How To Do Market Research & Why It Can Make or Break Your Business
Market research is a part of the product development process during which you gather information about the consumers’ needs and preferences. It’s a key component of your marketing strategy that can help you maintain your competitive advantage. If your market research is thorough, you will establish a target market for your product. You can conduct market research in-house or you can hire a third party that specializes in the process.
However, when you come up with a great product idea, a lot of entrepreneurs can get caught up in the excitement and jump right into making that product readily available to the masses. Some believe that market research is too expensive or takes too long. Plus, there’s a vulnerability in testing your product and seeking feedback. Entrepreneurs worried about money, time or ego often rush through or entirely skip over the market research process and end up losing a lot more than they would have had they committed to doing market research in the first place.
Timing is of the essence in the case of market research. By that, we mean that there’s a certain degree of patience that is required during the product development process. In order to conduct thorough market research, you need to have the patience to gather all of the information needed to build out that target market. This includes identifying the primary market’s demographics, geographics, and psychographics. The mediums for research can include anything from surveys to focus groups to product testing. In the end, your market research is complete when you know your ideal customer on an intrinsic level.
But we know that patience isn’t easily practiced as an entrepreneur. Running a startup is one of the most stressful professions out there, and founders are often ruled by the anxiety and stress that hound them. When you’ve already invested exorbitant startup costs into the business, it can seem like overkill to invest even more time and money into market research, no matter whether you’re conducting it yourself or hiring a third party. But the fact remains that skipping market research could mean the end of your business altogether.
We’ve created a mental health and performance tracking app that helps entrepreneurs find patience and think through decisions methodically. With our mental health grader, you’ll gain a better understanding of your current mindstate, and the app will recommend mindfulness tools to help you improve in areas of struggle.
For example, say you have an idea for a new product that’ll expand your existing product line, but you’re not sure if there’s a need for it in your market. You know you need to do extensive market research but you’re not sure if you have the resources to conduct it yourself or hire a specialist. You check in with the mental health and performance grader in the Founders First app and notice that you’re high in anxiety and mania, which is evident by the fact that you’ve been struggling with insomnia, tension and irritability lately, due to this research dilemma. The app recommends Mindfulness Meditation to help improve your analysis and remove yourself from worry or anxiety. In turn, this will help you make a more educated decision.
Market research can be vital to the success of your business. Without it, you may be pushing your product to an audience that has no need for it. The better you know your target market, the better you’ll know how to promote your product and who to promote it to. To ensure you’re making the right decision regarding how to do market research for your product, start a practice of tracking and improving your mind to separate yourself from the emotions that typically rule entrepreneurs and lead them to making poor business decisions.
Join over 3,000 other entrepreneurs working to find balance and control their emotions so they can make better decisions and be more successful. Try the app free for seven days.
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