4 Essential Questions Your Market Research Should Always Answer

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by Jacob Solomon Mar 20, 2023 News
4 Essential Questions Your Market Research Should Always Answer

Contributors' opinions are their own.

Almost 50 percent of small businesses fail after five years, and most of us are running small businesses. Money running out, bad partnerships, ineffective marketing, and being in the wrong market are some of the reasons why businesses fail.

If you do the proper marketing research at the beginning, most of this can be avoided. The quicker you learn, the less likely you will engage in ineffective marketing or marketing to the wrong consumers. Understanding how to conduct market research is important, but it's just as important to understand what information to look for and how to use it to build a successful strategy.

You need to start your research with a goal in mind. If you want to build a plan to keep your small business thriving, you need to ask questions.

Entrepreneurs are able to conduct primary market research.

1. Who is my customer, really?

Small business owners launch and build companies around their ideal customers. Over time, your actual customers may have changed their minds.

If you're still trying to shape your brand value and marketing around the original customer, your business won't work.

Market research helps us fight this by giving us honest insight into the people we serve.

Adding questions to your market research will help you learn more about your customers.

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Geographic location
  • Marital status
  • Parenting status
  • Job Title
  • Household Income

Do you want your business to succeed? You can use these tips to understand your customer.

At the intersection of what a business owner thinks is best for the customer and the customer's own perception of what they need, failure occurs.

It's too easy for us, as business owners and experts in our field, to get wrapped up in what our customers should know or what they need. It will cause trouble for our businesses if we know the best thing to do.

The solution is to use your regular market research to find out what your customers want from your brand. The bottom line is that this information will help your company in many ways.

Asking your customer to identify their pain points is one way to do that.

  • What kind of content are you consuming on social media right now?
  • How are you using product X in your own life?
  • What features do you wish our company had for you?
  • What is our competition doing that you really love? Or dislike?

There are a number of ways to do market research for your business plan.

3. What does the customer really want to hear?

The success or failure of our marketing efforts will be determined by how we make our customers feel. Is it connected or confused? Are you interested or Bored? Language is important in every medium.

Market research allows us to identify patterns in how our customers communicate and also to learn what words or turns of phrases spark their interest right now. We need to know how our customers like to communicate. If your thoughtful communications get any attention, it's because of TikTok or text over email.

Ask your audience what they think about market research.

  • What words from this list do you associate with our brand?
  • What words from this list best describe you?
  • What companies are holding your attention on social media right now?
  • How do you like brands to communicate with you?

Did your customers really buy from you?

4. What's trending in my industry that I should be paying more attention to?

To get the most out of market research, you need to dig deep into your own system and come back to the table with a good idea of what's working. We don't know what those things are. We don't ask many questions.

Current customers have the power to open your eyes to industry trends and other things that you should be considering more thoroughly. Ask them something.

  • Who is your favorite company that does X?
  • What makes that company special?
  • What about that company makes you watch or purchase?

We should use market research in our companies no matter how large or small they are. If we ask the right questions and get the feedback we need, we can make changes to our marketing, operations, and more.