Market Research on a Digital Dime
Through the use of free tools you can do thorough market research in a matter of hours; the same research would have been less accurate and cost thousands of dollars not less than 10 years ago. It's a great time to own a business!
Market research allows entrepreneurs/businesses to learn about their prospective customers before they begin to invest the time and money in starting a new venture. Online tools have emerged that allow anyone to perform market research.
In July, we featured Vanessa Fox's book Marketing in the Age of Google. Perhaps one of the most interesting excerpts found in the book is Fox's hypothetical look at a company trying to create a better digital camera using the web as a primary market research tool. First the company "BetterCamera," must uncover the top searched-for digital camera features and find a point of differentiation: underwater cameras.
In the example, BetterCamera discovers that searches for waterproof/underwater cameras spiked over the summer months. They also realized that the most popular searches came from Hawaii and Florida, and ranked third, an unexpected contender: Alaska. With a little bit of research they surmised that searchers from Alaska were likely planning vacations to tropical destinations.
Armed with this knowledge BetterCamera set out to design an inexpensive waterproof camera housing so that the average vacationing scuba diver can use their existing camera to take underwater pictures two weeks out of the year.
Market research tools used:
These tools can help point your business in new and profitable directions. They also help to determine the size of the market(s) you're entering, overall searcher interest, and geographical and seasonal trends. These tools garner customer data and insights we could have only dreamed of a decade ago.
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