Market Research Questions

You need to catch the pulse of your target market if you want your business venture to succeed. There are billions of people living across the globe and it is obvious that you can’t provide for everyone. This is why you choose the most suitable section of the society and direct all the business efforts to satisfy that one sector.

What Exactly Is A Target Market?

Target market is essentially a group of people sharing certain common characteristics and attributes – they might be living in the same region, having the same tastes and preferences or supporting a same cause.

As an entrepreneur, it is important to have such a target market for your product, depending on the needs fulfilled by your product or service. The worst nightmare for a businessman would be them coming up with an excellent product, charting out the best marketing plan and the customers not accepting the product.

To prevent this disaster, it is important for an entrepreneur to know the needs, preferences and opinions of the market.

The Need For Market Research

Business is nothing but a love affair between an entrepreneur and their customers. Would you ever go on multiple dates with a person you hardly know? Similarly, a businessman needs to know their market really well to enter into a lasting business relationship.

For an entrepreneur to impress the customers and give them a best, conducting a market research is necessary. By conducting a market research, you can get to know the pulse of you market. You understand the trends, fads and even the history of businesses that have functioned in the market.

It is certainly never an easy task. Going about with the market research requires a lot of patience, creativity and persistence. You can’t simply interview a bunch of twenty people and generalise the results as the condition of the entire market.

An extensive research is a time-consuming process and requires high analytical skills to come up with the best conclusions. This is how you would be able to strike a chord with the market you’re catering.

Questions That Should Be Asked In A Market Research

In order to conduct an effective and elaborate market research, there are several questions you’d need to ask the samples from your market in order to understand it better. Though there is a long list of questions that you should ask when you go about with the process, here are some of the most basic and important questions that you should never miss:

Are There Other Similar Business In The Market?

You need to know how many fishes are swimming in the sea you’re diving into! It is always helpful to see if there are other businesses functioning in the market, offering similar values as yours. These companies are likely to be your future competitors, but it would also give you an idea about the kind of products the market is responding to.

Knowing the existence of other businesses would not only help you in sensing your competition, but would also tell you that there is a market for the products you are willing to sell. Therefore, having a ‘yes’ for this question is not that negative for the business.

If there are other businesses functioning in the market that you want to cater, all you’d have to do is be unique and stand out of the clutter. As the core value provided by your business already exists in the market, you have no option but to present it in a way that makes the audience perceive your brand as bigger and better than the contemporaries.

What Is The Reputation Of Other Businesses Operating In The Market?

Business reputation is important in any market. A good reputation would help you in getting funds from lenders all across the market – be it for arranging the initial capital, getting cash flow finance for the business or funding your marketing campaigns.

Simply finding out the existence of contemporises is not sufficient. You also need to find out the reputation of these businesses functioning in the market.

Have every single player evaluated and find out how they are perceived by the customers. If they have a good reception in the market, see what worked in their favour and try to imbibe the same for your business.

On the other hand, if a business is not received well in the market, see what went wrong and prevent your business from doing the same. This is how you can be well-equipped before you venture into the market.

Having an idea about the nature and reception of other businesses would also help you in understanding the prevailing trends. Find out the ways in which these businesses promote their products and the additional values they offer to their customers.

After this evaluation, try and providing a little more than what others are offering in the market. This would automatically put you on a higher platform and get you more customers than your contemporaries.

Is There Saturation In The Market?

No matter how brilliant your product is, it won’t be received well if the market is saturated. It is nearly impossible to have a market that doesn’t deal in products similar to that of yours. While it is important to have a healthy competition in the market, a saturated market would automatically repel a new entrant.

Therefore, see if there are enough players in the market and if there is space for more. If the market has no space for a new entrant, start searching for a new one.

Always remember that it is more important to find your niche in the market than overcoming competition. Compromising in a saturated market will always be the wrong move.