How you do research

How to Do Market Research--The Basics



When you conduct marketing research, you can use the results either to create a business and marketing plan or to measure the success of your current plan. That's why it's important to ask the right questions, in the right way, of the right people. Research, done poorly, can steer a business in the wrong direction. Here are some market-research basics that can help get you started and some mistakes to avoid.

Types of Market Research
Primary Research: The goal of primary research is to gather data from analyzing current sales and the effectiveness of current practices. Primary research also takes competitors' plans into account, giving you information about your competition.

Collecting primary research can include:



Interviews (either by telephone or face-to-face)
Surveys (online or by mail)
Questionnaires (online or by mail)
Focus groups gathering a sampling of potential clients or customers and getting their direct feedback
Some important questions might include:

What factors do you consider when purchasing this product or service?
What do you like or dislike about current products or services currently on the market?
What areas would you suggest for improvement?
What is the appropriate price for a product or service?
Secondary Research: The goal of secondary research is to analyze data that has already been published. With secondary data, you can identify competitors, establish benchmarks and identify target segments. Your segments are the people who fall into your targeted demographic--people who live a certain lifestyle, exhibit particular behavioral patterns or fall into a predetermined age group.

Collecting Data
No small business can succeed without understanding its customers, its products and services, and the market in general. Competition is often fierce, and operating without conducting research may give your competitors an advantage over you.

There are two categories of data collection: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative methods employ mathematical analysis and require a large sample size. The results of this data shed light on statistically significant differences. One place to find quantitative results if you have a website is in your web analytics (available in Google's suite of tools). This information can help you determine many things, such as where your leads are coming from, how long visitors are staying on your site and from which page they are exiting.

Qualitative methods help you develop and fine-tune your quantitative research methods. They can help business owners define problems and often use interview methods to learn about customers' opinions, values and beliefs. With qualitative research, the sample size is usually small.

Many new business owners, often strapped for time and money, may take shortcuts that can later backfire. Here are three pitfalls to avoid.

Common Marketing Mistakes

Using only secondary research. Relying on the published work of others doesn't give you the full picture. It can be a great place to start, of course, but the information you get from secondary research can be outdated. You can miss out on other factors relevant to your business.
Using only web resources. When you use common search engines to gather information, you get only data that are available to everyone and it may not be fully accurate. To perform deeper searches while staying within your budget, use the resources at your local library, college campus or small-business center.
Surveying only the people you know. Small-business owners sometimes interview only family members and close colleagues when conducting research, but friends and family are often not the best survey subjects. To get the most useful and accurate information, you need to talk to real customers about their needs, wants and expectations.

I prefer to do my research at the public library. I find that the information there is much more thorough, reliable, and trustworthy.

Just because you read it on the internet doesn't mean it's true.

Terra

Good place to ask about copywriting terms and techniques: the Copywriting subforum!!

From a highly experienced writer...

http://www.warriorforum.com/copywrit...is-method.html


You probably can't get all the research data you need from online sources. That's a pleasant fairy tale.

You'll likely have to get out there and mix it up in the real world with your target market. Rick, and I, often do the job--the salesperson job, usually--for a week or two, fully immersing ourselves in the world so we can hear for ourselves the pain points, language, and happy dance noises that buyer makes.

The Best Tool For Research is Google Adword Tool , You Can See the Amount of Searchers Every Month about the Niche You Wanna Promote

Really depends on what you're after, bud.

For keywords, the AdWords tool is pretty accurate.

For competitor analysis, Ahrefs or SEMRush, but those are pricey if you're doing anything intensive.

For rankings, SERPLab.

For content research, you can get extensions to help you analyse pages.

For general research, good old Google, as well as Warrior and Moz.

For courses, Lynda is solid.

For afflieate marking niche related sites are the key to get success. If you have a good niche site with good keywords you can easily get some sales. For this you have to do a good keyword research. I use some special tools for keyword research. Keyword Revealer is good.

the best research engine is google. i do research from this searching engine.

Google.

It's all I've ever needed.

I second Terra's recommendation: printed books are a lot more reliable for finding information than websites. A lot of market research and money goes into printing a book, so naturally publishers want to be sure they come out with a good product. And unlike blogs, books need to pass the publishing house's editors and other people before it gets out - it's like the QC of information.

Also, most people don't read printed books when doing their research, so this is a way for you to get and edge over your competition.