How to Conduct Market Research on Your Own

In today's highly competitive global market, it's standard practice for large companies to invest significantly in market research. For these large businesses, it makes sense to hire the expertise of market research firms given their demanding research requirements and ability to hire it out. But for small business, which typically have much simpler research needs, and much smaller budgets, hiring a research agency is usually unnecessary.

How to do market research as a small business

• Depending on the size of your business, plan to interview a sample of at least 50-100 people from a range of gender, age, income group and other demographics. Of course, you will have to select criteria based on your target market and objectives.
• If you're exploring a new market, your sample needs to represent the demographic make up of that market so you can get a sense of which segments of the market make up your target customer
• Make sure to qualify your respondents so that you don't waste time surveying the wrong people
• You can call your sample or ask them to do a face-to-face interview with you - you can also survey your respondents online. Whichever you choose, ensure it is the most effective in terms of results and costs. And make sure you do your interviews ethically (e.g., no spam).
• The interview should be no more than 10 relevant questions and no longer than 15 minutes in duration
• Design your questions to provide the specific answers and information you seek about your target market, such as purchasing drivers and motivators, pricing, usage and attitudes. You might be simply checking for satisfaction, in which case you can use rating scales
• Part of your research should aim to identify how target customers perceive you and your competitors. Avoid asking "loaded" questions or questions that could bias the response. Remember the key is to allow your respondents to respond as naturally as possible
• Ensure your survey questions are organized in a logical path, so that respondents can answer questions fully and you get the information you're seeking accurately
• The results should reveal the answers you are looking for. If not, modify your questionnaire and sample a separate but similarly distributed group.
• Surveys aren't the only way to gain insight about the potential for your product or service - you can do product tests (like taste tests) or free trials and gauge the obtain feedback.

The keys to effective market research are relevance and validity. Market research doesn't have to be expensive. You can do it yourself if you learn how to conduct market research. Ask family and friends or hire students to help out with surveys.

You don't need to be an expert in market research to get the answers you seek. Learning how to conduct market research on your own is also a useful and rewarding skill to acquire.

If you plan to conduct your research online, SurveyMonkey.com is a fantastic site that allows you to design surveys using various scales and questioning techniques. It also helps you then analyze the responses.

The free version has some limitations which may be acceptable for very small businesses. So you should consider one of the paid subscriptions at SurveyMonkey.com, which enable you to conduct better quality surveys with access to more tools. Try the free version first at SurveyMonkey.com, and begin learning how to conduct market research right now.

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