Tips for discovering what, how, when and why your customers buy

One of the most important benefits of market research is discovering what, how, when and why your customers buy. By discovering this wealth of information about your customers you are going to be able to figure out better ways to serve your customers wants and needs. The best way to discover what, how, when and why your customers buy is by conducting some market research. By conducting market research you are going to be able to gather all of the information that you need about your customers and your potential market, this will give you the upper hand when creating your marketing and business plan.

Another great way to discover what, how, when and why your customers buy is to stay current with the trends in businesses. This information is actually easily obtainable and can provide you with patterns to customer's behavior. There are many companies out there who specialize in buying trends and for a fee you can gain access to the information that they have.

Regardless of how you are going to go about discovering what, when, how and why your customers buy you need to keep in mind that the more research that you do the more accurate your information will be. Also the more techniques and resources that you use the more information you will be able to obtain. And by obtaining a large amount of information you will be able to better plan your business to meet your customer's needs.

Here are some tips for conducting market research to discover what, how, when and why your customers buy.

Tip one:
One of the best ways to conduct market research to find out about your customers is to look online at various websites to see what kinds of trends are going on in your industry, and other industries. This will give you information about what potential customers are buying, when they spend the most money buying these products and why they buy these products. Other places to learn about these types of trends are from other business owners, local chamber or commerce, business associations and marketing research firms.

Tip two:
Another great way to find out information about your customers is through customer surveys. These surveys can be aimed at customer satisfaction or about products or services that your company offers. Other types of surveys can include things your customers have bought in the past, why they bought them, etc. You can create the surveys yourself and use direct mailing marketing to reach your customers, you can conduct face to face interviews in malls or shopping centers, or you can email the surveys. Another option when it comes to surveys is to contact survey companies, they can reach a large number of potential customers quickly which can provide you with a vast amount of information, some survey companies will create the surveys, where as with others you will have to supply them with the survey. You can also contact survey companies for general profiles of your customers to see what, when, how and why they buy. When doing surveys remember to keep the surveys short and to the point, customers tend to answer surveys that take the least amount of time.

Tip three:
Another great resource for finding out information about your customers is through universities. Almost all universities have a School of Business where professors specialize in market research and many times you can contact them about customer's buying habits or even borrow students to perform market research for your company for free.