Starting a new business and keeping it running is hard work. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 65 percent of new businesses fail during their first 10 years.
How can you keep your new business from failing?
The answer is to conduct market research.
Market research offers you great insight to your market so you can serve your customers better with a superior product or service to your competitors. A business that listens to its customers and market is more likely to succeed than one who acts like they know better than its customers.
When first starting your business, spend some extra time and money to conduct market research. It’s an essential investment you must make in order for your business to be successful.
What is market research?
Market research is the collection of information from your potential customers and the market where you are going to sell your product or service. This data is collected through surveys, conversations, focus groups, and more.
You can conduct your own market research, which can take a lot of time, planning, and budget. Or you can access syndicated research, which is collected by larger companies and research institutions to be shared.
Benefits of market research
Conducting market research for your business offers numerous benefits to your success. It will keep you in business longer and increase your sales thanks to the data you have collected and studied about your market.
Validate your business idea
In the very beginning stages of starting your business, you’ll have to validate your idea. This is essential when searching for funding from investors. Market validation shows that your idea is profitable and needed in the current market.
One way to do this is to run a survey asking your market if they would be interested in using your product or if they have a need for it.
Advertise better
You can’t run a successful business without advertising your product. With insights to your market, you can advertise your product or service better in order to convert more leads to customers.
From your market research, you will understand the habits of your customer base including where they spend their time, the type of advertisements that grab their attention, and even the colors they respond to best.
Business growth
Market research opens the doors to exponentially grow your business. With this data you can identify new opportunities to keep your business from staying stagnant.
Whether you can identify new partnerships, new advertising tactics, or even new locations to market your product or service, market research will let you in on all this great insight.
Conclusion
For your business to be successful, you must invest in market research. Whether you conduct your research on your own or use syndicated research, it’s essential to have insight to your market through hard data and statistics.
This information will help you market your product better, understand your customer base, and validate your idea to receive funding from investors.
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