Market research for startups: understand your customers and reduce your risks

The big ones spend enormous budgets to research the marketplace US $ 31.2 billion worldwide

US $ 3.2 billion in the UK

US $ 9.9 billion in the USA

Those guys never develop or market a product until they reduced their risk to a minimum

40%  

26%  

22%  

12%  

How do they spend those 31bln? To understand their customers and reduce their risks

Understanding: U&A, qual, CRM

Risk reduction: pre-tests, modeling

Ad tracking

Other

Understand •  What do customers need? •  Are they ready to pay? •  What colors they like? •  What messages are relevant

to them? •  What services they expect? •  What and why they would tell

their friends?

Reduce risks •  What’s size of my market? •  Who will pay my price? •  Which design will sell better? •  What they understand

from my ads? •  Is free delivery necessary? •  Who will recommend me?

Well, maybe you wouldn’t mind to understand and reduce risks too?

Why startups and SMEs are not in the game?

It used to be expensive! It used to take months!

This used to be true…

Nowadays most research studies are just copy-pasted by thousands of managers.

Expensive managers hours in expensive offices.

DIY research was a breakthrough in 2000s

SurveyMonkey: do it yourself!

850 000 surveys per months!

Belong to paid accounts

47%

250-300 thousands paid surveys!

SurveyMonkey: write q’re

Write your questionnaire Max 10 questions for free No logic & complex questions for free

Distribute link for your survey Max 100 responses for free Still those are YOUR responses, you have to find them

SurveyMonkey: find responses

See summarized and raw responses Pre-defined charts and tables on per question basis No export for free No analysis at all

SurveyMonkey: analyze data

SurveyMonkey is a great tool, still some challenges do persist

What questions to ask?

—  It just seems easy to ask questions

— But usually takes a little more time than you expected — Not only your questions – introduction, profile, branch logic — Question types are confusing

— SurveyMonkey questionnaire designer is for professionals, which is great if that’s who you are

— Results are quite sensitive to questionnaire wording, presentation and a lot of other little things

— Bottom line: you have to learn new things to design your own questionnaire

How to find responses?

— You’ve launched your survey, now what?

Data collection takes surprisingly a lot of time, even if you have an active customer base. 1.5-2 weeks is average! And what if you don’t?

How to interpret results?

For any non-trivial questions answers and percentages itself are meaningless. You need action standards and benchmarks. Both are usually a byproduct of previous research experience.

Next-gen research tools are here to help

Write questions

Find respondents

Get results

Analyse results

Select target

Write questions

Get analysed results

Select target

Get analysed results

Select target

Get analysed results

Up to 24 hours

$0.10 - $3.50 per respondent

£7 - £40 per respondent

£1.70 per respondent

GCS: select target

GCS: build questionnaire

GCS: summary of results

Google Consumer Surveys is good for …

Measuring market size Do you own a dog?

Understanding customers Which quality do you look for most when purchasing a dog toy?

Timely questions Which of the following messages do you like most for a dog toy company?

ZappiStore: buy product

ZappiStore brings SMBs expertise of global MR companies

TNS Conversion Model helps you identify and size growth opportunities for your brand

MillwardBrown eStatic helps you select the best creative for your brand

Mmr Impackt helps you to optimize your packaging design

ZappiStore: set-up and launch

ZappiStore is good for…

All situations when you have to show your results to any outside parties

— You buy research product endorsed by recognized analytics brand

— Still it costs thousands of pounds, though much cheaper than the same products bought directly from traditional agencies

Proved.co is about testing ideas

Start-up ideas

Product ideas

App ideas

Product features

Promo ideas

Product claims

Price points

— Get feedback from potential customers

— Benchmark your ideas against thousands of others

— 2 hours to get the resuts

— £ 35 – 170 per idea

Proved.co: set-up

Pick your plan, narrow your target group

Type in your idea, and click Launch!

Proved.co: first feedback in minutes

Proved.co: your idea analysed and scored against thousands of others

Proved.co is good for

— Validation of any business-related ideas — New business / new product

— New marketing campaign / new promotion

— New price strategy / price promotion

— Quick choice between two and more — Directions, concepts, ideas, messages, etc

— Investment opportunities, etc.

Final thoughts

— Whatever you do, it’s investment – of your money, your time, your passion

— It’s time to understand your customers and reduce your risks, like big guys do, because your investments are much more precious and risks are much more disastrous

— Research your market, test your ideas.

— You can do it yourself and learn a couple of new things in the process.

— Or use a new generation of research tools: easy-to-use, fast, accurate and cost-effective.

Questions? Comments?

Alex Lomizov Co-founder @Proved

E-mail: alex@proved.co

Web: http://proved.co

Twitter: @proved_co

Facebook: proved.co

LinkedIn: alomizov