20 Jul Progressive Market Research How to Do It Well in 2014
Many companies today “crash and burn” for one and the same reason – their product/service doesn’t go well on their market. Large sale deficit is something that is hard to recover from. It takes a lot of financial sacrifices, hard work and engagement to overcome the losses caused by nothing more than bad research and insufficient preparations.
In order to rank their product on the market, some companies pull drastic and dangerous moves – they invest in expensive advertisements, offer large discounts on their product/service to their customers, overcrowd the market already filled with competition, etc. These are all desperate measures and should be avoided if you are planning on succeeding in your business.
So, what should you do?
In order to ensure the success and better ranking of your product on the market, you need to perform proper preparations. These preparations consist of three steps:
- Concept Testing
- Product Testing
- Market Research
So let’s take some time to elaborate on them.
Concept Testing – Testing the idea
It is hard to invent something new. There is already a great diversity of products and services that are there to satisfy even the most meaningless issues in the consumer world. For instance, the shopping bag holder – a rather meaningless product that was invented for people who don’t want to hurt their hands while carrying shopping bags.
The thing you need to focus on is diversity. What is it that you are offering that is different from other similar products/services done by the competition? Test your idea for the product from the consumer’s point of view. Some ideas take much time to be carefully evaluated and completely understood before you can bring them to life. It is best that you acknowledge the feedback from your potential customers and improve the idea with the results given.
Product Testing – Efficiency, design, cost and customer feedback
Before presenting your product to the market, it is advised to test it on at least two small groups of customers. This kind of testing has proved to be the most efficient way to learn more in order to improve and perfect your product.
It is done very simple. Present the product to the two test groups, each with small modifications in design. During its testing period, ask the test groups to carefully fill out the survey you have given to them and to add their personal impression of the product. The whole point of this is to find the answers to questions like:
- Is the product better in gray or blue?
- If there is a switch button on it, where should it be placed – left, right, on top or on the back of it?
- Is the price affordable and in balance with the product quality?
With the gathered results, you can apply additional improvements to your product and prepare the final version for its market release.
Market research – Target and build your audience
It is important to know the market you are presenting your product to. You cannot just rush in with your product onto a market that is overcrowded with similar products. It will be much harder to segment your potential customers from the crowd and focus your sales.
Conducting local surveys of the specific market is the basic way of achieving this. However, due to the effect that social media has on the market itself today, it became easy to harvest their potential.
Social media presents a powerful asset to your marketing arsenal. People often communicate and discuss their points of interest over social networks. If a great deal of people gave positive feedback concerning your brand, their friends and followers will most certainly notice that. For example, if the people you are following on Twitter are following a certain brand, you will most likely check out the brand yourself and at some point, even become their customer, am I right? But be careful.
If you are building your brand over social media, be mindful and use it naturally. The point of a social media campaign is to communicate and build your target audience of potential consumers, not to buy them off with various giveaways and prizes. The people want to know that they can rely on you. Instead of quantity, you should focus more on quality and the engagement of the community.
Communicate with your followers, engage in discussions, acknowledge their feedback and educate them about your product. This way, you will not only promote your product, but also create a powerful community and a filtered list of targeted audiences.
