market research for startups: understand customers and reduce risks
DESCRIPTION
Slides for the seminar on market research for startups and small businesses. Outline of DIY and full service market research tools which are either free or affordable for startups and SMEs. Todos and howtos for understanding customers and reducing business risks.TRANSCRIPT
Market research for startups: understand your customers and reduce your risks
The big ones spend enormous budgets to research the marketplace US $ 31.2 billion worldwide
US $ 3.2 billion in the UK
US $ 9.9 billion in the USA
Those guys never develop or market a product until they reduced their risk to a minimum
40%
26%
22%
12%
How do they spend those 31bln? To understand their customers and reduce their risks
Understanding: U&A, qual, CRM
Risk reduction: pre-tests, modeling
Ad tracking
Other
Understand • What do customers need? • Are they ready to pay? • What colors they like? • What messages are relevant
to them? • What services they expect? • What and why they would tell
their friends?
Reduce risks • What’s size of my market? • Who will pay my price? • Which design will sell better? • What they understand
from my ads? • Is free delivery necessary? • Who will recommend me?
Well, maybe you wouldn’t mind to understand and reduce risks too?
Why startups and SMEs are not in the game?
It used to be expensive! It used to take months!
This used to be true…
Nowadays most research studies are just copy-pasted by thousands of managers.
Expensive managers hours in expensive offices.
DIY research was a breakthrough in 2000s
SurveyMonkey: do it yourself!
850 000 surveys per months!
Belong to paid accounts
47%
250-300 thousands paid surveys!
SurveyMonkey: write q’re
Write your questionnaire Max 10 questions for free No logic & complex questions for free
Distribute link for your survey Max 100 responses for free Still those are YOUR responses, you have to find them
SurveyMonkey: find responses
See summarized and raw responses Pre-defined charts and tables on per question basis No export for free No analysis at all
SurveyMonkey: analyze data
SurveyMonkey is a great tool, still some challenges do persist
What questions to ask?
— It just seems easy to ask questions
— But usually takes a little more time than you expected — Not only your questions – introduction, profile, branch logic — Question types are confusing
— SurveyMonkey questionnaire designer is for professionals, which is great if that’s who you are
— Results are quite sensitive to questionnaire wording, presentation and a lot of other little things
— Bottom line: you have to learn new things to design your own questionnaire
How to find responses?
— You’ve launched your survey, now what?
Data collection takes surprisingly a lot of time, even if you have an active customer base. 1.5-2 weeks is average! And what if you don’t?
How to interpret results?
For any non-trivial questions answers and percentages itself are meaningless. You need action standards and benchmarks. Both are usually a byproduct of previous research experience.
Next-gen research tools are here to help
Write questions
Find respondents
Get results
Analyse results
Select target
Write questions
Get analysed results
Select target
Get analysed results
Select target
Get analysed results
Up to 24 hours
$0.10 - $3.50 per respondent
£7 - £40 per respondent
£1.70 per respondent
GCS: select target
GCS: build questionnaire
GCS: summary of results
Google Consumer Surveys is good for …
Measuring market size Do you own a dog?
Understanding customers Which quality do you look for most when purchasing a dog toy?
Timely questions Which of the following messages do you like most for a dog toy company?
ZappiStore: buy product
ZappiStore brings SMBs expertise of global MR companies
TNS Conversion Model helps you identify and size growth opportunities for your brand
MillwardBrown eStatic helps you select the best creative for your brand
Mmr Impackt helps you to optimize your packaging design
ZappiStore: set-up and launch
ZappiStore is good for…
All situations when you have to show your results to any outside parties
— You buy research product endorsed by recognized analytics brand
— Still it costs thousands of pounds, though much cheaper than the same products bought directly from traditional agencies
Proved.co is about testing ideas
Start-up ideas
Product ideas
App ideas
Product features
Promo ideas
Product claims
Price points
— Get feedback from potential customers
— Benchmark your ideas against thousands of others
— 2 hours to get the resuts
— £ 35 – 170 per idea
Proved.co: set-up
Pick your plan, narrow your target group
Type in your idea, and click Launch!
Proved.co: first feedback in minutes
Proved.co: your idea analysed and scored against thousands of others
Proved.co is good for
— Validation of any business-related ideas — New business / new product
— New marketing campaign / new promotion
— New price strategy / price promotion
— Quick choice between two and more — Directions, concepts, ideas, messages, etc
— Investment opportunities, etc.
Final thoughts
— Whatever you do, it’s investment – of your money, your time, your passion
— It’s time to understand your customers and reduce your risks, like big guys do, because your investments are much more precious and risks are much more disastrous
— Research your market, test your ideas.
— You can do it yourself and learn a couple of new things in the process.
— Or use a new generation of research tools: easy-to-use, fast, accurate and cost-effective.
Questions? Comments?
Alex Lomizov Co-founder @Proved
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: http://proved.co
Twitter: @proved_co
Facebook: proved.co
LinkedIn: alomizov