Before you go ahead to create or launch a product, there are things you need to know about the market. Based on what you’re looking to achieve, it’s pretty easy to sit down and come up with a bunch of questions and send it all out in a survey. But if we’re being honest, how many of those survey questions lead to actionable results?
This brings us to a golden rule when you’re creating surveys- Only ask questions that give you actionable information. That said, what should your research focus on at the initial stages of understanding the market?
Here are some questions that can give you a pretty great starting point:
1. How are customers grouped into market segments?
We can describe a market as the whole group/universe of buyers within an industry and a segment as a subset of the market that shares certain characteristics (here is an article that goes in-depth into segmentation). A lot of companies focus on geographic/demographic segmentation as a starting point but Gerardo Dada shares that needs-based segmentation is the most powerful. I’d say, when starting out with your segmentation, it’s best to focus on the segmentation process that will point you to where you can make the most profit, or the segment that needs your product/service the most.
2. What is their CLV? Which customers are more profitable?
If there are multiple customer segments, what is the customer lifetime value? Which customer segments have bigger budgets, more propensity to buy and are larger in size?
3. Which markets have unmet needs?
A market with unmet needs is easier to go into than a market which has needs that are fairly satisfied.
4. Which customers are easier to reach? Which customers have a predisposition to do business with us?
You want to determine that it’s easy to identify the customers you’re targeting and reach them in a cost-effective manner. Some customer segments are easier to find than others. A good instance is if the segment you’re catering to is house/property owners, this is information that’s publicly available to a large degree. Information that would not be so easy to get on the other hand will be people looking to have children in the next 2 years. This isn’t completely impossible as you can infer from certain instances e.g. people who have gotten married in the last 5 years, but there’s really no foolproof way of finding this out. Actions and behaviours that have already been performed or are based on a pattern will be easier to determine than behaviours that will likely be performed in the future where there has been no prior existing pattern.
5. What value proposition will resonate with each segment?
How can you articulate the value of your product or service in a way that will resonate with each segment you cater to? You can’t have a sweeping value proposition because every segment’s needs are different.
6. What are the buyer profiles and personas for each segment?
A buyer profile is the complete picture of a person that’s making the purchase decision or influencing the decision. Influencers are especially common in B2B marketing. A persona is simply the personification of this buyer profile in a fictional character. You can’t create either of these two if you haven’t done the work of understanding your market and your customers.
7. What are their key pain points - which ones are not served by existing products and services?
What are the pain points for each buyer segment and which of these pain points are not served or fully served by existing products or services?
If your research questions are helping you answer any of the questions listed above, you’re on the right track!
References:
The content in this post is from Gerardo Dada’s 4-part course on product marketing which you can find here.
If you have any comments or questions please reach out to me on LinkedIn here. Would love to hear from you!