Emily Rella
Entrepreneurship is not easy at all, and, at the time of doing it, many doubts and uncertainties arise about what is the path to follow so as not to fail. But of course, there are no right or wrong paths, but there are experiences of mistakes and successes that can inspire us to define a course as clear as possible.
That is why, in this post, we will give you some tools and tips to carry out a good market study for your venture and thus be able to minimize the risks of any startup or improve your venture that you already have set up.
What is a market study?
A market study is an investigation that will allow you to know if your business will be profitable, mainly by anticipating the public’s response to the product or service you will offer. This research is based on the current market and the collection of data from potential clients and the sector to which you will apply in general, for example, studying the competition and the regulations of the sector to which you apply, among other relevant data.
It will allow you to define your steps so that your venture is viable and successful without the need to invest a lot of money if you do not have it, since there are reliable methods that you can do yourself, without the need to hire a professional.
Why a market study, and what is it for?
It is true that you can also start your business without a previous study. Still, the reality is that, like any startup, it has its risks, and starting with market research before launching will lead you to be less likely to fail and mark the way forward for you. in a clearer and less risky way.
From the market study, you will be able to:
- Evaluate how viable and profitable your proposal is in the current market and if it needs modifications to maximize good results.
- Know the profile of your potential client so that you can then adapt your marketing strategies and your product as best as possible.
- Know your competition and arm yourself with tools to stand out in the current market and not be at a disadvantage.
- Discover new ideas to improve your product based on what already exists in the market, based on already known results obtained.
- Design a good Inbound Marketing strategy to start on the right foot, attracting customers with quality content.
How do I do a market study?
To carry out a market study on your own, it is important to have a well-defined plan, which will prevent us from wasting time and making the most of our research. That is why we share some relevant steps that cannot be missing in your strategy.
Define a goal
As a starting point, we must know why we research and what information we hope to obtain. To do this, you have to know well who the public is to which you direct your product and know the current market available for the product.
Establish research questions
A good market study must have a survey that helps you meet your objective. To do this, you have to define what questions to ask, which target you are going to direct them, and the number of people to achieve a brief and specific survey. With these results, we will know the viability of the product we offer, if it is really good and our potential public needs it. We will also know what price they expect to pay for the product, and we will get ideas to improve our initial plan. You can do a simple market study with online surveys, which you can generate with free software such as Google Forms or QuestionPro.
Research the competition
It is important to know what is available and what directly competes with our product. For this, you can analyze the social networks of the competition and see how they use them to promote their business. You can also analyze their marketing and advertising strategies on social networks and other channels. If your competition has a physical store, you can visit it as a customer, see its prices and offers its location, and see what type and number of customers it has. If you are in a sector with great leading brands, be inspired by their methodologies since they got to where they are for a reason.
Interview with experts on the subject
This resource is valuable and inexpensive. If your sector has experts in the trade of the product you want to sell, look for a way to obtain an interview with them to offer you their vision on the subject.
Define your target audience
It is important not to lose sight of the public that makes up the target market. Know the place where you will sell the product, the type of public, their economic and employment situation, their social environment. This will help you know if your business plan is on the right track and if your advertising and marketing strategies are correct for the audience, you hope to have.
Know the legal regulations of the market
Get legal advice on everything that directly affects your business; this will allow you to know if you are well-positioned and meet all the requirements without surprises once the business is set up.
Data collection and analysis
It only remains to collect the information we obtained through the different resources. Most survey platforms include the analysis of results through graphs and tables. Still, it is important that you thoroughly analyze all the results obtained and get general results and look for trends in them, such as age, genders, socioeconomic level, or any discovery that seems relevant to you.
Results
We recommend writing a detailed report with the conclusions and results that we obtained, detailing the pros and cons of our undertaking, and what proposals we have to improve and continue with the business plan, as well as what action plan we have for the future with the necessary modifications depending on the results obtained. For example, it is essential to define if we will maintain our target audience, use the marketing strategies that we had in mind, or if new ideas emerged during the investigation, the advertising channels that we will prioritize, among other things.
Conclusion
All entrepreneurship carries risks, so planning and being careful when starting a business will always be a good path to success.
Not all entrepreneurs do market research, it may be due to ignorance or lack of money, but it is clear that a large investment of money is not necessary to do it since it is possible to do your market research with few tools and a little money. of time.
Although we fully trust our product, it is clear that this is not enough to ensure success. A bad marketing strategy and a lack of knowledge of our potential client and the competition can lead us down the wrong path.
