The research paperweight, and how to fix it.
This article is about research, with a purpose. Having a plan in mind, and how research done 'along the way' can plug the gaps in business planning. Simple clarity, that leads to simple actions.
I've set myself a simple challenge. To explain how marketing 'theory' is applied to the lowest budgets. This is the second piece (the first is here) looking at a case of simple research for one of my clients.
102 - Research, with a practical outcome
Most businesses don't have £10,000 laying about for a market research report.
And those that do, often waste the money. They become a very expensive paperweight... but, all businesses need information to make informed decisions.
So what do you do?
Here is one example of how to do some simple market research, using Google and internal sales info.
A couple of years ago, I had a video production company client. They wanted to increase profitability, without incurring additional costs in hiring. This means targeting more lucrative clients; earning more with less projects.
We sat down, worked out their marketing funnel and reviewed their media planning over the previous year.
We found the types of businesses that converted well as well as the ones that are most attractive in terms of profit. That was our segmentation of the market.
The breakdown was as follows:-
- Industry
- Client budget
- Client job (Description of the kind of work)
- Client contact
- Decision makers
- Sales cycle (From inquiry to sign off)
This information is important, because it's how you understand the customer you want to get.
After this, I did some very simple research using Google.
"Top 50 growing companies in the Midlands"
"Top 25 growing companies in the North West"
We build a list of companies on an Excel spreadsheet from publicly available sources, reviewing their Companies House accounts as well (PR isn't always honest...) and that's how we had our list of possible customers.
We ended up with about 300 possible companies worth an estimated £1,500,000 value based on the median project size of £5,000.
For my client, they wanted to increase profitability per customer... and to do that we segmented the market, targeting the segment that was most attractive, and built a tactical plan consisting of a list of businesses that we knew were the right kind of businesses and budgeted to achieve that based on the previous years marketing budget.
All of this cost them £3,500 and it led to action.
Don't let research become an expensive paperweight, think about what you want to achieve first. Then do the research and proper marketing to work out the plan to get there.
Lots of businesses can do this without my input, just give it a try yourself.
But if you can't or aren't sure how to do, then that's what I'm here for.
Better marketing, better business.
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