Market Research Saved me $5,000!

6 July, 2007 - General Business - 3 Comments

It’s long been known that conducting market research is a valuable method to determine key demographics about your customer base. From finding out what your potential customer base wants, to actually finding out who your potential customer base is, market research can do it all!

Last year I decided to do my own little bit of market research for a business I am in the process of launching. It was the first piece of market research I had ever carried out, so I wasn’t expecting any great results.

For the initial 12-18 months after launch, the business is going to rely heavily on search engines to bring in customers, so I had to find out what my prospects would be searching for if they were looking for my service. The only way to do that is to ask. Get to the heart of your prospects and simply ask them what they searched for last time they were looking for the service or what they would search for in future.

I setup a simple survey with just two questions. Each question asked what key phrase the prospect would type in to Google if they were searching for two services that I intend to provide. I then posted about the survey on a forum I frequent which happened to include a very targeted set of people (It’s obvious, but never do market research unless your audience is the same audience you’ll be targeting when you launch your business). I also sent an email to the author of an e-newsletter who sends regular emails to 800 individuals, all of whom were my intended market for this new business. A few minutes after I sent the email, he sent an email to all 800 people with a link to my survey.

Some Stats

  • I received 113 completed surveys - That’s an 8% conversion rate (taking in to account the people who viewed the forum thread too). That’s actually a really good conversion rate for something such as this. Keeping the research to two very simple questions was the key.
  • The results were surprising! - Before I started the research, I had what I thought was a very good idea of what the results would be. I couldn’t have been further away with my guess! That’s the true power of market research. You find what people really think, and it’s often not as clear cut as you might think.
  • I saved $5,000! - The whole point of the market research was so I could decide what Web site address to use for the Web site (Yes, it really is *that* important). Because the results were not as I expected, I decided not to buy the domain name in question from it’s current owner. The market research showed it would have been worthless. I estimated he was going to want about $5,000 for the domain because for the right person, it was certainly worth that.

Have you ever conducted a piece of market research? Did you get the response you had hoped for? Let us know!

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to my RSS Feed for more!

Others You May Enjoy

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed!

Del.icio.us - Technorati - Digg This! - StumbleUpon
Posted on 6 July, 2007 by Jamie Harrop
Filed Under General Business |

RSS feed| Trackback URI

3 Comments»

Comment by chrisblogging.com
2007-07-06 19:09:45

Market research is definitely something to consider. It may take some time, but in the end it is well worth it!

Reply to this comment
 
Comment by Russell Wagner
2007-07-10 03:12:31

wow!! This is something I will consider. The taking time thing is the only bad part but its worth it.

Reply to this comment
Comment by Jamie Harrop
2007-07-10 08:33:33

It took about a week from initially creating the survey to getting the bulk of those survey submissions. It was certainly worth it. :)

Reply to this comment
 
 
Name (required)
E-mail (required - never shown publicly)
URI
Your Comment (smaller size | larger size)
You may use <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> in your comment.