Do Market Research before Starting Your Business
The study of your market or Market Research (which extends to the customers and competitors of your future business) is the crucial step in the success of a business creation project. It refers to the collection and analysis of facts and figures relating to a specific market. The objective is to know all the characteristics. Indeed, a good starting idea is not enough to create a profitable business. You also need to know the market you are going to enter.
Indeed, how to consider selling if you do not know to whom and next to whom you are going to sell? Even if you innovate, you have a market to identify and analyze. Depending on your project, several market research techniques exist.
Objectives of the Chapter on Market Research
The purpose of this chapter is to help you analyze your customers in detail
Who are they?
How do they behave?
What are their needs?
Where are they?…)
Your future competitors (direct, indirect, or even future).
Thanks to the market study, you will have all the elements for:
Validate or develop the “customer segments” part and the “value proposition” part (the “product-market” couple);
Confirm or change the “revenue flow” part;
Prepare your communication, distribution, loyalty and prospecting strategy.
In short, a compulsory passage, even if you are innovating!
Summary :
Understand the 4 essential steps of market research
Understanding Market Research
Take action: segment customers
Understand customer emotions
Identify customer buying motivations
The stages of the buying process
Marketing study: setting a psychological price
Understanding customers: several examples
Know the competitors
To position yourself
Market research methodology
You must understand the four essential steps of market research
Once you have formed your team, validated your idea and defined the assumptions of your business model, you must validate your business model. Market research will tell you that.
The Team
Idea
Mission – Vision – General strategy – Business model
Operational strategies
Marketing – Marketing
HR-Management
Production – Internal organization – Legal, social, fiscal organization
Financial forecast
Business plan
Startup and adjustment
Understanding Market Research
Market research is, therefore, an in-depth analysis of your customers and competitors or even of the various business stakeholders according to their impact on your business (distributors, contractors, etc.). But what should you do if the market in which you want to position yourself does not yet exist? If the customer’s need is poorly defined? And how do you go from your initial idea to turnover?
We explain everything to you in this article dedicated to understanding market research.
Take Action: Segment Customers
You are not selling to everyone. You are selling to a well-defined customer segment whose socio-economic profile, habits, and behavioral characteristics, you will analyze! In this way, you will have the necessary information to capture your customers’ attention, speak to them with the right words, and therefore sell them what you produce.
In this article, we give you more information about segmenting your customers. We also give you tools to categorize them and methods to create “personas,” which are typical customers likely to need your products and/or your services.
Understand Customer Emotions
“Understanding the customer” means focusing on his emotions. Indeed, in general, and in particular for the purchasing process, no one is a “rational machine,” making decisions solely based on price, type of service or product. Certain characteristics, more or less important, can mark us, strike us, and ultimately prove decisive for the purchase.
Your market analysis must therefore extend to these different aspects. For this, we offer you a very simple tool to use: the empathy map. Beyond the details already provided by the Value proposition canvas and the Lean canvas, it allows you to note and analyze your customers’ emotions according to their profiles.
Learn more about market analysis and understanding customer emotions.
Identify Customer Buying Motivations
So far, you have defined the profile of your customer base and analyzed the potential emotions felt by this segment.
That’s good, but there’s still a bit of work to do. You must now understand which purchasing mechanisms will decide your customers. Are they looking for security? The novelty? What are their fears? Do they favor hedonistic purchases (those that give pleasure) or oblative purchases (those that give pleasure to others)?
By defining all of this, you will identify your customers even better, and it will be easier for you to meet their needs precisely.
Learn more about market research and customer buying motivations.
The Stages of the Buying Process
Good! Now that you know your target clientele, their habits and emotions, and this at your fingertips, you still have to learn the main stages of the purchasing process, from noticing a lack to “feedback” clients. This is the subject of this article.
Learn more about marketing market research and the steps in the buying process.
Marketing Study: Setting a Psychological Price
Again, address her with the right words… and with the right prices. Knowing your customers is not everything. Your customers will agree to pay a certain price for the products or services you offer, but they will turn away from you if the price is too high for them. On the other hand, too low a price can mean “poor quality,” and it also scares away. It is, therefore, advisable to rely on the psychological (or acceptance) price to determine your final price. We will tell you more about it in this article.
Learn more about the psychological price.
Understanding Customers: Several Examples
Let’s take everything we’ve seen so far in the form of examples. We invite you to discover two concrete cases of customer analysis.
On fictitious customer profiles;
On understanding their emotions;
Their motivations and barriers to purchase;
On the main stages of the act of purchase.
More details in our article on knowing and understanding customers.
Know the Competitors
The presence of competition is paradoxically a good thing: it means that a market exists, and therefore, you have the means to position yourself there. However, it is essential to know how to stand out. For this, a thorough analysis of your competitors is necessary. This article gives you the keys to collect the necessary information and target “direct” and “indirect” rival companies. We also present two fictitious examples that allow you to see more clearly to nourish your reflection.
More information on the competition.
To Position Yourself
You are not selling what others are already selling. On the contrary, even if your products or services are similar to those of your competitors, you will seek to stand out and create for your company an identity of its own.
In an article devoted to the economic positioning of the company, we remind you of a few theoretical points, and above all, we offer you a concrete method (the Blue Ocean) to determine this positioning. This will allow you to appear as a unique player in the market and not as the “copy” of another company.
In this same article, always to feed your reflection, we give you keys to achieve your strategic positioning canvas, as well as fictitious examples. Finally, we provide you with information on the value curve.
Market Research Methodology
Finally, at the point where you have arrived, it is high time to give you some methodological elements on market research! Before anything else, we would like to remind you about a few fundamental points for success (precisely define your target, set objectives, go out or pick up your phone to carry out interviews, etc.).
We then give you helpful information on the choice of method, which can be quantitative or qualitative, as well as on the choice of people to interview. We also give you suggestions on how to write your questions correctly (these must be clear, not redundant, not biased, etc.). Finally, we provide details on surveying an innovative product or service.
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