8 Market Research Tips Every Startup Should Know

It goes without saying that failures are planned by lack of planning. More so, in the Startup world. Where 90% of the startups fail in the first 2 years, you obviously don’t want your startup to fail. Performing a market research is not only vital, but a very uncomfortable step towards a successful startup. Many Startup founders ignore this step and go with their gut only to realize its importance later on. Fret not folks, we bring to you really cool market research tips up your sleeve for your venture.

Tip # 8

Use Google Tools to find out details on the keywords for your business. Use Google Keyword Tool and Google Trends to see how the keywords are performing over time and with what volumes.

Tip #7

Utilize the power of Twitter, Facebook, Quora and LinkedIn.  Each network is different from one another and provides wide variety of data.  Use Twitter Search to see the live feed of tweets related to your keywords. Join Facebook fan pages of competitors to see how they engage the audience. Use Quora to shoot questions about the industry in general or the product in specific.  Join relevant LinkedIn groups and absorb the content.

Read influential blogs on the subject every single day. Subscribe to podcasts and channels on Youtube. Whatever the medium, it is good to engage with the community so that you have media to announce your product once it’s ready.

Tip # 6

Perform Online Surveys.  One  excellent choice would be to use SurveyMonkey to create surveys and then get Amazon Mechanical Turks to fill up the survey. Find a great talk on this here. This combination works well to know the pulse of large audience in general.

You can also use LinkedIn Polls to survey your network for free. For a nominal fee, LinkedIn also allows surveys to specified demographic.

Tip # 5

Find out if you get free research material. Scribd is a great way to check. Apart from that, eMarketer, Frost and Sullivan, and Gartner press releases are all good sources.  A good google search for pdf on the topic of choice would give valuable information too.

Tip # 4

Use Google Adwords. As most of the search happens through Google,  Adwords will be a quick way to test if people respond to your pitches.

Tip # 3

Attend relevant trade shows and conferences. If your budget allows, it will be a great idea to attend conference in your startup domain.  Be prepared to go with your homework done and make prior appointments with people if necessary.

Tip # 2

Gather all the data, and make awesome charts and reports. Prepare your own research material. This will help in two ways – one, in professional networking with people in the same domain and two, later in your sales brochures.

Tip # 1

Have an open mind.  It is often true that we find what we look for. If the market research suggest that your “brilliant” idea is done to death, be ready to move on.

What are your Market Research tips? Do share with us in the comments.