Market Research | A relevant In-Depth How To.

Market research is of paramount importance and can make or break your business. To be more specific, Market Research is collecting data in your market about your audience/clients.

What do you do with the data you collect? Well, you use that information to either validate an idea/product you weren’t sure there was a market for or utilise the information to improve your existing products/services.

In this article, I will show you 2 platforms where to find your audience and how to use these platforms to pull relevant data that you can use to increase your efficiency.

Ignoring the research step can lead to time wasted trying to bring a product nobody wants into the market and a gross misuse of money. 

But first, here are some examples of large companies that ignored market trends and paid dearly. They found themselves unprepared to face the imminent reality and were too cumbersome due to their inefficient structure to adapt to change. 

1. Kodak: A gigantic company that failed because they ignored their marketing department’s market research, which at the time showed that digital photography was becoming increasingly popular. And because they stuck to analog photography instead of investing resources into disruptive digital technology, it inevitably led to their demise. 

Kodak at the time, had over 80% Market Share in the US and around 50% globally! 

2.BlackBerry: Another famous corporation that ignored market trends and thought it knew better than the market. This symbol of business executives has stubbornly clung to the QWERTY buttons, ignoring market trends, which at the time were shifting from Physical Buttons to Touch Screens. 

BlackBerry owned over 50% of the US Market Share and 20% of the global market!

Although these companies had brand, knowledge, and financial power to push their products into the market comfortably, they still ended up failing. This shows you the importance of knowing the market and adapting to its demands. 

The MARKET, not companies, decides what is working and what is not! As you’ve learned from the examples above, you cannot force a product into the market. Instead, collect information about your audience’s desires and needs, and integrate them into your products and campaigns. That way, you’ll skip the guesswork and avoid costly mistakes.

You might have noticed by now that everything revolves around the consumer.

What market research actually means?

The idea is simple: collect information about your consumer needs and wants. Although the idea is straightforward, the execution, however, could be proved difficult to execute.

Market research helps you to:

• Define your customer avatar.
• Validate your MVP (Minimum Viable Product). 
• Get valuable insight into consumer behavior.

You see, it doesn’t really matter if you’re selling products (both digital and physical) or services. Knowing what your audience wants and more importantly, what they DON’T WANT, will give you a competitive advantage.

Essential Platforms for Market Research

I will show you 2 platforms where you can begin your Market Research quest of finding your audience and discovering like-minded people. All of it for free!

It’s time to get practical. 

But first, let me paint a picture for you:

Let’s say that you like living healthily and are passionate about Nutrition. Every day after work, you cannot wait to go to the shop to buy fresh food and cook your favourite healthy dish. There is a distinct feeling when you eat healthily: it makes you feel like your body is grateful for your decision to eat healthy and rewards you with good mood and energy.

For some time now, you’ve been dabbling with the idea of starting a blog on nutrition and even writing a book since everything related to nutrition peaks your interest. This is your escapism from your mundane job and would happily do this for the rest of your life.

(Nutrition is not my area of expertise so I’m totally out of my comfort zone with this example🙂 )

So where do you begin to learn about your audience?

1. Reddit

A goldmine of data. Besides the fact that you can spend hours on end learning about any subject and not even realise it, it can also be used as a Market Research tool. 

This amazing and unique platform (and my personal favourite) can give you valuable insights into your audience’s latest Interests and the Challenges they face! 

These insights are highly valuable as they can be used to create content that’s relevant for your audience as well as launch campaigns that grab attention.

How to use Reddit:

Because it’s a massive platform that encompasses an ample variety of interests, Reddit is segmented into communities known as Subreddits. These subreddits show you what is trending in your area of interest through people sharing their ideas, stories, experiences, etc.

1. Head to https://www.reddit.com/, click on the search bar and type your keyword. (Following our example above, type Nutrition)

2. Click on Communities. The default search is POSTS meaning that it shows your keyword being mentioned in Different subreddits (this input can be valuable as it shows you other people’s points of view unaltered by community bias, giving you a holistic view of the subject.

3. Select the first suggested community, which in our case is r/nutrition. Notice that there are more subreddits on the same topic: r/ EatCheapAndHealthy, r/ScientificNutrition, r/ketoscience, r/PlantBasedDiet, etc. I suggest you take a look into similar communities to expand your knowledge.

4. Once you’ve chosen the subreddit, you’ll land on the first page which is populated with posts. The default filter to see content is set to HOT, which prioritises fresh posts that have the most votes (Hot is a mix of Top and Best posts). We’re interested in TOP posts. This shows you the top posts that have the highest number of votes. (I advise you to sort content by Hot if you find yourself visiting the subreddit often). You’ll notice that when Top is selected, another option pops out, where you choose the time frame (Now, Today, This Week, Month, Year, and All-Time).

Once the content is sorted by Top, we can see what subject grabbed the most attention.

5. Comments often provide additional information on the subject along with stories and personal experiences of the user. So analyse the first couple of head comments (if the post has hundreds of comments, analyse the first 5-10 head comments, or until you start noticing them getting irrelevant) to find what’s the audience’s opinion on the subject. 

6. Open the notepad on your computer (or write on paper) and compile a list of the post titles and comments. 

Summary of the path:

• Go to https://www.reddit.com/ > Type Nutrition in the search bar > Select Communities tab > Nutrition > Sort by Top > Choose the time frame (Now, Today, This Week, Month, Year, and All-Time).

How to use the collected data

Now what, you might ask yourself. How do I put to practical use what I just learned? 

Here’s how:

• The information you get from the title can be used as a topic for your blog or as a pain point in your ad. 
• The comments can also be a source of valuable information that you can use.

(Again, as nutrition is not my area of expertise, I cannot say whether this information is correct or not).

 Here’s an example:

This user has posted the following question: “Can men overconsume iron from food?”. This indicates the following:

You can use this information as follows:

• For your blog topic: “Why do women need to consume more iron-rich food than men?”
• As a competitive advantage in your advert by anticipating your customer’s objections or showcasing your USP (Unique Selling Proposition). “Men and Women are not equal! At least when it comes to storing iron. There is a reason why the supplements we have developed for women have more iron than those for men.” (I choose to say: men and women are not equal in order to grab attention and the topic of iron absorption for relevancy).

Bonus: If you scroll down a bit on the community post page, on the right side of the screen, you will see a tab named Related Communities. This helps you discover communities with similar interests you might not otherwise find.

Ok, that was Reddit.

Now, we proceed to the second platform we can use for market research.

2. Amazon

It comes as no surprise that the largest online store can be used for our market research purposes. If used wisely that is.

To see what your audience/customers are looking for but more importantly WHAT they’re spending their money on, take a look at this mammoth of a website. 

Let’s dive in (again 🙂)

How to use Amazon:

 Our interest lies in the Books department, more specifically the Kindle books section. 

(And because we like consistency, we follow the example set at the beginning of the article.)

1. Head over to Amazon.com (or co.uk), Click on the Books section, select All Kindle Books then choose Bestsellers. (I prefer Kindle and not regular books because they are better categorised).

2. On the Bestseller page, on the left side of the screen, you’ll see various topics. The one we’re interested in is Health&Fitness. Click it and you’re presented with a drop-down menu where you’ll see Nutrition.

3. Take the first 10 to 20 books on the topic, to begin with (to get a good grasp of the subject) and do a short examination as follows:

• Below the book cover, there is a button called “Read Sample” or “Look Inside” (which is located above the cover). Click it.
• At the top of the opened sample, you’ll see (next to the magnifying glass) the Table of Contents (if the table of contents button isn’t there, switch to Paperback.

4. Next, we look at the reviews as they represent an important source of information. Who is more qualified to review a book than the community itself? But there’s a catch. You see, lots of reviews are paid thus not genuine. To bypass the irrelevant reviews, we’ll pay attention to 5 Star reviews (people that have bought the book and recommend it because it had a positive impact on them and share insights on what and how it helped them) as well as 1 Star and 2 Star reviews (on the other hand we have the people that found the book a waste of time and will share why and they are likely to compare this book to different, better one).

5. As we did with Reddit, we’ll follow the same steps. Open the notepad on your computer (or write on paper) and write down the titles, subtitles, and Chapters (these can be found in the table of contents) of the first 10, even 20 books. Be sure to check the cover design, as you can draw inspiration when designing the visuals of your advert. Don’t forget that the title, subtitle, and design are what sells the book. The list you just compiled will serve as an inspiration and those topics are relevant for your audience because they are the ones that leave reviews and spend money buying them.

Summary of the path:

• The path looks like this: Go to Amazon.com (or co.uk) > Kindle > All Kindle Books > Best Sellers > Health&Fitness > Nutrition > Choose a book and click on Look Inside > Click on Table of Contents.

Whew, that’s it! 

I want to congratulate you for sticking until the end: 

Congrats!

Conclusion

First, Market Research is essential if you want to get a comprehensive understanding of your consumer’s needs and desires. Add Keyword Research to your arsenal and the market cannot ignore you. Even though it’s an extensive process, it provides you with the latest trends in consumer behaviour and, the challenges they’re facing. Another aspect where Market Research turns out to be valuable is when it comes to competition, the reason is that it provides you with important information about your competitor’s strategies, positioning, and market share.

Lastly, based on the insights given to you by Market Research, you can forecast future trends in the marketplace and position yourself as an authority.

Second, a word to overthinkers and those in doubt. (I am personally recovering from both overthinking and doubt).

Market research can be a lengthy process filled with lots of information that appears overwhelming. If you find yourself overwhelmed by the quantity of information, set a certain period aside for research, say 1 week, after which you start creating. You will be knowledgeable enough about the subject to begin creating, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time. 

Additionally, many people put off starting because they are concerned that they might not enjoy the topic they have chosen. Even if you find yourself in that position 8 months later, you can always choose to do something different. Who says that you have to stick to one interest your whole life? People rarely do. You’re far better off starting something and then going the opposite direction than not starting at all. The first instance brings lessons and experience while the latter breeds doubt and anxiety. 

Remember that the key is to START and then OPTIMISE!

If you found this useful, send me a message on socials or Email.

D