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if you want to start a new business
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launch a new offer or grow your existing
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business in order to take your sales to
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the next level then you need to know
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what's going on in your market and that
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means market research the problem is
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that ninety percent of businesses are
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doing market research wrong with the
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other 10 businesses not even doing it at
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all which leads to ineffective marketing
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campaigns bad results and an overall
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waste of time and money and energy
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sitting there wondering why nothing
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seems to be working but I don't blame
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them after all just the term market
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research sounds confusing and boring and
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time consuming and expensive I mean
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can't you just skip the market research
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part and figure it all out as you go
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no you see market research is one of the
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most important elements of any marketing
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campaign whether we're talking about
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social media or content marketing or
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video or email or anything at all but
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like all things in business and in
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marketing there's a right way and a
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wrong way to do it the wrong way is
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doing market research using old school
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and outdated and often incredibly
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ineffective techniques like running
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focus groups which are often very
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expensive hard to get in-depth data from
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and are prone to moderator bias this is
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where the person running the group
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either intentionally or inadvertently
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injects their own opinions and sways the
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direction of the group based on the
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questions and how they ask them so Adam
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what do you think of our new drink yeah
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it's uh it's okay I guess so let me ask
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you then would you rather drink our new
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drink or be submerged in molten hot lava
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and burned alive I'm sorry what surveys
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are another traditional option but they
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require careful wording of the questions
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and even more careful interpretation of
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the results back simply rephrasing a
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question from a positive to a negative
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can completely alter the outcome and the
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results that you get not to mention
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leading questions like how awesome is
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our hard-working customer service team
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that can skew the responses before the
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respondent has even had a chance to
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think much less respond question order
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and even the description used to talk
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about the survey can unconsciously prime
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a respondent in order to give certain
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answers depending on how it's worded and
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how it's presented and don't didn't get
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me started on trying to read through
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case studies and white papers and
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research Reports most of which are far
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too academic and theoretical to actually
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work in the real world and even if you
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do manage to decipher some of the more
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complicated language while many of the
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results are outdated the second they're
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published especially in Faster changing
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Industries and markets if I'm making
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this sound bad it's because it is but
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the good news is that there is a better
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way a faster way an easier way you see
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there are three things you need to know
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in order for your market research to
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actually be useful first you need to
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identify who are the kind of people that
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you want to attract and to sell to this
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includes their demographic details their
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Geographic details and their
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psychographic details so more on that in
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just a minute next you need to
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understand and try to clarify what they
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say they want this is important because
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it's going to influence the marketing
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and the language and the copy that you
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use in your campaigns but it's not the
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whole picture because the next thing
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that you need to find out is what they
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actually buy as the old saying goes talk
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is cheap so simply asking someone if
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they would buy something is completely
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different than putting that thing in
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front of them and asking them to hand
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over their wallet or their credit card
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or their hard-earned cash in order to
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actually make that sale and this is why
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you need to not just look at what people
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say but more importantly what they
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actually do of course for all of this to
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work and to make any sense at all we
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first need to identify who these people
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are so let's start there with a simple
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market research framework that I've been
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using for over 10 years now that always
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gets the job done the simple five
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question market research framework I use
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to help keep me on track is the who what
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when where why framework and to help me
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remember I wrote a little market
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research jingle why I asked these
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questions so my business doesn't die see
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at each stage I'm asking who is my
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market not just who I think they are but
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who are the people that are actually the
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best fit for my business and offer if
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it's a brand new offer I'll look at my
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competitors and their ads to see who
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they're targeting and what their
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messaging and offers look like I'll show
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you how to do this in just a minute and
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if I'm launching a new offer to my
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existing market then I'll will identify
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the top 20 percent of my customers and
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look for similarities in the following
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three categories first demographic
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details like their age and gender and
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income and occupation and things like
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that next they're Geographic details
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like what city or stage or Province or
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country they live in then finally their
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psychographic details like what are
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their values and attitudes and beliefs
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and Lifestyles next I ask what what are
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their miracles and their miseries their
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miracles are all of their wants and
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dreams and goals and desires and
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everything they're hoping to obtain and
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their miseries are all of their fears
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and frustrations and pains and problems
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and all the things they're trying to get
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away from like dinosaurs
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then I ask when this helps keep me
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focused on my ideal customers first I
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try to see if I can find any life events
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that may alter or influence their buying
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decisions things like getting married or
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getting divorced having a new kid
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getting a new job or moving to a new
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city I also try to take a look at what's
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going on in their day-to-day lives and
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how this may influence when and where
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they consume different kinds of content
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or make buying decisions for example
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someone working a traditional nine to
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five job is a very different schedule
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than say a stay-at-home parent or a Home
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entrepreneur and all of these factors
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need to be considered then I ask where
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as in where are they present and active
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online and offline where do they spend
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their time reading and watching and
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socializing and engaging a quick Google
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search for a term like social media
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demographics will show you what kind of
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people are using what social media
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platforms which is going to give you a
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huge advantage over your competitors and
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will make sure that you're creating
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content in the right places after the
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when I think of why and this is where
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I'll look at the deeper drives and the
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motivations behind why someone would
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benefit from my offer and ask questions
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like what are the benefits that they're
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hoping to get out of this and why are
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these benefits important to them in the
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first place now I appreciate this is a
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lot to think about especially if this is
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your first time working through
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something like this but it's things like
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this that really separate the amateurs
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from the pros and can mean the
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difference between marketing that
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connects and marketing that just gets
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ignored so now that we've got that
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covered next we need to uncover what
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they say they want and for that there's
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no better place to turn than to the
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search engines the best way to find out
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what people say they want is to take a
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look at what they're actually searching
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for and there's no better place to do
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that than with our trusty old friend
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Google and if you're feeling extra
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ambitious then a little bit of extra
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help from Google ads Keyword Planner
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goes a long way too but let's start with
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Google first for this example I wanted
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to use something completely random and
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obscure to show you how this market
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research can work for pretty much just
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about anything so I chose sock knitting
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as a side note little did I know how not
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random and not obscure this Niche
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actually was turns out that sock
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knitting is a pretty big industry but
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you'll learn more about that as we go on
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so step one head over to Google and type
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in your main keyword for me this was
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obviously sock knitting and then take a
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look at all of the auto suggestions that
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pop up after your main keyword in this
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case I can see that we've got terms like
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sock knitting machine and pattern and
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needles and machine for sale and kit
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Loom and size chart books antique things
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like that how relevant some of these
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terms are is obviously going to depend
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on whether you're sock knitting business
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is more product or service based but
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still a pretty good start and if I find
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a suggestion that I find particularly
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relevant I just have to keep typing to
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get even more suggestions for example if
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I decide to type in sock knitting
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pattern I can see all of the suggestions
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that Google's offering based on what
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other people have searched for things
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like patterns for beginners and Co-op
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and PDF and circular needles all sorts
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of other things I have no idea what they
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mean but I guess that's the point of
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market research after all now I could
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Click on each of these terms
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individually in order to find out their
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overall search volume but another faster
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and better and certainly more thorough
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way of doing this is to use Google ads
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Keyword Planner so let's do that now
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first log into Google ads and choose the
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Keyword Planner and then click discover
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new keywords then just type in your
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search term for me again this is sock
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knitting and I've chosen to select the
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US and Canada as my overall search pool
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and then Google hands over a list of
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over a thousand different keyword ideas
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as well as their search volume and their
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competition that I can sort through and
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use to make further decisions and
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apparently I can see what people are
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searching for I can see if there are
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Trends and seasonality I can check the
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overall competition and apparently
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sucked ending is a pretty competitive
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industry so that's what people say they
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want but more importantly what are they
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actually buying and to find that out all
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we need to do is head over to the
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world's largest online retailer Amazon
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one of the fastest easiest and best
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places to get ideas and relevant data on
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what people are actually buying is with
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Amazon and the process that we're going
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to do here is going to look pretty
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similar to what we just did on Google so
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the first step is to head over to Amazon
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type in your search term and see what
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comes up now the first thing that you
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can do is see what Amazon suggests in
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their autocomplete which surprisingly
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looks kind of similar to Google I mean
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we've got terms like sock knitting
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machine and needles and book and Loom
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and kit and so on for now though let's
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just stick with our main keyword of sock
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knitting and hit enter the books and
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book titles will tell you the topics
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that people are most interested in and
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because a book takes a lot longer to
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write than a blog post or social media
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post the words they use in the title The
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subtitle and the descriptions are
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typically well thought out and designed
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to appeal to the target audience the
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reviews are another great place to mine
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for data looking at what people liked
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and didn't like about whatever they
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bought lastly you can't see exactly how
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many units were sold of anything but you
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can try to make a rough guess based on
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the number of reviews any single listing
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received another thing that you can do
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depending on your business your market
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and your industry is to take a look at
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your competitors and see what ads
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they're running now this is going to be
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trickier for some Industries like sock
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knitting than it is for others like say
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health and fitness but it's still
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important for you to know how to do this
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so let me walk you through it now first
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head over to Facebook and type in the
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name of your industry or even one of
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your competitors now I'll admit it did
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did take me a while to find a good
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knitting example but I did finally find
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one for us to take a look at the
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Facebook page is called we are Knitters
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and to see their ads all you need to do
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is Click over to their page scroll down
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until you see the section called page
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transparency and click see all you can
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see that they're running ads so click go
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to add library and then all of their ads
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will appear before you and you can do
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this with any and all of your
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competitors who are running ads on
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Facebook or on Instagram what I like to
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do here is look through each ad paying
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special attention to the ones that
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appear to show up again and again as
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well as the ones that are closer to the
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bottom of the page which indicates
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they've been running for the longest
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amount of time in general it's pretty
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safe to assume that the longer an ads
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been running the more profitable it is
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compared to other ads after all
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otherwise why would they continue to be
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running it but that's not always the
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case so make sure to do a little bit of
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due diligence of course all of the
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market research in the world doesn't
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mean a thing if you don't have a solid
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marketing strategy to actually go out
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and apply it all so to help you with
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that I've linked up a video right here
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with some of my top marketing strategies
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so make sure to check it out now and
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I'll see you in the video and when
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you're broad you're boring and everybody
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just ignores you and you sound like 99
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of the other businesses and marketers
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out there saying the same things like we
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offer higher quality and we offer better
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service and all of that stuff that
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everybody's
