Market Polls / Surveys
So, you have a great idea for a product – something that’s bound to capture the hearts and minds (and wallets) of consumers everywhere. Or perhaps you have stumbled on a service that isn’t being offered by anyone else – one that is desperately needed. This is your opportunity! Don’t hesitate . . . don’t look back . . . jump right into it and . . .
Wait! Before you shift into high gear, you must determine whether there really is a market for your product or service. Not only that, you need to ascertain what-if any-fine-tuning is needed. Quite simply, you must conduct market research.
Many business owners neglect this crucial step in product development for the sole reason that they don’t want to hear any negative feedback. They are convinced their product or service is perfect just the way it is, and they don’t want to risk tampering with it. Other entrepreneurs bypass market research because they fear it will be too expensive. With all the other startup costs you’re facing, it’s not easy to justify spending money on research that will only prove what you knew all along: Your product is a winner.
Regardless of the reason, failing to do market research can amount to a death sentence for your product.
The International Trade Council can help your organization by running a survey relevant to your specific audience (industry, job-titles, geographic location, company size etc.).
The benefits of running a survey via the Council are as follows:
- Understand the market. Having the International Trade Council run a market survey allows you to gain a better perspective and understanding of your market or target audience and ensure that your organization stays ahead of the competition.
- Minimize investment risk. This is a simple but vitally important and business critical consideration. Spending what is often only a small proportion of your investment on researching and testing the market, product, concept or idea makes sound business sense.
- Identify potential threats and opportunities. Running a survey can help to highlight certain opportunities or warning signs that may otherwise have been missed.
- Uncover strengths and weaknesses. Having the International Trade Council partner with you to run a market survey allows completely unbiased reporting. Use research findings to adapt and learn from your own weaknesses whilst capitalizing on your new-found knowledge from competitor analysis to take advantage and forge ahead of the pack.
- Facilitates strategic planning. What is the foundation of your business strategy? If it’s evidence based and you’ve taken the time to invest in your own (and hopefully ongoing) research, you can be confident that you’ve given yourself the best chance to achieve your business goals.
- Spot emerging trends. Staying ahead in business is often about being the first, being the best or doing something that no-one else has thought about. Regularly taking the ‘pulse’ of what’s hot and what’s not in your industry is a key discipline.
- Helps you stay ahead of the competition. Being the best demands a relentlessness to keep getting the basics right combined with a curiosity and willingness to innovate.
- Validates revenue projections. Running a survey helps you validate your financial assumptions and let you focus on the best market – which is not necessarily the largest one or the market with the highest growth – it will be the one that matches your own company profile.
- Helps to evaluate against benchmarks. You can run surveys to identify customer behavior, customer demand, pricing structures, employee engagement, knowledge gaps, growth potential and more. This will open your company up to thinking about new methods, ideas and tools to improve your business effectiveness.
Contact our staff to learn more about running a survey with the International Trade Council.