Free market research
You can’t speak for your customer, we learned that in this post. But to give your business the best chance of success, you need to know what your customers want. The way to do that is with research.
Research can give you all the information you need about your customers to give them what they want and so much more. While it’s awesome, it’s seldom done properly, or at all.
I’m going to show you a methodology to approach customer research that’s:
Insightful, but more importantly allows you to take actions as a result of your findings.
Easy to set-up and incorporate to run annually
Cost-effective (potentially free)
This is pretty heavy content so I'll break it up over a few posts. Today we'll start with
Why you should research
What you should be researching, and
The actual free stuff so I'm not turning this into click bait.
Here we go...
Why?
LET research light the way
Research for the sake of research is a waste of time. You should always have a clear objective when you conduct research and an outcome you want to get. Sounds obvious, but I’m wary I’m giving you some great info which can still be a complete waste of time if you’re not researching without a clear direction.
Research is good for many reasons. It will save and make you money. It'll save you time and ensure your efforts are put into things that will add the most value. And that should give you so much more peace of mind and reduce your stress levels. That's because research allows you to:
Make more strategic segmentation and targeting choices because you know what's out there and where the most valuable customers are.
Find gaps in the current market offer by understanding your customer and their needs better. Then designing products or services to fill those needs.
Position yourself more effectively to your target customers because you know what's important to them and what makes them tick.
Avoid making simple mistakes by learning what's been done before and what did and didn't work.
Lower the risk of delivering a campaign, product or service your customers don't want or misses the mark by testing it with your customers first.
Avoid losing customers by building it into your existing sales process to identify customers who aren't happy and get to them before they never return or leave a scathing review on social media which costs you more customers.
What
research with PURPOSE
Again, don't do research for the sake of research. That's stupid, you're not. You should have a clear idea of what you want to achieve.
Sometimes the easiest way to do that is to find a problem or break-point in your business.
Why does customer type X never buy more than once?
How come I spend all day responding to enquiries from customer type Y, but none of them ever buy from me?
Because you mightn't have conducted research before you mightn't have visibility of those gaps. If you can't find a question to ask, look at who isn't buying from you and find out why.
If you're new to the game you don't know what you don't know, so here are the types of things you could research.
Market
Sizing/segmentation - who is there to buy from you, how many of them are there and what are their behaviours/attributes?
Funnel validation - awareness, preference, etc. What stages do your customers go through when they buy from you. How many of them are at each stage vs your competitors? This is where I'd start, and I'll show you how.
Sentiment - how are your customers feeling? What are the macro trends in your category?
New product
Development - what gaps exist between the needs of your customers and what the market currently offers?
Testing - you've found a gap, tried to fill it. Does it meet their needs as well as it could?
Naming - you're on the money, it's serving the customer and their needs. What are you going to call it?
Feedback
Customer feedback - your customers buy and engage with you on the regular… but how do they feel about the experience? Your prices? The pretty girl sitting behind the desk playing on her phone?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) - this is the go to for customer feedback. How many people really like you, vs how many don't. Apathetic ones in the middle don't get a look in.
How
research
The intent of this approach is to give you a generic approach to:
Find out what your customers want
Find out how many of them there are and the specific behaviours different sub groups have
Track how well you’re actually doing at meeting what your customers want
Identify where you can improve
Starting in second
Secondary research
You should start with secondary research because it’s often free and if you find something that answers your question (that’s still relevant/not outdated) you’ll save yourself a stack of time and effort.
Secondary data is any existing data source. It could be research you’ve commissioned in the past or something completely unrelated to your sector.
The easiest way to find it is by Google searching. Speaking of which, Google, Facebook - heaps of media companies produce research and data and share it.
Also look at the governing or industry bodies in your category. Especially those you're paying fees to! They'll often do annual reports or surveys just to justify the fees they charge you. Get some value back from them.
All you’re doing at this stage is making sure you're aware of any existing research that can help save you money by not repeating work that someone else has already done. Look for:
Market size and share
Customer wants/behaviours
Competitor activity
Walk in your customer’s shoes
Ethnography
This one is pretty fun and most people straight up don't do it. You've heard of walking a mile in someone's shoes? Now it's time to spend a day in your customer's world. Ethnography is spending time observing and understanding your customers when the interact with your products or services. Sit in with them and watch over their shoulder. Get them to explain what they’re doing, how and why they do it that way.
This is a particularly good practise in B2B where focus groups are notoriously difficult to co-ordinate and offer less value.
It'll cost you a day, maybe a couple of coffees and a box of pastries but all you want to do is see your end customer using your product. If they're a seasoned veteran, you might learn a thing or two from them that you didn't know. Ethnography is awesome at helping you uncover ways to improve your product or service. Chances are, if there's a faster or easier way to use your product, your customer will have taken the path of least resistance and figured it out.
Take notes as you go. Pick a friendly customer and make sure you listen and ask questions. it's another free source of information!
Takeaway
Hold the phone
The next steps can be free, but they can have cost implications so we'll pause here.
What we've looked at so far are two very easy ways to get insight into your customers.
Seeing what work has already been done so you don't repeat it.
Hanging out with your customers, seeing how they use your product.
Both are technically free, but it doesn't hurt to butter your customers up for the second one - Sometimes literally if you've opted for croissants.
Next we'll look into Qual and Quant research.