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Dear Reader,

The key to a successful business is to solve your customer’s problem and not your own.

But do you know what your customers want?

Do you know what their problems are?

That’s research - talking to your customers before you start your business, during, and also before you decide to close your business (if it comes to that).

There is a reason why the customer is called God.

They have the power to make or break your business.

So don’t ignore them.

Listen to them.

Learn from them.

And serve them well.

That’s how you align your business vision with your customer’s needs.

That’s how you create a business that lasts.

And that is why HeySOROR was launched because the SOROR community highlighted the need to connect on a real-time basis, but it’s an ongoing process! Market research isn’t a destination, it’s a journey!

Market research is not something that you do once and forget. It’s something that you do continuously and consistently to keep your business vision aligned with your customer’s needs.

It is how you discover, validate, and refine your value proposition.

But how do you do market research the right way?

There are two types of market research: Primary, and secondary.

Primary research is when you collect data directly from your potential or existing customers. You can use methods such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations, etc. to get feedback, insights, opinions, preferences, etc. from your target audience.

Secondary research is when you use existing data from sources such as reports, articles, websites, databases, etc. to get information, statistics, facts, trends, etc. about your market.

But which type of research should you do?

Here’s a simple strategy:

Start with secondary research first. Use existing data to get a general overview of your market. Find out who are your customers, competitors, industry players, and market influencers. Learn about their characteristics, behaviors, needs, problems, solutions, etc.

Then use primary research to fill in the gaps or validate your findings. Use direct data to get specific feedback from your target audience. Ask them questions that are relevant to your research objectives. Test different versions or variations of your products or services with them.

Here are the steps to follow for doing market research the right way:

Define your research objectives:

Before you start collecting data, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your market research. What questions do you want to answer? What hypotheses do you want to test? What decisions do you want to make?

Identify your target market:

The next step is to identify who are your ideal customers or users for your products or services. Who are you trying to reach and serve with your business? What are their characteristics, demographics, psychographics, etc.?

Collect data from secondary sources:

The third step is to collect data from secondary sources that are relevant to your research objectives and target market.

Collect data from primary sources:

Now, collect data from primary sources that are relevant to your research objectives and target market.

Test both controlled (existing) & uncontrolled (new) test bases:

The fifth step is to test both controlled (existing) & uncontrolled (new) test bases. A test base is a group of customers or users that you use to test your products or services.

I hope this email helped you understand the importance and process of market research.

If you have any questions or comments about this topic, please feel free to reply to this email. I would love to hear from you.

And of course, if you like, you can also book a free 1:1 call with me by clicking here.​

Thank you for reading this newsletter and for being part of my community.

Until next time,

Tulika