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Making use of market research
Market research is an important aspect of marketing your products and services to the right people. The benefits of conducting market research are far-reaching and allow you to:
- Find out what you need to know to expand your business into new areas, whether geographical or product-based
- Determine which methods for marketing are the best ways to reach your customers
- Understand what products or websites your customers and potential customers are using that you can market to them from
- Learn more about your competitors and how to market your services in a different way
- Save money and time by marketing to groups who are most likely to be interested in your products
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There are many different ways you can gather market research. Some of these include:
- Professional services that gather and analyze research for your company
- Calling people or companies on the phone
- Speaking to potential customers face to face
- Sending emails
- Send surveys, letters, or questionnaires
Make sure the data is specific enough.
It's difficult to make proper use of market research if the data that you collect is not specific enough to help you. For example, let's say you have a business in a suburb of Mesa, Arizona. Gathering data on the demographics of all of Arizona will not be as helpful to you as it would be to gather specific data from the area you are doing business in. Or, if you have an Internet business, it would be more useful to gather data from a younger population that uses the Internet than say, senior citizens. Don't just gather data from everyone; focus more on the people and groups who are most likely to benefit from your services, and then narrow it down from there.
Act on the information you gather.
Let's say you have a cleaning business and spend a week making phone calls to residences and doing phone surveys to find out what people are looking for a cleaning service. You find from your surveys that those who are most likely to employ a cleaning service are those with young children or working mothers.
Once you have this information, you can then make use of it by directing your marketing efforts to parents of young children or working mothers.
Use your research to develop a niche market.
A niche market is a focused portion of an entire market. Having a niche for your business helps you to better focus your marketing efforts and will also help to separate you from your competition. If your business is a catering business, for example, you can focus your marketing and have better success if you choose one aspect of catering to concentrate you efforts on, such as business meetings or parties.
Your market research can be used to help you find a niche. Market research about your competitors is particularly helpful. If you find that most of your competitors cater weddings but very few specialize in children's parties, you can make a niche for birthday or graduation parties for kids.
Market research is very beneficial for targeting your marketing efforts and helping you to know the best ways to market your business.
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