How to do market research for a startup? Follow

Market research involves making sure that you are thinking like a buyer and ensuring that your marketing strategy meets what the buyer is looking for. As a startup, you are often faced with so many challenges, and unless you do great market research, you may find that your strategy may not be working in the way that you want it to. Figuring out how to do market research for your startup will help you discover ways in which you can influence the purchasing decision of a buyer. Before delving into the ways, a startup can do market research, let us first look at the main types of market research which are Primary and Secondary Research.

Primary Research involves the use of emails, focus groups, forums, phone interviews and a host of others to gather first-hand information on your market.

Secondary Research, on the other hand, involves the use of data, sales records, market research, public records, etc. to find out information on your market.

After looking at the two main types of market research, we will now explore 4 ways in which you can do market research for a startup.

1. Define your audience

• It is very important for you to define your buyer persona before moving to any other step. You need to know and understand your target audience and also take into consideration the demographics (age, gender, location, income, etc.) of these audiences. Once you can define these audiences, you will be able to devise strategies that you think will work for them and this will serve as a guide as soon as you start dealing with actual clients.
• After defining your audience or persona, determine what portion of this persona you will engage first. Your list of an audience can be an exhaustive list of people and very often serves as a guide to always run back to. Determining what portion of this exhaustive list you will engage in first will help you better plan and organize. Questions you will need to know here are; 
  1. What does my target audience buy
  2. Why do they buy?
  3. Who do they buy from?
  4. How much do they spend?
  

2. Understand the Market

Ask yourself the following questions in order to understand your market well;

1. Is there a market for my product?
2. How much are people willing to pay for my product?
3. What are the prizes my competitors are offering?
4. What will make customers choose me over others?

Once you do your market research with these questions and if you can successfully answer these questions, you will be sure to come up with great and successful marketing strategies.

3. Identify your primary competitors

Identifying who your primary competitors are and what goods and services they offer are very important during market research. You need to find out the prices your competitors are giving for the product, those who buy from them and what the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors are.

Read more: How to become a market research analyst?