Posts Tagged ‘market research’
Monitoring online buzz is like reverse market research. Instead of asking people what they think in a survey or focus group, you read what they’re saying online in blogs, article comments, posts made to forums and places like Twitter and Facebook. It’s eavesdropping on public conversations.
In the old days there were clipping services. Now there are amazing tools that gather and capture the relevant information you want about your company, your brands, your competitors and even individual people. At any given moment there are millions of conversations happening online. They may be brief, but they’re happening nevertheless. Tuning in to this ongoing dialog and focusing on conversations specifically about your business or brand can offer a wealth of insight into your customers’ mindsets.
Why monitoring social media is important
1. Lead generation. More marketers are recognizing that effective lead generation isn’t about firing out the most messages. It’s about getting the right message to the right prospect at the right time, which may be after that person has already engaged in some type of social media encounter with your brand and your customers.
2. Reputation management. Keeping your finger on the pulse of what customers are saying, especially as it relates to issues, frustrations, and complaints, allows you to quickly and authentically resolve their concerns.
3. Identifying brand fans and vocal customer advocates who spread positive word-of-mouth so you can nurture these free “sales reps.”
How to monitor social media marketing
There are a number of companies that offer tools and services to make it easy to monitor what people online are saying about your brand and your competitors. Some of these tools are free, others you pay a nominal fee for. A complete list of social media monitoring tools may be found by performing a search on the keywords “social media monitoring tools.” Tweetdeck and Hubspot are two of the more popular tools available.
These social media monitoring tools are very helpful because they will save you a great deal of time and your email inbox won’t be clogged with all sorts of tweets, updates, and alerts. Instead, you’ll have a dashboard to monitor what people are saying about what matters to you most. That may be your company, your own name, your executives, your competitors, your industry or specific brand names for products or services.
Cautions about Social Media Monitoring
Social media marketing shouldn’t replace market research. Why? Because in general the people who take the time to express an opinion about a business or brand via social media are generally on one extreme or the other: they either love something enough to talk about it, or dislike it enough to complain. It’s helpful to monitor brand popularity (or lack thereof), but social media monitoring tools/services are not very helpful for understanding customer satisfaction, new product acceptance, and test marketing. They should complement, not replace more traditional market research.
Looking at developing trends can help you position your business for sale at the right time and at a higher price.
Today it’s surprising we thought it was a big breakthrough but when I wrote the first business plan to get the AOL franchise, it was considered breakthrough. That’s quite comical given that I wasn’t a great market researcher and had a zero technology bent. I just realized that you could ask questions of anybody anywhere by talking through type.
So it’s a great application of using what you know and doing it in a new way before anyone else had ever thought of it.
I think a great lesson to be learned is to be fearless in trying new things. Figure out how to hedge your risks, but then plunge forward. I wouldn’t advise diving head first into a shallow pool, but I certainly would encourage walking into a shallow pool and trying to figure out how to make best of the water.
So what is a trend spotter and what was my path to become one?
Actually, to me the word ‘trend spotting’ is anomaly. It doesn’t really apply to anything except how we go about entertaining the conversation.
I was just a sophisticated market researcher who is very good at extrapolating medium range trends – what I was seeing in society and how it was playing out numerically from survey data and our quantitative data points.
Then I would add in what I was seeing qualitatively doing journalistic interviews and ethnographic work. What was I seeing and learning that could be put to good use and every day life for business?
My objective has never been to be the kind of a crystal ball person. It’s really to build businesses; to know when to get in and when to get out.
So what I’m talking about is feet on the ground work, grabbing a lot of data from different sources and then pulling that together and connecting the dots in order to figure out what’s going on out there.
The only other piece that is really critical is timing.
Look at George Magazine, which John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Michael Berman started more than a decade ago. In those days, politics was not pop culture. It was an idea before it’s time.
If a magazine like that would have been launched around the rise of Obama culture, it would have had a very different place, much more mainstream, and the timing would have been even more right for it.
It’s medium term trending. It’s not going out too far or too far fetched.
I don’t write science fiction, and I can’t make accurate predictions about the stock market. My work is usually oriented to what’s going to happen the next 12 to 18 months from a political standpoint, from a commercial standpoint, from a consumerism standpoint, that’s going to really create business opportunity.
How did I get to do what I’m doing now?
It was a combination of having great bosses, having a lot of guts to go in and out of entrepreneurial life back into corporate life; and then really understanding how to take these ideas, the major observations that I had developed, and translate them into positive commercial events.
It sounds very multiple disciplinary.
I’m not an economist. I’m not just a hard core advertising, hard core PR person. I’m really a marketer, looking to identify a desire and how do you put product in that fulfills that desire.
Once we found our business idea is, once you know which company will be created, and we already have enough resources to do this, it is time to implement our idea.
But before installing and implementing our business, we should take our time, and take into account the following tips:
Clearly define the target market
An important requirement before starting a business, is to identify clearly what the market or target audience which will target our products or services.
Clearly define our target market will enable us to know well the needs, tastes, preferences, habits, customs and consumer behavior that constitutes, we will focus only on him, specialized in design products that meet their needs, tastes and preferences, and strategies that capitalize on their habits, customs and behaviors, thus achieving greater efficiency.
When starting our company, it is advisable to target a single type of market, i.e., focus and specialize in one type of consumer, and then as we get older, just starting to turn to other markets.
Market research
Sewn for market research to gather and analyze information about consumers who make up our target market.
Which means getting to know and analyze well your needs, tastes, preferences, habits, customs, behaviors, and other characteristics?
Good research will allow us to design the product that best suits their needs, identifying the most appropriate price for them, establish sales channels more accessible to it, design the advertising message may have their greatest impact, etc.
Test the product or service
Before investing time and money in building our company, we recommend pilot testing to help us evaluate whether the product or service that we offer have a good acceptance.
To do this, we can invite some people to try or taste our product, we can put a small stand of gestation, we can install a small stall, and we can let our products on commission in another business.
The test our product or service before its launch, we will know if they really have a good host will tell us that we are making mistakes, we will take corrective action.
Analyze competition
Before starting a business, we collect and analyze information about our future competitors.
We collect information about how many, where they are located, what are the leaders, what their markets, what are their products, what prices, what are their strategies, what is your experience, what are its advantages, what are its disadvantages , etc.
To do this, you can visit their premises, purchase products, testing services, interview people who work or have worked with them, to interview some of its customers, etc.
Make a good competitive analysis will allow us to make better decisions and design strategies that allow us to exploit their weaknesses and to address their strengths.
Make a business plan
Another important tip to consider before starting a business is to develop a good business plan.
In a business plan will establish our objectives, means and strategies that will enable us to achieve these objectives, the resources they need, the processes we use, our projections of expenses, etc.
All of which will establish the feasibility of our project, the investment required, the potential profitability of the company, will guide us to build and manage our business, we will minimize the risk, and allow us to make better decisions and be more efficient.
Spare no expense
By creating our company, we must ensure that investment is the smallest possible, looking for lower costs or expenses, for example, to take our time to choose the supplies or equipment of the company, or who will choose the right suppliers.
However, low rates of investment should not mean neglecting the quality of inputs or products to buy, not to the point of projecting the image of austere company, for example, widely used to buy equipment, or having poor decoration.
Whenever we start a new company must give the image of a thriving company with a good future, we must consider what it calls poor, and that consumers will not buy from companies like austere.
Avoid debt
By creating a company, it is advisable that the total investment, or at least most of it, is made up of equity.
It is advisable to take debt as quickly, but to start with equity, then, as the business grows begin acquiring new debt that will allow us to grow it further.
If you do not have enough money to invest, an alternative is to borrow from family or friends, but always making sure the loan amount is not excessive and that, after obtaining the money, we are not going to feel so depressed at having to return on a deadline.
Have an emergency budget
When starting a business, it is common that expenditure always end up being higher than budgeted, i.e., in the end the investment required, because some costs or hidden fees or contingent, always end up being higher than originally estimated.
As a council before starting a business, is that when preparing our budgets, always reserve a small emergency capital, which can be used for any eventuality, unexpected or inconvenient.
Beware of companies
If we consider having a partner to build our business, we must try to find partners that are complementary to us, who have skills or to provide something we do not have, for example, financial resources, market knowledge, business contacts, experience or knowledge a particular item of business, etc.
We also seek partners that have the same aspirations for growth that we who are as motivated as us to create and bring up the company.
On the other hand, we also have to be careful in society, we must make clear, preferably in writing, all agreements and measures to be taken for any eventuality, for example, will split the profits, which will be functions each, what measures were taken in the event that one partner decides to withdraw, etc.
Patience
The last advice to consider before starting a business, is patience.
Patience means being able to create a business is not easy, but rather a complex, full of obstacles, uncertainties and drawbacks.
Patience also means knowing that success does not come at any moment, but something that takes time to achieve, and requires hard work, effort and dedication.
Patience also means going slowly, slowly, starting small, but projected on grade, started selling a few types of products, comprising a few types of markets, and then little by little they grow up.
There are two strategies you can use to market your small business: (1) Market Research; and (2) Target Marketing.
Let’s focus on market research so you would have a better understanding of this strategy.
Market Research
Having a market research is a great help for small businesses as it provides you information on what your industry is about, as well as what your prospects are looking for that is still not being offered in the market. By knowing this information, you will be able to position yourself in a way that you will be offering exactly what your target clients are looking for. This way, you will be able to customize your marketing tools such as your poster printing or print posters into materials that generate leads every time.
Here are the questions you need to answer when market researching:
- What kind of goods and services will provide you with the most interest? Would your products and services be better off alone or offered in combinations?
- What makes you different? What is your advantage over the others? Is it the price? The quality of the product or service? Do you have faster turnaround in delivery and shipping?
- What should you highlight about your business? What are you an expert on?
- What’s your history as a business?
- Can you really compete with the rest of the businesses already in the market?
- Who is your competition? What’s their edge over you?
- Who would be most interested in what you have to offer? Who would most likely buy your product or service?
- What would be your benefits? How can you make your business more interesting and exciting in the eyes of your prospective clients?
- How do they want to respond to your marketing collaterals? More importantly, what types of marketing materials do they find interesting?
After gathering all the information you needed to answer these questions, you should then be able to determine the following details:
- What does your prospect look for? What do they need and want? Where would you be able to get more profits?
- How can you improve on what is already out there? For print posters for example, how can you make yours more interesting and effective generators of clients?
- How can you compete? How can your competition stop you from gaining success?
- How can you gain customers? How can you lose them?
- What should you do so your product offer doesn’t become outdated and outmoded?
- What are the trends in marketing that can affect your small business?
- What new ideas can you get from your research? Who can help you implement your ideas?
As a final rule when doing your market research, the information you culled from it would determine the efficiency and effectiveness of your research. When you have high quality and reliable information, you will be able to have a successful business as a result.