Doing Market Research -- Questions

6 replies
Hey everyone,

I'm curious if anyone could share some advice on how to complete quality market research. We have several projects in our pipeline, but are unsure of which ones are worth completing, and which ones we should devote out resources too. All of these projects are quite large, and will require a good investment of time & money. I should note, we'll be targeting offline businesses (hotels, restaurants, travel agents, realtors, etc.).

My question is, how do we go about doing the market research, helping us choose which project(s) to undertake, and which one we should take on first? Are there firms available that will cold-call businesses for you, asking them to answer a few questions regarding their operations? If so, is that the best way forward? Or how do we go about it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
#market #questions #research
  • Profile picture of the author excuzemee
    hire some girls with cute bubbly , friendly voices and have them call and ask all sorts of questions.



    just pick one and go for it. then do the next one. then do the next one. then do the next one.

    what kind of research? as in: is what your market wants? or: is there a market for _____ product/service?

    get a girl on the phone for a week, and you'll have more than you need.
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    Ask all the questions you want, but in the end they will all be answered by just doing it!... Get to work!

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  • Profile picture of the author vstar00
    Set up the sales page with an order form. Send some traffic to it. See how many people click order. (tell them its under repair or out of stock and capture an email) Determine the revenue you would have made. Subtract the cost for the traffic. Decide if the traffic is scalable. Determine your estimated profit. Make a decision.
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    • Profile picture of the author deus ex
      Originally Posted by vstar00 View Post

      Set up the sales page with an order form. Send some traffic to it. See how many people click order. (tell them its under repair or out of stock and capture an email) Determine the revenue you would have made. Subtract the cost for the traffic. Decide if the traffic is scalable. Determine your estimated profit. Make a decision.
      Great idea - the other one is to do the girl focus group idea which DEFINITELY works. Add a giveaway also and you'll be good
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve MacLellan
    Make a list of businesses that are already using a similar product or service. Break the list down into three sections, chains, affluent privately owned, road-side/Mom & Pop...

    Try to create a list of 20 or so of each that you can personally visit. If your idea is advertising related, try to find out before-hand who in the company makes the buying decisions. Drop by and ask for this person. Don't call, don't email, don't fax -- drop by and talk. Tell him/her the truth. Example: "I am planning on starting a business that could be beneficial to businesses like yours. I am not here to sell you anything. I'd just like to run some ideas by you so I can complete my market research."

    You will get a mixed response. All of them may seem a little relieved they are not dealing with a sales person, trying to sell them something. Some of them will spare you a few minutes. And you will learn something. For example ( I don't know this, but just for the sake of argument) the advertising executive for major chains may tell you that all of their advertising and ad distribution is supplied by the parent company for which they currently pay $X.xx per moth for. They may also have been a clause in their contract they they are not allowed to purchase advertising out-side of the parent company.

    Somewhere in your interviewing process you are going to find a niche that is open to your ideas. And don't forget to price the job. You would say something like this "How much would you expect to pay for this type of service?" And then you might say something like, "Great, thank you very much for your time. Just one final question, if you don't mind. If after we compile our data and decide it warrants a test run, would you be willing to try it out free for a month? You would be under no obligation to continue with our paid service, but this would help us learn how to refine our offer."

    Some will say no, some will say yes. If you're asking the right niche, you might get one out of three that will say yes -- only if you have presented yourself very professionally.

    So now you know which niche of your target market is open to your offer, what they are willing to pay, and more importantly that they will consider giving you a piece of the pie.

    When everything is put together, and you go back to contact the ones that said yes, it's quite possible that some of them will change their minds and say no, but you will be left with a segment of the market that you can test. Providing your test is successful and the company has actually benefited from your product and service, they will likely be more than happy to sign up for your paid offering.

    But you also can't rule out the ones that said no. No doesn't necessarily mean "NO, NEVER!!" -- it's quite possible that no means maybe later, or let's see how this thing rolls first. Business people in these niches talk among themselves, and if they learn company X is prospering from your offering, they may be just waiting for another call from you. I have personally re-visited businesses over a dozen times where I got a "no" before I got a yes. It's all about building relationships.

    If they LIKE you, and if they have a need or want for your offering, they will buy from you. If they don't like you, they will buy it someplace else, regardless of how good your offer is.

    One other thing. You have to know how to ask for the sale, and be willing to ask for the sale. You could be the greatest guy in the world, but if you don't ask for the sale, you won't get it.

    Best Regards,
    Steve MacLellan
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    • Profile picture of the author Jack Duncan
      IceMan2010,
      Two suggestions for you that should be a big help.

      First, someone who has "carved" a niche for themselves in the Market Research intelligence field is Glenn Livingston. He has a full course that is extremely comprehensive and will walk you through each step he uses to make sure the market is going to "bite" your offer.

      He was a professional market research consultant for large companies before coming "over" to the IM space.

      He also has a ton a free stuff that can get you pointed in the right direction.

      Just Google his name and "marketing" and you can see some of his materials.

      Secondly, it's a little hard to know for sure how to best approach market research for your projects without knowing a little more of your business model and marketing strategy...

      I usually start by doing a "Question Scrape" to just get an idea of what kind of questions (needs) are being asked. I pay close attention to VOLUME as well...when you find thousands of people asking the same questions you are usually on to something.

      Next, you want to start with some thorough keyword research.

      Keywords are the language that your market uses when searching for solutions.

      Once you have a solid list...go to the 50,000 ft. level and try to find the most common themes within the data.

      Create tight keyword groups and start surveying (separate surveys) to find out the wants, needs, desires, frustrations, and innovations that each group expresses.

      At this point, you should have a really good feel for which groups of people are really your target audience (assuming one actually exists).

      Glenn recommends that you take this data and have a statistician do a CHAID analysis to find out what the data is really "telling you"...

      That's the very basic outline.

      Obviously, this is a bit of an oversimplification...and there are "100 ways to skin a cat"....but this is a basic "skeleton" that you can "flesh out" well.

      Hope this helps,
      Jack Duncan
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      • Profile picture of the author Devid Farah
        Hi Iceman2010!
        My advices on how to complete a great quality market research are:

        1)
        Clickbank- Look at the products that sell well in a niche

        2) "Spy" your Competitors - learn for example, which keywords they're using for Search Engine Optimization

        3) you can read magazines and newspapers and discover what people are interested in!

        4) Yahoo Answers- find problems people need to solve!

        5) Amazon- take a look at the products that have a great number of reviews!


        Best of luck!
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