Hi, just having a chat today about market research. I know accountants, market research, probably not something you’d normally associate, but as businessowners, all of us want to take our business somewhere and we need to have a look at what our product is or our services and check that there actually a market for it.
Now some products and services are a given. Ie You know that if you’re a doctor, people are going to get sick so we will always need doctors. Accountants – people have taxes and businesses to run – we need them.
Market research is something that you do to work out if there is a market for the product and service that you are thinking about offering, particularly if it’s a bit different to someone else’s. Things to consider are:
- Who else in the marketplace does this?
- Is there something that they do is similar to what you want to do or is it different to what you want to do?
- Are there opportunities to change up the marketplace?
- Is there an actual target market for what you want to do?
- Are there people that actually want to buy what you‘re selling?
I see it time and time again, people have a hobby, and they think, great, I’m going to go out and I’m going to build clay animals and go to the market, I’m going to the world. Then they go to the markets to sell their product. They do this for months and months and months and they turnaround and they go, why am I not making any money? The problem is they haven’t looked at their target market. Are there the people in the area that actually want to buy what you’re selling?
A target market is really important for any business, even if you’ve got a business that is something that is needed by everybody. It still has separate target markets. For instance, here at HBA Encompass, we love dealing with professional people, accountants, solicitors, lawyers, bookkeepers, financial planners, finance brokers and they’re our target market. So, when we focus our marketing, we focus on them to give them the information that they need. So, if you’re looking at starting a business or opening a new service or product within your business, make sure you do some research to work out if. There really is a target market for what you want or sell or if you’ve just got a great hobby, that sounded like a great idea.