One of the most important tools for strong marketing is strong research. Strong research provides pertinent information about your customers, your company, your competition, and your industry. Research, however, is not supposed to remove inspiration and creativity from your marketing; it acts as a connection between you and your customer--the stronger the research, the stronger the connection. A strong connection with your customers means more profitability.
But isn't research expensive? The answer is simple. It doesn't need to be. No matter the cost, research is inexpensive if it increases profitability. However, your budget and the type of research you want may seem far away from one another at the moment. However, there are some inexpensive ways to attain strong research in a cost-effective way.
Here are four tips for gathering valuable research for marketing.
1. Understand search engines and libraries. Being able to navigate libraries and search engines will allow you access information faster and more precisely. Search engines can be used to gather expensive research for free--sounds pretty good to me. Additionally, librarians have an immense amount of knowledge about different research tools that will only cost you a library membership (usually these memberships are free or inexpensive). Use these two tools to gather research about your customers!
2. Ask your customers. The customers you already have are valuable assets for research. Existing customers will tell you what you are doing right, as well as where you can improve. Asking for feedback after a sale or issuing a survey will allow you to gain valuable research from the people that matter most, your customers. Interact with them; they can help and its free/inexpensive.
3. Pass out questionnaires. Questionnaires can be helpful to maintain existing customers, to find out more about potential customers, and to steal your competition's customers. With thought out questions that make the participants feel safe, questionnaires can be a powerful research tool, so use them!
4. Use the internet. The internet is the library of the present and future, and gathering strong research is simpler than ever. However, the internet is not solely limited to search engines for research purposes. There is a wealth of information provided by government agencies and research finders like Gopher. Chatrooms and message boards are great ways to get free feedback from talented individuals who could provide free groundbreaking information to you and fast. And, finally, you can use email as a way to collect information from costumers or suppliers alike. The internet is revolutionary for research!
I hope this helps you find better ways to gather strong research for marketing, so dive in and get inexpensive research for your company!
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