Most small businesses grow not linearly but rather in a more stepped fashion: they experience spurts of growth punctuated by longer periods of slower growth or flat revenues. In order to get to the next level of growth, it is often strategically important to get a lay of the competitive landscape by conducting a marketing research project. This can seem like an overwhelming task at first, but done correctly it can be relatively straightforward and one of the smartest things you do for your business.
Here are 5 tips to get you started:
Tip #1: Choose the right problem to solve: So often, companies embark upon a new research project without initially defining precisely what it is that they want to accomplish. The results of marketing research are extremely sensitive to your initial assumptions and goals. You must be very clear about what you want to find out before you start or you will end up with valid and yet potentially useless results. Do you want to know more about your competitors? The industry in general? A specific new technology? Hint: write out your research objectives in 2-3 sentences and make sure that your phrases leave no room for creative interpretation by the researcher.
Tip #2: Determine the scale of your project: Marketing research can take 10 minutes, 2 years, or something in between. Similarly, it can cost you only a few minutes of your time or it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Each project varies, so you should be clear at the outset just how deeply you want your search to go. Set up various parameters to use as guidelines for the project’s scale, such as: the amount of respondents you need to interview, the number of person-hours to be spent on the project, the research deadline date, potential data resources to be used (e.g., will the search require visits to physical locations and/or telephone-based interviews), and expected length of the written report. These will help you to estimate a realistic scale for the project in terms of budget and time frame.
Tip #3: Select the right researcher: You can conduct marketing research yourself, and there are a number of great books available for the independent amateur researcher. Other options are to have a colleague/employee, market research firm, or an independent information professional conduct the research. The option you choose will be dictated by your budget, the clarity with which you have defined your objectives (see Tip #1), your research time frame, and your access to qualified researchers.
Tip #4: Ask for a mid-project progress report: Regardless of who actually conducts the research, always request a mid-project or interim progress report. Request that the researcher contact you once they are about one-fourth of the way into the project. Ask them to give you an idea about the quality and quantity of information they have been able to locate thus far, whether the project is on track from a timing perspective, and whether they think the original research questions should be revised. This is a crucial step that can save everyone from wasting time and money by nipping any problems in the bud and keeping things on track.
Tip #5: Take action on the results: So often, marketing researchers and business consultants tell the story of completing a research report only to have the client just set them on the shelf to collect dust. Many companies can get off track and lose focus by the time a given research project is completed. Be sure to take action based upon your research results in order to recoup your investment. Of course, sometimes the research results might recommend your not moving into a business channel or product category after all, in which case the best action of all is to purposefully take no action.
Taking the right steps in organizing and implementing your marketing research project can mean the difference between meaningful business results and wasted effort. Thoughtful and wise planning can be good for the project and good for your business.
By: Everett Maclachlan
About the Author:
Marketing your small business? Download your FREE copy of our book, “The Anatomy of a Winning Brand,” at: http://www.jcjinteractive.com
