Marketing Research

Market research helps businesses to identify their target market, create one or more customer avatars, and get thoughts and feedback from customers about their interest in the company’s product or service. DMC believes that this is the most important procedure that every business should go through on a regular basis in order to establish and maintain successful marketing. Markets shift, customer pools dry up, or everyone has purchased what you offer and are seeking for something different. Understanding when these purchasing habits begin to shift is critical if you want to stay ahead of the competition.

Today, 80% of advertising dollars are squandered, much of it due to a lack of market research. Within the first 5 years 50% of new businesses will fail, in 10 years 70% have failed frequently due to a lack of market research to discover, if there was a market for what they offered and how to reach it. The below process from left to right will help you avoid this.

Hypothesis – The initial step is to develop a hypothesis that you want to prove or disprove. The goal is to broaden your focus, and when you gain a deeper understanding of the target market, you may narrow it down for the next research assignment. The idea is to constantly improve the questions you ask and the way you perform the research. Certain things may appear to be driving forces during the process, but with further investigation, you will discover that they are only connected to something else.

There are 3 questions that every business should answer for their initial market research:;
What are the groups of people or businesses that will get the greatest value from what I offer? Who do you think you could sell your product or service to, or who have been your best customers that you would like more of?

What are the common experiences, struggles, goals, and beliefs that make up my target market? Eight things to understand about your target market are: cost, value, sense of a deal, what is quality, friendliness, convenience, and a unique experience. For food and drink related industries, there is also taste.

What can I improve in my business to better meet the needs of a target market, or how does my target market want to be served, pay for purchases, etc.?

Example Chatbot Questions:

I have a [product or service] business, I am wanting to find the demographics for possible customers I believe [hypothesis of demographics] will want what I do. How can I test this?
I have a [product or service] business, I am wanting to find the psychographics for possible customers, how would I go about doing that?
What target markets will gain the most value from my [product or service]?

Sample – For your target market group, what are the demographics, and more importantly, what are the psychographics? You only want to talk to people in your sample group/target market. Age, gender, race, geographic region, income, and education are all examples of demographics. Psychographics include topics like what people value, why they buy, what are their hopes and dreams, what are their ambitions, what do they watch, how are they entertained, what do they do for work, and what are their pain points?

The essential point that is frequently overlooked is that even demographics have a unique life experience that provides a psychographic that transcends demographics. You want to make sure that as you learn more about your consumer, as you limit down your sample to persons who fulfill the psychographic criteria.

Chatbot Question Examples:

I have a [product or service] business, I am wanting to find out if [demographics of your customer] that value [psychographics of your customer] would value what I do. What are some ways I can do that?
In my market research I have found interest by people with [demographics and psychographics]. How can I determine, if they are a single target market or separate target markets?

Data Collection – Meet with the target market to see if your hypothesis is correct. The chatbot below can assist you with different methods like: sales or give-away events, survey ideas, interview ideas, techniques to do participant observation (viewing your target market), and current resources you can use to learn more about a target market depending on your demographics and psychographics.

Be mindful that surveys will necessitate additional surveys to dig deeper and reduce the reach of the target market. The most important thing is to ensure that all of the data is recorded somewhere. This is critical to ensuring that everyone’s perspective is recorded and may be examined more thoroughly in the future.

In this step, you will also analyze the data that was collected and look for patterns of connection. If you see a general shift toward a particular psychographic or event, jot down some notes about it so that you can check its validity with more in-depth investigation in the future.

Example Chatbot Questions:

What are some ways I can store/organize the information I find on my target market?
I have a [product or service] business, what are some ways I could conduct surveys?
How can I find patterns of connection between the answers to survey questions?
What are some give aways I might do for people in [target market demographics] with [target market psychographics]?
I have a lot of people giving [answer] to [question] how do I know if this is a sign of a causation or a correlation?

Report – Write out what you have found. Write a summary of what you believe your data analysis means. This allows you to discuss your findings with others in your company. Most importantly it gives you a way to take a step back and evaluate the conclusions you’ve reached, to second guess yourself. This report is also important if you are going to have investors. Investors want to know why they should believe that your product or service will sell.

Chatbot Question Examples:

I have research on [product or service] business, I found I want to sell to the following [demographics of your customer] that value [psychographics of your customer] and I have survey data I need to graph. Can you give me an outline I can use for a report of my findings, and can you help me decide which kind of graphs I should use?
I need to submit a proposal to investors for my [product or service] business. I have done extensive research into my target market. Can you give me an outline and help me understand the key elements that need to be included?

Develop a Strategy – What is the message you want to convey that your target market will understand? What colors or symbols are associated with your target market? How does your product or service fit into their purchasing habits? When was the last time they bought something? How often do they buy? What is the monetary value of your product or service to them?

What can I do to improve the service, delivery, perception, and marketability of my company? What is the bare minimum that I can offer them, and how can I improve it? Example: Tesla began with the roadster, a high-cost, very low-volume automobile Tesla’s (Minimum Viable Product), which was followed by the model S sedan, which was slightly cheaper but in a different market, which was followed by the model X for the SUV market, and so on.

Chatbot Question Examples:

I have a [product or service] business, I have found people with [demographics of your customer] that value [psychographics of your customer] are who I want to sell to. What would a possible marketing strategy look like to reach these people?
I know [psychographic] is important to my customer. Where can I find people with this psychographic?
I know [psychographic] is important to my customer. What kinds of activities might people with this psychographic be involved with?
What might be appealing to people with [psychographic].
I want to bring [product or service] to market. I have found people with [demographics of your customer] that value [psychographics of your customer] are who I want to sell to. The minimum viable product I have to sell is [minimum viable product] give me with some ideas for other products or services I can offer as steps to [ideal product or service] that I want to sell?

Once you understand who your end consumer is or could be, then you want to understand different possible revenue streams for your business:
B2B – Has a heavy focus on consultative sales, cold lead creation and lead follow-up, understanding the reasons for objections and handling objections.
D2C – Direct to consumer is selling directly to the end consumer usually through direct sales or a website.
Distribution/Wholesale – Finding and contacting the right businesses to carry your product or service. You want to work with companies that service your customer segments. Focus in talks on why their customers need you and often you will need to promote to the end consumer.
Retail/eCommerce – Checkout sales and eCommerce sales focus on the person already wanting to buy what you have, or there is consultative sales where a person tries to determine, if the customer is a good match for what we sell through questions and possibly education.
Collaboration – Finding the right people to work with in offering a combined product or service. You need to know that the customer segments you are going after are the same as the other company. Focus on why the business’ consumers need you, not why the business needs you. This can be a joint selling of a product or service. This can be getting someone to make a custom product for you with your name on it.

Chatbot Question Examples:

I am thinking of offering my [product or service] for customers with [target market demographic] that value [target market psychographic] what would be some revenue streams I might consider and why?

Disclaimer: The below chatbot uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT and can make errors and make up facts, so please double check factual information you receive from it, and let us know, if there are errors.