It is quite one thing to invent a product or formulate a business idea to sell in the market place but it is quite another to get it bought when it is there. This is where you need to have a strong marketing plan in place to make sure that your product or service trumps all others making it the dominant player and people’s number one choice. What can be done to achieve this? There are several ways and means to do it. You do not have to worry about it, especially if you use a Marketing Strategy Consultant like those available from RHM Marketing Strategy Consultants. They will employ the finest marketing methods to make sure that your product or service has the right basis for success. Let’s take a look at some of the strategies and research methods that we can use.
Research falls into two categories; the primary and the secondary. The primary form research splits up into six definite patterns. These are;
- Survey’s
- The Focus Group
- Interviews
- Observation of potential customers in a created retail setting (particular useful with play testing with children’s products or toys)
- Field trials, experiments or beta tests.
Each one of these provides a limited amount of data to add to the overall picture of how you want to advertise the product and bring it to the marketplace. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Postal surveys for example are very much a thing of the past but the new online variety allows you to reach a much larger, potentially global audience. The focus group relies on the participation of the invited and an interview whilst given qualitative data is not a wide enough scope for quantitative data. Observation is problematic with adults as they have to know they are being observed and therefore begin to “act” in ways contrary to normal behaviour. Children are much more organic in their response to items and food. Field trials are usually the realm of the larger corporation as they can launch a product out first and monitor it’s sales as a “limited addition” product. Beta tests are a perfect example of the new trial where volunteers test games and systems.
Careful work and analysis of the product or service that you are making needs to be conducted before any of the five primary methods can be applied. This involves in depth conversations and planning.
Secondary research is not as in depth as the primary. It is none in some quarters as “desk research”. This means taking a look through current and historic campaigns and research that has already been done on a similar product or service. There is a very good chance that none has been done and if this is the case then you will find that the company will need to switch to the primary facets of research to begin to build the answers that you need.
These methods will get bring about a perfectly balanced plan going forward.
