Marketing Plan - Research
Market
research - Why?
Regardless of how good your product
and your service is, your business won’t be successful
without effective marketing of your products or
services. Your marketing efforts begin with careful,
systematic approach to research.
You may feel that
you understand your business thoroughly, but it is
dangerous to assume that you know everything about
your intended market. Market research helps you
determine that you’re on the right track. This process
of creating your business plan is a great opportunity
to uncover data and to question your marketing assumptions.
Your time will be well spent.
Market
research - How?
There are two kinds of market research: primary
and secondary.
Primary research
involves gathering your own data. For example, you
could use chamber of commerce information or yellow
pages to identify competitors, conduct your own
surveys or focus-group interviews to learn about
consumer preferences, or do your own traffic count
at a proposed location. Professional market research
can be very costly, but there are many books that
show small business owners how to do effective research
themselves.
Secondary research
means using already published information such as
industry profiles, trade journals, newspapers, magazines,
census data, and demographic profiles. This information
is readily available in public libraries, industry
associations, from vendors who sell to your industry,
and from government agencies.
Start with your
local library. Most librarians are happy to help
you work through the business data collection. You
will be amazed at what is there. There are more
online sources than you could possibly use. Your
chamber of commerce has good information on the
local area. Trade associations and trade publications
also offer excellent industry-specific data.
Be as specific
as possible in your marketing plan; give statistics,
numbers, and sources. The marketing plan will be
the foundation for later sales projections.
Back to more Business
Plan for a Startup Business
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