Content Marketing Today

Doing Market Research Is Both Easier and More Important Than You May Think

Without conducting research to understand your customers, you risk very painful missteps. Happily, even very small companies can conduct high quality research that would have been affordable only for multimillion dollar companies just five or 10 years ago.

Of course, it’s possible to do way too much research.  That’s when you wind up with the paralysis by analysis situation.  But, in most small to midsize entrepreneurial companies, there is too little research and too much gut feel. That’s when some very bad decisions get made.

Because we know that the essence of content marketing resides in a thorough understanding of your customers, regular research should be a core component of your content marketing strategy.  The good news is that you don’t need to spend a lot of time or money conducting reliable research.  Here are some basics to get you started.

Although it is possible to spend vast amounts of money on research conducted by high profile research organizations, it is much easier than you might think to conduct valuable research on your own.  Today, numerous online tools make it simple to create and deploy research studies–and that even provide guaranteed numbers of recipients.

Here are the basics:

• Inexpensive e-mail is the method of choice.  Most research has moved away from snail mail or even faxed questionnaires.  Each of these alternatives was relatively time-consuming; a mailed out study could easily take four to six weeks before results could be compiled. 
• If you need to make a decision in a hurry and are worried that research will take much too long, not to worry.  Within the space of a week or less you can create a questionnaire, deploy the survey, and analyze the results.
• Early PC research tools were very difficult to use for non-geeks.  You now have several inexpensive and easy to use online tools with surprisingly rich functionality.  You can now do a filter or a cross tab in a few seconds that would have been agonizing five to 10 years ago.
• It may help if you or someone in your organization has research training.  However, online tools such as Zoomerang, Constant Contact or Survey Monkey make it easy to devise a reliable questionnaire.  In addition, they provide tutorials which teach research best practices.
• Even if your universe of potential customers is huge–say several million–you do not need a huge sample of respondents.  Three to four hundred respondents will provide reliable and projectable data. This is why Nielsen can project television viewership for such a small sample.
• You probably have a sizable database of e-mail names that can be used for your research studies.  Even if you don’t, companies like Zoomerang will give you access to a huge databases with highly detailed demographic data.  Moreover, Zoomerang will actually guarantee the number of responses that you want.
• What you need to budget for your research?  Here’s a ballpark numbers:
• annual licensing fee for access to online research tools–$400-$600
• use of your own e-mail list for research–free
• use of vendors’ e-mail list with guaranteed response of 300– $1500-$3000
• hiring of an affordable outside firm to conduct the research–$2000-$5000

Is the time, effort, and expense worth it?  Absolutely!

Whether you are starting a business, launching a product, or creating a content marketing strategy, you must understand who your best customers are and what is most important to them.  Otherwise you’re flying blind.

In 2008, conducting reliable research is almost painless.  Failing to conduct that research may be one of the most painful business mistakes you will make.