How you can conduct successful “primary market research”?

The success of an entrepreneur is critically dependent on an ironclad product marketing process. This is made possible if you have robust and accurate information about the market place. Here is how you can do research to procure critical data that will help you make your product development process work.

What do you hope to achieve with primary research?

The aim of an optimum primary market research is to understand your client in all perspectives – emotionally, rationally, socially, culturally, economically and much more. The customer is the expert on their problem, while your job is to provide them solution for that problem.

The sad reality is the entrepreneurship community has fallen behind in incorporating primary market research into a startup formation. This is a very important missed opportunity.

What are the biggest obstacles to conducting a good market research?

Even though the concept of primary market research sounds easy, there are some pitfalls which make conducting them difficult.

• No structured process- While you need flexibility to gain more information, you also have to have a process and know that it is indeed a process.
• Lack of proper execution of the designed process- no process will be effective if it’s not used correctly.
• Selection and confirmation bias – Confirmation bias is when you only view the information that conforms with your worldview and ignore the rest. Meanwhile selection bias is when the people you interview might be not the most valid representation of your target clientele.
• Family and friends should not be involved in your research as they are likely to give inaccurate answers to avoid offending your feelings.

What process and techniques to use?

• Make a definite plan

A plan should include the following –

1. Goal and objective of the research and a detailed description of the technique utilized.
2. Outline recruitment standards for the interviewees
3. Create supporting content, for e.g. landing page, online survey, discussion guide etc
4. Recruit subjects and run the research program
5. Take in the results of the research and prepare for next steps

• Start with secondary market research report, however make sure you know the basics of the market before and choose specific reports that are subject around your primary research.
• Carry out the qualitative market research before quantitative research. Focus on open ended questions, whose answers which you can then synthesize to form your quantitative survey.
• Next you can source candidates to appoint with and use them to find more candidates. You can do this so on digital “watering holes”, which are places where your targeted customer congregate. Some of the areas that will help you generate leads are LinkedIn/Facebook groups, online forums, Google Ads. When your finish the interview you must ask the interviewee if there is anyone in their contact that you can speak to.
• After you have generated an initial list of people whom you need to speak to, you must persuade them to lend you at least 15 minutes of their time. When contacting explain how your research will benefit their job/ life and if you have you can give a reference of someone they know.
• Use your body language to convey that you are actively listening and engaged in conversation.
• Use two interviewers if possible, one for taking in the verbal answers and other to note down the interviewee’s non-verbal signals.
• The point of making primary research is to develop new hypothesis, if you are not getting any new info, you are doing it wrong.

The most important aspect of conducting primary market research is that it is continuous and is never finished. Successful entrepreneurs are constantly interacting with customers and discovering new opportunities and refining their offerings.