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Conducting market research for a service based business

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  • 22-09-2008 2:51pm
    #1
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭


    I'm thinking questionnaires, online and in person and possibly a focus group.

    What do you suggest?

    Goal is to gauge the responsiveness of the target market and to see if they want the service I have to offer, find out what they don't like about existing services offered by competitors and offer them what they do like.


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    #2
    garytuohy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 210 ✭✭garytuohy


    questioners and competitor analysis is the way forward yes

    I recently conducted some research myself and found online surveys to be a god send, 200 replies in less than 48 hrs!

    Fair bit of posting/blogging etc though but def worth it


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    #3
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    garytuohy wrote: »
    questioners and competitor analysis is the way forward yes

    I recently conducted some research myself and found online surveys to be a god send, 200 replies in less than 48 hrs!

    Fair bit of posting/blogging etc though but def worth it

    Good man Gary, did you find with the market research online that your target market would be off?

    Which online one did you use?


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    #4
    random.stranger
    Registered Users Posts: 442 ✭✭random.stranger


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Good man Gary, did you find with the market research online that your target market would be off?

    Which online one did you use?
    I found the Google survey tool to be very good. It gives you various question types, an unlimited number of questions, unlimited number of replies and it's free. It compiles all of the information into a google spreadsheet which you can export to excel/open office. You also get all the standard graphs and charts automatically.

    You can give my survey a go if you like.


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    #5
    TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan
    Company Representative Posts: 1,740 ✭✭✭TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan


    Survey monkey is handy for questionaires, but the problem is people tend to lie on questionaires.

    For example, a class of college students were asked to come into a room choose which ever poster they liked, explain why they liked it and they could keep the poster.

    The majority chose a modern art poster and went into detail about the meaning and imaginary.

    Later a second sample group were asked to come into the same room choose which ever poster they liked and they could keep the poster - no need to explain why they liked it.

    The majority in the second case chose a picture of a rabbit with a funny slogan.

    Six months later the two groups were interviewed - 80% of the rabbit posters and only 25% of the posters of the modern art hung on the walls of the recipients.

    Basically what the survey proved is that people will tend to opt to try to impress and put forward a favorable self image in surveys, even anonymous ones.

    @TheEntrepreneur IMO if you want results ask people to buy and see what they do, all the tools and stats you need are on the web. Use the PPC method as i mentioned to you before.


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    #6
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Yo fancy dresser,

    How's the boy?

    Yeah this is an old thread and once I'm back home in September, it's all going to be falling into place, I'll PM you about that though.

    PS: Hey I'm tracking that blog of yours from NZ and haven't seen an update in a while, get on it. :)


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    #7
    TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan
    Company Representative Posts: 1,740 ✭✭✭TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan


    Ah i didnt check the date just noticed the latest post was recent. Glad to hear your doing well. Been spending so much time on other things (this blog) that i haven't been at my personal blog in a while. Your right must get some of the topics i have on my notebook up and get back to being a real blogger.

    Enjoy NZ, one of my favorite countries in the world.


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    #8
    PCRunner
    Registered Users Posts: 4 ✭PCRunner


    I'm a big fan of surveys for doing market assessments.

    Two tips:
    1. Provide some means of quantitatively reporting the results, by putting in multiple choice questions you can report on, e.g.

    Which of the following best describes your level of interest in the service as described:
    - This is a service which will probably subscribe to when it becomes available
    - It is likely that we will subscribe to this service soon after it becomes available
    - We will consider subscribing to this service
    - We will not be interested in this service

    This allows you to tell your business partners or investors hard statistics like that “33% of the 100 interviewed said that they would subscribe as soon as the service becomes available”

    2. Provide a means for people to show evidence of commitment, recognising the phenomenon alluded to in the earlier posts, e.g.

    As a result of your level of interest in this new service will you:
    - Be interested to have us contact you to discuss your paying to participate as one of a select group of early adopters of the service
    - Be interested to have us contact you to discuss your becoming an early adopter
    - Subscribe to our mailing list for updates on the development of this service
    - Do nothing

    Hope this helps.


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