Researching your target market is the most important thing you can do for your business.
You need to understand what their biggest pain points are.
You need to understand what they need from you to help them with these pain points.
And, you need to understand their position so that you can market appropriately to them.
Here are some tips to help you do market research for your business.
1. Look at your competition
Your competition has been there before you, so you can learn from them. Visit websites and social media profiles to see what they are doing. Look at the words they use to describe their ideal customer. What pain points have they identified. Read their client’s testimonials and success stories to see how they have been helped. Look to see what service packages and pricing they have. You will soon see a pattern amongst your competition.
Are they all targeting the same type of client, or are there any gaps that you could take advantage of?
Bear in mind, that studying your competition is not about copying what they do, but it is in order to give you some insight as to what is already working in your marketplace.
2. Talk to your target market
Conducting target market research interviews is one of the most effective ways to uncover all you need to know about your ideal customer. Ask friends and family questions and reach out to potential clients in Facebook groups online. Join a networking group or attend networking events where you know your target market will be.
3. Join online groups
Online Facebook groups and forums are great places to conduct target market research. These groups are where people ask many questions that would help you. When the same questions repeatedly come up, it’s a pretty good indication that there is a need for someone to solve this problem.
5. Analyse your social media insights
Your social media platforms all have insight dashboards which you can view and get insight from your followers. If you have a Facebook page, you may also want to review the audience on your Facebook business account to get a profile of the type of people who are following you. Don’t forget to set up and review Google Analytics on your website. Google Analytics will give you insights on your target market, including where your website visitors live.
6. Create a Facebook group
One of the benefits of creating a closed Facebook group is that you can collect information about your followers when they join. When you set up your group, add three questions to collect the information you want to know.
Facebook group, you can run polls in the group to get feedback and information directly from your target market. This information combined will help you to determine what types of followers you are attracting and whether you’re talking about the right kinds of pain points.
7. Send a survey to your email list
Survey Monkey is a good tool to conduct marketing research, it’s free for up to 10 questions. To increase your response rate, you could also try running a competition to get more of your email list to complete the survey.
9. Use search engine keyword tools
Work out what words might resonate better with your target market, then use an SEO keyword research tool to help give you the answer. These tools will help you to work out what your target market may be more likely to search for when it comes to your services.
SEO keyword tools is Keywords Everywhere.
10. Network at conferences and events
Make sure that you have worked out a plan for the type of information that you’re looking for. While at these events, ask the people you meet what other events and conferences they are thinking about attending.
Published by Alison Kirk
