3 Key Market Research Questions

• Who gains the greatest value from my business?
• What events or communities have my ideal customers as members?
• What is the core psychographic that connects my buying community?

Who gains the greatest value from my business?

Target avatar

Your target avatar should be the individual who derives the most value from your business’s offerings. Value is defined as a person’s emotional, mental, physical, and financial gains. How does market research help you determine this? This form of market research is best conducted in the following order. Define the true value you provide. Brainstorm what people would value the same things. Talk to past customers. Explore new groups of potential customers.

Pro tip: Keep in mind that psychographics should be included in your final target avatar, because we discuss further down in this blog the importance of psychographics and how to use them.

Define your true value

Identifying the right segment is a critical step in your company’s development. You must be aware of and understand your core competency. This should be the main feature that distinguishes your company from the competition. Your primary competencies should not include a long list. You should focus on a specific pain point that you can tackle very well. Consider your personal strengths. What your staff excels at and what your product or service is exceptional at.

Think about getting a multitool. Not everyone who requires a screwdriver, saw, pliers, and bottle opener will find it useful to have all of those tools in one convenient package. That is a logical error known as the market belief fallacy. People who want to carry a tool that is the size of a set of pliers but also has various other benefits are their target market. It’s having the insight that the size and ease of their tools is their primary competitive advantage, and not the tools themselves.

Market Segments

After determining your company’s core value to customers, you should explore potential market segments. The more diverse the group of people you include in this process, the better your answers are going to be. What you want to think about and articulate is who will benefit the most from the main problem being solved, or who will be most influenced by your key value. This type of group identification enables you to describe potential market segments.

Consider how Grove Cookie Company realized that SAAS salesmen were struggling to find a cost-effective approach to get prospects to meet with them. They recognized that their fundamental consumer value is delicious treats. From a conversation with friends, they discovered an untapped market segment available. Their B2B gifting approach fills a valued need that wasn’t previously directly provided on different platforms. This collaboration resulted in gifting platforms and direct purchases of their cookies. They went from surviving to thriving as a result of this change. That is the power of thorough market research and market segmentation.

Talk to past customers

Speaking with previous customers is a common technique to obtain vital insights into your potential customer. Consider previous customers you liked. Also, attempt to use people that you know are huge fans of your product. You can get information from these people by conducting surveys or just calling them and scheduling interviews. The primary aims you want to discover here are what the problem was that they were attempting to fix and what the largest benefit your product or service provides.

Consider the case of Brynn Putnam, who established the company Mirror and then sold it to the athletic wear brand Lululemon for $500million. She conducted polls with the customers of her studio, which she had been operating at the time. The wall mirrors that she had installed were the element that garnered the most positive feedback from her clientele. It was her reaction to that survey question that, exactly one year later, inspired her to create a fitness mirror product of her own. She inquired about and paid attention to the primary concerns voiced by her core audience, and she created a 9 figure business from it.

What events or communities have
my ideal customers as members?

Explore New Groups

You don’t know what you don’t know. Often, a company is only one market segment away from expansion and growth. Taking time to meet a new group of people or hire someone from a different background can lead to new possibilities. As well as just reaching out to current customers and asking about new groups, this can help grow your awareness.

Consider Pepsico’s Frito Lay division. It wasn’t until 1989 that they developed a chip aimed specifically at the Hispanic market. They’d never manufactured spicy chips before, and many of their chips were rather boring. They started thinking about the Hispanic market in 1989. That market provided an opportunity for expansion for the organization that hadn’t been seen in several years.

Pro tip: While it may appear that there are no new segments at times, keep in mind that new groups and communities are formed on a daily basis. Some organizations are expanding to new dimensions. This is why diverse input is so valuable.

You might be able to accomplish what you want by participating in just one or two of these activities, or you might decide that you want to participate in all of them. The most important thing to keep in mind when conducting this particular aspect of market research is to make sure that you have a clearly articulated primary customer benefit, a clearly defined market segment, and a clearly articulated problem that you solve. This is the first essential component of any successful marketing strategy for a company.

Events, Communities, and Groups

The next step is to investigate various communities and organizations from which you can draw. After determining who will benefit the most from your company and the problem that you are best able to solve, the next step is to determine what communities and groups you will focus your efforts on serving as a customer base.

This is really significant for a number of different reasons. It enables you to uncover additional possible market segments. It enables you to have the knowledge necessary to know how to get in front of a large audience consisting of your potential customers. It enables you to estimate the immediate demand as well as the interest in the market.

How do you determine these groups and communities? There are 4 ways that can help. First, consider other ways your ideal customer might solve this problem. Consider looking online for forums, events, or communities that talk about that problem or other solutions.
Another way, inquire with some of your previous clients. Previous clients who are still enthusiastic about your work can frequently serve as a rich source of information. Ask them what kinds of events they go to or have gone to in the past in an attempt to find a solution to their problem, or ask them what kinds of activities they go to for fun. This is due to the fact that you can discover that a significant number of your clients attend certain kinds of events, such as boat exhibitions, car exhibits, football games, state fairs, and so on. You can go there, sponsor, or have a booth at the event.
You also have the option of just searching for it on various platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, and YouTube, among others. It’s possible that you’ll come across certain communities or influencers who are discussing a certain issue for which you offer a solution. Reading through all of the posts and comments may seem like a lot of work, but the data you gain from doing so can be quite beneficial in locating a golden market.

Last but not least, give some thought to the groups that you are already a part of as well as those that you would like to join. The most important factor in maintaining fruitful group associations is ensuring that you continue to take pleasure in participating in those associations. If this does not occur, the connection will appear phony and will eventually break down. Therefore, search the internet using Google, Meetup, Facebook, or LinkedIn to find groups that you might be interested in joining.

Even though events fall under a separate category, this research can nonetheless make use of them in extremely meaningful ways. You should look for events that bring people that fit the profile of your target customer. Think of the different ways that families could go to an outdoor performance or the county fair. How executives of companies plan to keep themselves current on current events by attending industry-specific events. There will be a large number of young adults attending the rivalry game. Participating in the events and validating your assumptions may result in a fantastic advertising opportunity for the following year.

The purpose of all of these strategies is to discover the most direct approach to reaching the greatest number of people whose characteristics align with those of your ideal customer. When done correctly, it enables tremendous connection-building and enables you to know and better grasp exactly how to create your message. It also allows you to know and build powerful connections with others.

What Psychographic Connects My Buying Community?

 
What common perception characteristics do they share on a psychological level? This is the most important question one can discover. The study of people’s hopes, beliefs, and dreams, and how such things influence their actions, is known as psychographics. There are certain psychological characteristics that are shared by all humans, such as the yearning to love and to be loved. There is a need to feel like one is accepted, but even with less significant purchases, there are psychographics at play. When you have this knowledge, you have an incredible amount of power. It enables you to grasp the conditions that are taking place in the conscious and subconscious minds of consumers prior to them taking the action of purchasing.

How can you be sure that you have located the correct psychographic? When using data from surveys and third parties, it can be challenging to get an accurate picture of a person’s psychographic characteristics. It’s possible that at first you thought a psychographic was to blame, but later you found out it was actually something different. Utilizing some aspects of psychology is the most effective method for determining whether or not you have located a suitable psychographic. Here are a few things to consider on the psychology side.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

First, analyze where this purchase fits within Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for them. Understand that the purchase will differ depending on the situation, timing, and personal beliefs of each individual. In many African countries, for example, a shelter could be as simple as a structure with a roof and four walls and a doorway. The substance could be sticks, metal or mud. In America; however, shelter refers to a structure with four walls: a roof, a door, running water, a bathroom, some type of heating system, and, in certain cases, a cooling system. Because of personal beliefs, these definitions on the same subject are significantly different.

How are these factors determined? To begin, evaluate where you would rank it at the time they are purchasing it. Then consider how they tell others about it. Is it to show off? Is it for the benefit of the other person? Do others have to buy it as well? Another element to consider is the ramifications of not purchasing it. What would have happened if they hadn’t waited? Consider interviewing or surveying people to learn about their personal beliefs about the expected lifestyle around your organization.

Value system

Another thing to think about is how customers value their purchases. There are several common ideals that influence people’s purchasing decisions. cost, value, feeling of a deal, what people perceive to be quality, friendliness, convenience, and an exceptional experience. There is also taste for the food and beverage sectors. By understanding these you can better grasp the psychology of your ideal consumers’ purchase by understanding how they rank and value these criterias as exceptional and good enough.

How can you tell what they think about these values? You could conduct polls. These will provide some insight into how they are feeling. When doing surveys, looking at popular words or phrases used can provide tremendous insight into who likes your business and who doesn’t. A fantastic technique is to experiment with different offers and watch how people react. Including a minor price rise with added value, a 20% reduction, or enhancing the friendliness of interaction; another method is just conducting interviews about other purchases they make in related businesses to find what they value.

Events

One final activity is to attend events that bring people together. These can include concerts, sporting events, plays, town hall meetings, and so on. Examine the main cause that brought all of these folks together. Then speak with them, test your hypothesis, and confirm or refute it. With time, you’ll start to notice patterns in people’s behavior. You will begin to understand the fundamental, ultimate reason that draws a varied collection of people to an event at the same time.

Understanding people’s psychographics gives you the ability to understand them. It allows you to gain a better understanding of what they are concerned with. It enables you to comprehend what they have gone through and what they desire in life. It makes them feel understood, and that is the most potent information for any marketing approach.

Pro tip: The ultimate goal is to understand your ideal customers’ past, their value system, and their influences to better predict and understand their future decisions.