What is Market Research?
Market research is a critical tool for those of you wanting to develop a business idea and turn this into a profit. To carry out market research into your product or service offering you need to collect raw data and turn this into marketing intelligence through analysis and strategic planning.

Market research will help you;
•    Identify market opportunities and problems
•    Generate, refine, and evaluate business plans and marketing actions
•    Monitor and evolve your business plan as necessary

Broadly speaking marketing research can be classified as:
•    Primary Data: field research such as customer questionnaires.
•    Secondary Data: referring to data which has been collected before such as market reports.

Case study: SharesTraining.com
Market research can help focus budding entrepreneurs at the start up stage. A good example of this is Paul Doyle, MD Owner/Manager of Startup SharesTraining.com. Paul is an astute and highly experienced stock picker and manages his own portfolio of equities fulltime. Paul decided to set up SharesTraining.com as a means to sell his strategies to individual investors and wealth generators. His business model revolved around the development of a comprehensive starter to advanced training course which would be distributed online for a once off fee of €950. Initially his target market was concentrated on stock market novices.

Time lost in absence of clear marketing research and planning
Initial presentations of the program were poorly received by most novices, his first identified target market. They found the content too intense and complex. It was obvious to Paul that he had to change something if this business was to become viable. His initial reaction was to simplify the content and remove some of the more complex strategies.  During this period of reflection he remained steadfast in his ideas that novices (the biggest global segment and therefore the best) were to remain his target and that he just had to get the product right.

Determined that he would make a better and more up-to-date training program than his competitors Paul failed to fully recognize precisely how and by whom this market was currently being served. For example some novices were more than happy with free programs offered by their online brokers. Others only wanted classroom style training and more would only pay for training if it was delivered by a well recognized financial institution.

Another oversight he made in the early stages was to fully define who or what is a “novice stock market investor”. His own perception was that it was someone like himself only fourteen years earlier in their learning. He remained convinced that such a person would benefit greatly from the lessons, processes, tools and techniques compiled by someone else that had gone before, so to speak.  However, more precise market segmentation would have revealed separate groups with very different needs.

Paul had covered the principles of marketing some ten years earlier as part of an MBA program but by his own admitting, he did not consider following any defined marketing process to optimize his core business model. More by chance than design, he was fortunate to have taken part in a three day marketing seminar while he was still in a start-up phase. In the process he discovered the utmost importance that the formal deployment of good marketing practices in the early stages are key to the financial viability of the business ultimately.    

Market Research Steps
Paul firstly assessed his core competencies and what differentiates him in the market place. He then:
1.    Worked on defining his core competencies and how he differentiates himself in the market
2.    He carried out primary research in the form of focus groups
3.    Finally, he carried out secondary market research by review all competitors, their pricing strategies, service offerings and target customers.

Results
Following his research, SharesTraining.com completely reshaped its business model. The catalyst to change came about when Paul finished the study of his unique skill set. Until then he had under rated his unique capacity to read the market and pick stocks accordingly. The successes of his portfolio, his stock market insights and flexibility of trading tactics have proven to be his real strengths. He just hadn’t considered how he could productize his unique skill set into an effective offering.

By following a defined marketing process SharesTraining.com has changed just about everything, the product, the target market and the pricing. While the product still includes a training program for beginners it is now priced at €250 ensuring a sense of value for money even for those who will take more time to digest its full contents. However the product offering now includes an option for a monthly subscription for ongoing market commentary and portfolio support for active investors. Paul now sees this as his core business which will be offered at different price points for daily, weekly and monthly commentary and video. Those opting to subscribe for the daily support will have the option of a 90% discount on the training program.  

Paul will use this model to build trust and develop meaningful and long term relationships with customers opening endless opportunities for expansion in the future. Little of which would have been possible had he not deployed a sound marketing approach while in the early stages of development.

To fully understand your positioning and your own way forward for a sustainable, revenue generating business model you must carry out a comprehensive market research plan.

Here are the steps you need to follow to execute your market research:
1.    Define your core competencies
2.    What is your competitive advantage?
3.    Define your problem
4.    What are your research objectives?
5.    Carry out market research by:
6.    Planning your research

7.    Secondary data collection (desk research) E.G

• Online research – competitors websites
• Magazines / newspapers
• Market reports

8.    Conduct primary research (field research) E.G.

• Questionnaires
• Focus groups

9.    Analysis of your results and feedback.


See SharesTraining.com for more information.