Do you have enough marketing business that you don’t know what to do with yourself? Or do you want to increase your business by adding to your offerings to your clients? If you are part of the first group, I’m impressed, wish you luck, and understand if you stop reading.
If, however, you want to increase your business, read on!
Effective, targeted market research can create new client offerings while producing useful information for those clients. I have spent the past few months helping independent marketers create research programs that do just that. If you come to your clients with the ability to provide primary market research to inform your marketing activities, you are in a much more competitive position relative to others in your industry.
Types of research
Market research can be segmented into several categories by the types of information you and your client are seeking. Some examples of quantitative methods (larger audiences = more representative responses) for existing clients include:
Concept Testing: Test new or product or service ideas among current or prospective clients
Segmentation: Understand who the customer audience is and how to effectively market to them.
Content Development: Sometimes called “original research” or “storytelling”. Use this method to identify the themes your customers need or want to hear about and tell the stories they want to hear from your brand.
Competitive: Find out what competitors are doing and where the gaps exist you can exploit. Works for primary and secondary research.
Keep in mind, this research is geared toward established businesses, not startups that are looking for basic market information to start their business. The clients that would be most likely to hire you are those who already know their business plans are solid and need marketing help.
Steps needed to conduct research
Although the ideas behind market research are fairly straightforward, the steps you need to take are specific and important to realizing your research goals.
Survey Creation: Seems easy, right? People who think survey writing is easy usually make the most mistakes. Do the questions make sense? Does everyone have a valid response option? Are all the necessary parts here? If the survey is not written well, the answers will not be valid and tell the right story. Garbage in, garbage out, right?
Data Collection: It is extremely important to choose your audience to get the most valid responses. It is not enough just to send invitations and sit back waiting for the world to respond. Does your survey audience match the intended customer profile? Are they likely to be customers in the future? These are important considerations.
Data Analysis: Who is going to analyze your data after its collected? This step can be tricky as you need either data analysis software or advanced Excel skills. You will also need to know which questions relate to each other and why. This step is optional when working with a freelancer but can make or break your results and the quality of your promised survey.
Reporting: If you have experience working in PowerPoint or Google Slides, this step can also be optional, but good reporting is essential in getting the information to your client. Make sure it answers the goals and objectives of the research and is easy to understand. The overall goal is not to try to impress your client with your language or skills, it is to present the information in a way that anyone can understand and relate to.
Conclusion
This straightforward information is intended to help you start offering a market research service for your clients. Reynolds Consulting specializes in helping independent marketing companies create a market research practice that provides additional services to increase your offerings.
Jeff Reynolds
Principal, Reynolds Consulting