Business Plan Market Research Methods

Obtaining market research for your business plan can be tough but there are free and easy ways to get this information.

Knowing your market size and trends from the past few years and expert opinion on how the market will grow or contract over the next 12 months or so is critical to the success of your business. A market place is simply made up of customers purchasing all products from your business and your competitiors so any new entrant is really looking at taking market share off existing companies and perhaps growing the market itself.

Your business plan needs to have reasonable market research to show that you are starting a business in a place that will actually provide rewards for you and your new business. It can seem hard to get data but there are a number of ways to get good information.

1) Your own research: If you are opening up a shop on a high street you can easily devise a questionnaire and stand in the street and ask passers by what they want and how they are thinking with their spending. Whenever you develop a questionnaire always make sure there are only 6 or 7 questions otherwise people will get bored and not give proper answers. Ensure you are asking your target demographic audience but also ask people who you don’t think are you audience just so you don’t discount potential customers.

2) Friends and family: Perhaps these are your new customers perhaps not. Perhaps they know of a company that has the data you are looking for. Always ask people you know for opinions as well as contacts.

3) Your bank: Banks spend millions on research each year and perhaps they have a report lying around that can be useful for you. You never know if you don’t ask.

4) BusinessLink etc: Business Link, the government’s business advice centre will also spend millions each year on information as well as their consulting team. Again, ask and see what they have available as research.

5) Google: There are billions of documents online so go off and search. Search for terms such as ”yyy market growth” “yyy market research” “yyy market profits” etc where “yyy” is the industry you are looking to go into with your business.

6) Industry bodies: Again as with “5″ above there is likely to be an industry body that looks out and represents the industry you are going into. Search for that online and see what reports they have. Check out their press release and news sections. They may have reports but they will also have opinion. If they don’t have what you are looking for why not contact them?

With the above in hand you’ll easily be able to get good market research for your business plan.

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