How much do you really know about your customers? Are they happy with your offering? Would they like to see improvements? What are your competitors doing? Is your marketing working?
These are all questions that successful businesses with a close understanding of their potential and existing customers and the marketplace they work in will be able to answer. If you can’t answer these questions with conviction then you may well be wasting resource on your current marketing strategies, losing current customers and missing out on new ones.
So there are gaps in your knowledge about your marketplace. How do you fill them? Effective market research can be the answer.
Successful market research provides market insight, either by making sense of currently available information or by asking the right questions of the right people in order to obtain relevant, actionable findings. Armed with this insight businesses can confidently make decisions about future strategy.
You might think that sounds straightforward enough, I’ll do it myself. All I need to do is ask my customers a few questions.
Talking to your current and potential customers is obviously always a good idea. However, you might find that they tell you what you want to hear so as not to offend you or brush you off because they think you are trying to sell them something. You aren’t impartial. Hiring a third party to talk to your customers will often result in more honest appraisals of your business by existing and potential customers.
Also, will you ask the right questions? Market research professionals know how to ask questions that don’t lead respondents to choose one answer over another and that produce results that mean something. If you ask the wrong questions of the wrong people you are wasting your time.
Even if you ask the right questions, what do the results mean? Are they positive, negative or indifferent? Experienced market researchers interpret survey results so that you can act on them, not just leave them gathering dust in your in-tray.
As long as you are clear about what you want to achieve market research can be a tremendously worthwhile investment, giving your business an edge in the marketplace. Remember, knowledge is power!
Based in Coventry, Austin Research and Training is an organisation dedicated to providing consulting and training in market research. For advice on your potential market research requirements contact Gary Austin at
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or call 02476 714545. Alternatively visit our website – www.austinresearch.co.uk.
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