simple as it may seem initially. It requires effort, time and market research expertise to generate functional market intelligence. It’s better to leave market research tasks in the hands of experts primarily because they have the expertise, resource and knowledge to generate precise market intelligence within a short amount of time. For businesses that generate their major source of revenue by selling on the internet, online market research is the most suitable option.

Doing online market research in-house would consume a lot of your resources in terms of your time and money, so it’s recommended that you outsource your online market research tasks. There are many online market research companies in the UK to choose from. First you need to determine what type of market research would be suitable for your business amongst the following types

• Competitor market research
• Consumer market research
• Market trends research

If you require competitor analysis, you should outsource your market research task to a company that specializes in this type of online market research. Competitor market research is about gathering qualitative or quantitative information on your existing competitors in the market and analyzing its effect on your business so you could change your business strategy to stay more competitive. Similarly, if you require consumer analysis or market trends analysis, you should outsource to a market research company that specializes in this type of online market research.

Now the question arises about what factors you should look into when choosing to outsource your online market research tasks to an online market research company. One hassle free way to selecting an online market research company in the UK is to use a UK based facilitating agency, such as Quote Bean, that specializes in hooking up clients with the right suppliers according to the requirements of the clients. If you want to evaluate and select the right online market research company in the UK on your own, you may want to consider asking the following questions to a number of different companies and reach your decision based on their answers:

• What type of online market research does that company specialize in?
• What is their way of collecting market information?
• Do they generate primary data or do they rely on secondary sources of data?
• How would they make collected data useful for you?
• Do they have enough expertise to do your type of market research?
• Do they have a high enough number of research analysts?
• Can they provide references and examples of their previous similar work for you to verify?
• Are they a member in good standing of a market research regulatory body? What will be the estimated time they will take to do your market research and analysis and what will be the cost involved?

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More information and resources on market research and free quotes from market research companies can be obtained at
http://www.quotebean.co.uk/Market-Research-Companies/Index/