Set marketing research goals and knock them out one by one.
When performing marketing research, there are some valuable tips, tricks, and other factors to consider to make the research process successful.
In college, you studied all about creating successful marketing plans in today’s data-driven world. When you stood there in your cap and gown, you felt like you knew everything there was to know about marketing. You were confident that no matter where you ended up, in terms of a job, you’d excel in the marketing field. Fast forward eight years, and you’re currently sitting in the office of your CEO, looking at a graph that shows a steady decline in sales over the past three years and listening to him plead with you to try something new. College didn’t prepare you for this.
With all due respect to the textbooks, tests, and group projects you were a part of in college, those classes cannot prepare future marketers for things such as economical factors. They don’t prepare you for declining population trends. They can’t adequately prepare you for real-life branding issues. When the lines on the sales graphs and tables start to point downward, it’s time to take a serious look at how you can revitalize your marketing environment to better meet the needs of prospective clients and what it is you can do to help get your company back on track.
Marketing Research Tips and Tricks for Marketers to Follow
Some of the best marketing research tips and tricks involve stepping outside of your comfort zone. Perhaps, you have gotten comfortable with your regularly scheduled ads in the local newspaper and on the radio, and you’ve dabbled in the world of social media. But are those ads really working for you? How do you find out? Some key tips and tricks for researching what’s working to draw in potential clients:
- Customer Satisfaction Survey – Survey your current customers. See what they like about your business, what they might suggest you improve, what issues they have with product placement or other experiences within your business. Ask them how they currently get their information and what they value most when it comes to selecting a particular product or service.
- SWOT Analysis – Get your marketing team together with your sales and customer service reps and anyone else within your business that could offer some valuable insight, sit down together and construct a list of your company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
- Analyze your current market – Find out if the market you’re currently gearing your marketing towards continues to be the right demographic. Do some simple online research regarding what groups of people are gravitating towards the types of products and services you provide.
- Task force – Just as you pulled your team together for SWOT analysis, make your marketing research a team effort. Different skill sets can often benefit you exponentially. Use those skills to assist you throughout your marketing research.
- Boldly apply the results – Too often marketers pour all their energy into the research itself, and that’s great throughout the research process. However, once you have results, the next and most important step is to put those results into play as part of a new, more effective marketing plan.
Factors Affecting Marketing Research
What factors do you need to consider when performing marketing research?
- Figuring out what it is you hope to achieve through your research. There’s not much point putting forth the time and energy if you don’t have an attainable goal in mind.
- Putting a plan in place to successfully perform your research without being a hindrance to your current client base.
- Budgets. Budgets. Budgets. Your research will involve some costs if you want it to be successful. Have a budget in mind and money set aside for the purpose of your research.
Other Marketing Research Considerations
Not everyone has been in the marketing field for nearly a decade. For those who are trying to figure out how to conduct market research for a new business, there are additional considerations to make. For a new business, you’re starting from scratch without the benefits of experience to help you move forward through your research. There’s only the new and the fear of the unknown. For a new business, there won’t be a current client base to work with at all, and the demographic being served will be a big part of that initial research. When performing new business marketing research, gear your research towards what other businesses like yours are doing successfully.
Whether you’re marketing a brand new business or are wondering why your college marketing experiences from nearly a decade ago are failing you in the business world today, having the right mindset when delving into the world of marketing research is what’s most important. Know your aspirations from the beginning and keep them in mind throughout the entire research process. Most importantly, be prepared to implement new strategies from the results of your research.
