Market Research - Essential for Success

Market Research; Essential for Success

Abstract

Market research is defined as the "process of gathering data on goods and services to determine whether the product or service will satisfy customers' needs." Market research is an essential step for developing a successful marketing strategy. Small and large business alike must devote resources to this powerful, crucial tool in order to be a positive contributor to economic growth. It is key to define the scope of your potential business and potential market before beginning your market research.

Discussion

The potential market for your products or services are the business and or consumers who is willing to purchase what you have to sell. The scope of your potential business will include decisions such as what you're going to sell and to whom. For example, if you want to open an ice-cream store, you will need to decide if you will only sell ice-cream cones or if you want to make ice-cream cakes and pies too. You will need to decide if you will sell only to walk-in consumers or do you want to supply to some of the local restaurants such as Mad Hatters, who sell locally made sweet treats, or both. Then you will need to determine why a consumer or business would buy from you, what is your niche? Do you have a unique product such as hand-made one of a kind flavors not found in stores or any other ice-cream shop here in San Antonio? Do you provide the absolute most fantastic service, making customers your number one priority? Are your prices lower than your competitors without sacrificing quality? Is your location such that you get a lot of foot traffic? What is it about your business that makes you stand out from competitors? These are the areas that market research will help make better decisions.

There are a variety of resources available to conduct market research. The U.S. Census Bureau, Small Business Association, and your local chamber of commerce are valuable sources for demographic information and can be very valuable in helping deciding location for your business. SizeUp is a tool that was released by the SBA last September that is proving to be very helpful. A business's industry and city can be input and SizeUp will map out the competition, highlighting areas with high competition in orange and areas with a lot of potential customers but few competitors in green. SizeUp will also give you information on competitors prices and performance as well as help you determine the best channels through which to advertise. Filters are available to help you target specific audiences such as by income level.

Conducting primary research that is specific to your particular business as well as to your particular target market of customers can be