By Jerome Williams

Common Sense Management Consulting, LLC

No matter how good your product and your service, it is difficult to succeed without effective marketing. This begins with careful, systematic research. It is dangerous to assume that you already know about your intended market. To make sure you’re on track, do market research.

There are a number of ways to conduct market research. You can gather your own data about your market and your industry, or you can buy research data from professional sources. There are advantages and challenges to both. Here are some cost effective ways to conduct your own market research.

If you’re opening a store front business, a retail establishment or a restaurant, you can do your own traffic count at your intended location. The Florida State Department of Transportation also has traffic and population data available for urbanized areas in Florida. You can access this information free of charge. To identify competitors in the area, take a walking or riding tour through the surrounding neighborhoods.

Use the internet to do a business search by zip codes. The zip code search will reveal most business listings in a given zip code area.

Create your own survey or focus-group interview. This is an excellent way to learn about consumer preferences. Survey Monkey – www.surveymonkey.com – allows you to create your own surveys for free, with a nominal charge for additional services.

Search published information such as industry profiles, trade journals, newspapers, magazines, census data, and demographic profiles. You can access some of this material at your public library. Try using White Papers and social media sites such as Facebook and Linkedin to gather information about your market.

Identify your targeted customers, their characteristics, and their geographic locations. You may have more than one customer group. Identify the most important groups. Then, for each customer group, construct a demographic profile. The profile should include factors such as age group, gender, income level or spending habits. Even if you are selling products or services to everyone, it is important to determine, as best you can, who is most likely to use your products (or services).

Check with the Better Business Bureau to get an idea of how customers see your competitors. Don’t forget to include at least one on line vendor, if one exists in your industry. Some may offer better pricing, but lack the personal and expedient customer service (How many buttons do you have to push before getting a live person, or one who isn’t reading from a script?).

Lastly, review all the information you have collected, and decide a plan of action. Establish priorities. Write a summary of what you’ve discovered and how you plan to address it.

Use Market Research as a tool to develop a Marketing Plan for your business. Keep the plan handy. You may want to go back and make changes as you gradually implement (or not) some of its elements. Market Research, along with a Marketing Plan, will help you maintain and grow your business.

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