Market Research and Marketing Trends 2013

MARKET RESEARCH

Many companies are faced with a dilemma today when considering how to effectively promote and manage their products in the future. To create an effective marketing strategy, your business must conduct basic market research to gain a clear understanding of the future direction of your product or service platform. Market research doesn’t have to be complicated, in fact, the simpler the better. No one understands the attributes of your market and product better than you, your research study should generate meaningful and relative information related to your short-term goal and long-term growth platform.

Market research consists of collecting data collection related to the following list.

1. Do some research on your competition. Examine your product attributes, service platforms, promotion strategy, color selection and quality attributes, and customer engagement.
2. Determine if there are any deficiencies in your product design, packaging, layout, advertising, product attributes, color selection, etc., and propose corrections to these deficiencies to improve overall market acceptance.
3. Identify if there are unsatisfied customer opportunities or customer groups that your company has overlooked, either intentionally or inadvertently, and determine if this market segment justifies entry.
4. Evaluate whether your advertising and promotion program is effective and targeted at your desired demographic or psychographic group.
5. Evaluate the best method for conducting a market research study (whether systematic or intuitive) that consists of one or more of the following information resource activities.
6. Employee Surveys – Your first line as you interact with customers on a daily basis.
7. Focus groups: customers, end users, or any rational source of feedback on products or services.
8. Customers – Take a questionnaire to find out what’s important and what future trends you should consider to keep your product or service on trend.
9. Surveys – Conduct a survey (by mail or phone) to collect relevant information about your products or services specifically targeted at the end user or consumer.

5 SUPERPRODUCT MARKETING TRENDS

1. Design matters because design sells. Your marketing platform should focus on cutting edge packaging, website design, and point of sale design. Tired and old won’t work for today’s savvy shopper looking for eye-catching fashion.
2. Video and more video. More than 4 billion videos are viewed online every day and most video watchers share links. Retention rates among video viewers are mind-boggling compared to print media, where 10% of read material is actually retained compared to 95% of video retention. Also, don’t be afraid to share your message and use mock marketing communications to get your message across and make your video go viral. The simulated marketing communication is similar to the Pepsi-Max video in which Jeff Gordon takes an unsuspecting car salesman for a wild ride in a Chevy Camaro with a camera hidden in a Pepsi can. The video was made on purpose and went viral with over 2 million views. Who cares if it was staged by actors, Pepsi Max got his point across!
3. Junk mail it is still effective. Develop creative ways to capture consumer, customer, and end-user email lists and use them to send our campaigns to market your business and product.
4. Measure your marketing efficiency. If you use multiple marketing strategies, such as paid search, SEO, email marketing, print advertising, etc., there are several services available at a nominal cost to measure the success of the attributes.
5. It targets emerging markets. Hispanics are the fastest growing segment of the US population and account for 25% of new births. US population growth by age from 2010 to 2015 shows 25 to 34 year olds will grow by 6%, 35 to 44 will decrease by 2%, 45 to 54 will decrease by 5% , 55 to 64 will increase by 13% and those over 65 will increase by 16%. These demographics will have a huge impact on your business for years to come – take advantage!

Organizing and cataloging this information into an effective marketing strategy will produce results for your business like no other. As Einstein said, “I don’t know how to know everything, I just need to know where to find it when I need it.” Knowing how to access and collect relevant data from a marketing perspective and demand this data to target specific markets will pay off for your organization.