Why is marketing research important? Because it can make the difference in failing or succeeding in business. And because it affects your profit.

Small business owners, like you and me, operate on limited budgets and need to make every penny provide a return on investment. So we need marketing research to assure that we get the best return on our marketing investments.

From initially researching your product and market, to assuring that your marketing campaigns are successful, marketing research affects your bottom line and business success.

Why Is Marketing Research Important Before You Create Your Product?

There’s nothing worse than spending time and money developing and marketing a product, just to learn too late that no one wants to buy it.

By doing marketing research before you decide what product to create, you can determine if there is a felt need for it before investing time and money in it.

You do this kind of marketing research by visiting forums and noticing the concerns and needs expressed by members. You can also conduct an “Ask” campaign using pay per click to drive traffic to a short survey.

If you already have a list, you can offer a freebie to your list members in exchange for telling you what they want and need. If you build your product based on your customers’ or potential customers’ wants and needs, your chances of success increase.

Why Is Marketing Research Important To Your Competitiveness?

Once you know the type of product that your potential customers want and need, then you have to determine who else is selling similar products and how each competitor is perceived in the market place.

I recently did an article and a series of posts on gathering competitor intelligence statistics. You can access them below:

Competitor Intelligence Statistics

Competitor Intelligence Statistics - Major Competitors Example

Why Is Marketing Research Important To Determine Your Target Market?

You can’t determine what your potential customers want unless you first know who they are.

You need to know your target market’s demographics. Once you know their demographics, you can discover psychographic and other behavioral characteristics. These characteristics will help you communicate with target market members better. They will also help you to raise each customers’ lifetime value.

You can get a free report on your target market by clicking the link below and selecting demographics.

Target Market Analysis

Why Is Marketing Research Important In Developing and Evaluating Marketing Campaigns?

When you’ve completed marketing research on your product, your competitors, and your target market, you still need marketing research to establish a benchmark for each campaign.

You also need marketing research to evaluate the success of each marketing tactic and the entire campaign.

You can read about marketing research for Internet marketers, by clicking on the link in this sentence.

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Posted 9-18-06: Why Is Marketing Research Important?

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