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MANAGEMENT: How to analyze your market and conduct a marketing research within 7days
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How to analyze your market and

conduct a marketing research

within7days

By Marwan Emile Faddoul (Managing Partner, NFG Consulting LLC)


BT 201611 170 01 Management Dollarphotoclub 79215769It takes time, a proper team and a lot of money to conduct an in-depth market research. Most start-up companies do not have the internal resources to prepare a well-developed study and cannot afford an external consultant to do the job.


One program our firm offers is the Qadisha Accelerator Program known as QAP, where we help start-ups and small companies acquire the basic management knowledge for them to develop on their own a proper infrastructure for their business.


In today's article we will share with you essential tips to help you conduct within 7 days a proper market study that will help you better understand your customers' needs and behavior, your competitors' advantage and disadvantage along with your market size and market shares.


Remember, 87% of start-ups close down within the first two years simply because they didn't know their market well and didn't develop the proper solution for their customers. Therefore, identifying buyers and understanding their pain points is the initial investment that any company should work on.


In principle there are 5 necessary steps that should be applied to conduct proper research.

BT 201611 170 02 Management Dollarphotoclub 79215769
-1- Define what you are looking for: The Chinese market is big and it takes years to understand it well, so eventually we need to be specific for what we really want to know.


To be able to do that, two steps should be elaborated. First of all we need to understand our baseline.


Internally, we should identify our expertise, what we, our partners and coworkers are good at, can develop and deliver. On top of that, we should present the main resources that are at our disposal.


Externally, we need to know the opportunities we have in that market. One simple way to achieve that is to take a quick view at the latest economic news in the region. Another deeper way is to pinpoint the trend around us, understand the sectors that are going up and the ones that are being newly created. Find out where the government is pumping money and the reasons behind it, also find out where people are investing and how they are marketing themselves.


After identifying our baseline, we need to specify and clarify the primary target which we aim to attain. For example if we want to conduct a market research about the size of the market of tires in China, we need to identify the products we care to develop. Are our tires used for trucks, cars, scooters or others? Is our material half-steel, full-steel or other? We also need to identify our customers and our geographic location. The more specific we are the better and faster it would be for us to complete the puzzle we are trying to build. Eventually, the aim is to reduce time, money and energy while conducting research.


-2- Develop a proper timeframe for your work: A lot of work must be done in a short period of time. Therefore, it is important to develop a proper framework that will help us reach our objectives. For each section of our structure a timeframe must be allocated. Do remember to retain a maximum number of four to five days for your entire timeframe.

hl01-3- List the types of sources: Many sources can be presented both online and offline that could help us develop our research. Nonetheless, it is important to utilize proper resources that wouldn't cost us money and would answer the questions we are looking for. If we are talking about online sources, the most reliable sources are companies' websites, World Bank data and the ministries websites, for example the ministry of education, transport, foreign affairs, etc. Reuters for financial information and Google scholar (with use of VPN) could also be useful sources to get information that would support our research. In some occasions and when it is hard for us to find the data we are looking for, blog sites on specific topics could be a way to collect our facts.


BT 201611 170 05 Management Dollarphotoclub 79215769For offline sources, the easiest and fastest way to collect data would be cold calls. For more accurate information conducting interviews and surveys would be a proper source. However it is important to prepare questionnaires well in advance before running any interview. The more specific the questions are the better the answers would be. Despite these offline sources, school, university and business network as well as chamber of commerce could be used as useful roots for our research.


-4- Conduct research: In this step we start developing our research. However, this should be done after defining what we are looking for, building our timeframe and structure, and presenting the sources that could be used for our study. These first three steps should take about one to two days, leaving four to five days to conduct the research.


-5- Do a reality check: When we develop the answers to our questions, recognize our target market and understand their needs and pain points and also when we spot our competitors' strength and weakness, we need to review the big picture of our study and make sure that the outcome is presented in a logical and significant manner. This final step should not take more than a day to review our research and present our conclusion.


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