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The value of marketing research

ladywithpiechart.jpgBusinesses devote a large portion of their assets to marketing.Marketing is all about reaching the right people (meaning the people who already have or are most likely to make a purchase from you) and presenting them with a product that fulfills a need or satisfies a want.But getting to the right people can often be difficult as there are billions of consumers and millions of transactions occurring every day.There is a lot of psychology involved in finding just the right places and mediums to reach your market, and even then, there are variables that you can never fully account for.Your goal is to find as many common denominator characteristics as possible when it comes to your target market and market research can do just that.

Conducting market research through customer surveys is the best way of getting answers directly from the target market.Furthermore, when you construct a survey, you can word your questions exactly as you would like to have them asked.This gives you practically limitless options when it comes to pinpointing exactly which variable in the market or with your product that you would like to learn more about.Market research can consume a good deal of resources as you must pay for the services of a market research firm as well as compensate the customer for their time and willingness to give you the information that you need to better market your business.Market research may not be a viable option for everyone.

Many times when marketing is done on a smaller scale, there is a period when the product is released to a limited group before a more wide spread release is made.It is at these introductory releases of the product that many opportunities for customer feedback exist.In controlled scenarios like this one when you are in charge of distributing your product to a specific group of individuals, you can control your entire sample by asking these individuals survey questions.You can then use your customer surveys to find areas for improvement on your specific product.Not only will you be reaching your exact target market, but you can also ask that target market about their suggestions for your product.The consumer is willing to participate because either they see the value in having their opinions heard or there is some sort of monetary or material incentive given.

Customer surveys come in many different forms.Some are done over the phone, some are done by mail, and some are even done while you are at the checkout stand.The idea behind conducting a marketing research questionnaire is that every question that you ask gives you as much information as possible. You only have so much time that your customer is going to be willing to give you.For example, you can get more information by asking questions where ranges and ratings are commonly used.A range gives you as the marketer a better idea of exactly where your customer's opinions are (which, for example, would not be the case in a yes or no question).One of the best questions that you can ask in a customer survey is for points of interest or concerns that you may not have addressed in the survey.This is commonly referred to as an open-ended question.In an open-ended question, you allow the customer to say whatever he or she wishes.These open-ended questions are valuable because they can uncover issues or problems with your product or service that you may not have known about (and therefore may not have included in the survey).

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