We would all love to believe that everything we do and everything we sell is simply perfect.  But the reality is, not everyone is going to agree with your choice of packaging, advertisement layout, proposed doll accessories or pricing structure of the next plush range of puppies you want to launch. 

Market research is a way to get feedback from your customer, improve from constructive criticism and it is also another way to stay connected with what your customer really wants, not just what you think they want.

So, egos aside, what can you do today get honest feedback before you waste thousands of dollars on running changes, learn more about what your customers are honestly looking for and stay ahead of the competition?

Market Research

How much you want to spend and how many tactics you choose to implement comes down to budget restraints.  You can outsource your market research.  But for smaller companies, or companies that are yet to decide if it’s even worth pushing ahead with a proposed product or service, outsourcing is not always a viable option.

Three easy to implement techniques highlighted below are accessible to all companies to utilise as a research tool.   These include a live focus group, online survey and online review panel.  Findings from these suggestions will instantly reveal if you are on the right track or not and if more formalized research is worth investing in.

Live focus group

These focus groups are great for getting some feedback on a product when it is still in the development cycle.  They are also useful for running through new systems you want to introduce, such as customer service procedures.  To conduct:

• Invite a roomful of your target market (run over several sessions if possible)
• Use existing contacts, colleagues partners, friends of friends to pass invitation for focus group participation
• Prepare material you want assessed, i.e. packaging, product, materials, collateral, story boards
• Prepare questions that are easily answered objectively
• Practice presenting material and asking questions with a colleague.  This will give you an indication of the flow of the focus group, if it is better to have taped discussion group versus one-on-one interviews
• Run the focus group
• Collate results into spreadsheet
• Analyse findings
• Clearly establish what you learnt, what the recommendations are and the next imminent steps before this products goes to the next level
• Communicate to all parties involved in the new product/systems development cycle

Online survey

Online surveys are useful for collating factual data such as ages, demographic, social status, number of children, income, etc. They can also be useful for questions that people prefer to answer anonymously.  They are not ideal for research that requires people to touch, feel and experience a product in order to submit valid comments, but they are definitely suitable as a follow up survey to understand if your customers were happy with the product and service they recently experienced.  To conduct:

• Prepare questions
• Prepare database to send questions to
• Establish incentive for participation
• Consider affordable online survey tools, such as survey monkey, that will automatically summarise results

Online review panel

This strategy combines the effectiveness of word-of-mouth recommendations with the power of online.  It is perfect for researching what customers think of a finished product, or how easy the instructions are, etc.  This technique enables you to use the comments as valuable market feedback as well as feedback that can be posted publicly to educate other customers virally from a third party viewpoint.  While this activity can also be outsourced to a larger audience, there is a way you can implement yourself.  For example:

• Do a call out asking for a certain number of people in your target market to participate
• In return for testing the product, they can keep the product
• Successful applicants will receive a product as well as a list of questions to answer after using it
• Questionnaires are returned to the company to act on recommendations and feedback
• Comments, if chosen, can be posted on product review sites or on the company website. For example, “This is what our customers have to say about this product”.
• The research is effective for the company as well as future customers that prefer to know more about what real customer are saying about your product