Researching your market is essential to the success of any business venture. Conduct market research to determine the needs and wants of your market, then design products and services that address those needs.
Market research can be done in many ways. Knowing what type of market research you need to conduct will depend on your market. When market researching, it is important to know who you are marketing to before coming up with a plan for your company. Your market may be small businesses or individuals with families. The market research process also includes defining what makes this product/service unique and how it will make them better than their competitors. The first step in market research is finding out who your potential customers are and where they can be found-is it through market advertising, market promotions or market public relations?
Methods of market research can include surveys, focus groups and market analysis. Another up and coming method to include is using some kind of simple proxy browser extension that allows you to view the internet from the location you are researching. Unless you are physically in the location you are researching, ads and search results will not be the same as someone in your target market. By using a proxy network, this problem an easily be overcome without needing to change your location physically. A local IP that you pay a few cents to use solves this issue. Market research is typically done to discover the nature of a market for new products or services, current market trends or customer buying patterns. Other potential uses for market research are predicting demographic need changes to better serve your future customers and comparing different marketing plans. Market research should be conducted throughout the lifetime of your company to make sure you are still meeting the needs of your market correctly. Never stop market researching by keeping up with trends in technology and demographics-they change frequently.
Further Reading:
12 Tips For Better Market Research