DeepDive: Primary Market Research
Let’s take a second to acknowledge everything you did (hopefully) so far. After identifying a real problem in the world, and coming up with a creative solution, you started to work your idea into something real. A business that you have began to shape and give detail to, and now even contributed a significant amount of time and effort (maybe other resources) into. You have narrowed in on what exactly the industry looks like, and worked to hone in on the specific types of people that would find value in your solution.
If all of that is right, then you are likely prepared to dive into (arguably) the most important part of the entire business planning process. That is talking to customers. Academically referred to as Primary Market Research, this is the part where you have to transition from getting information from easily obtainable sources, to talking with real people. In this article, we will go over what exactly Primary Market Research (PMR for short) is, how you can conduct it, and why it is so vital to everything else you do.
So what is PMR? Simply put, it is the market research that you go out and get on your own. This is usually some form of actually engaging with people you think would pay for your solution. There are a variety of common formats for how to do this and effectively accumulate data that will either prove your assumptions right OR wrong. The hardest part about doing all of this is to make sure you are getting accurate information. So it is crucial that we approach this with an open mind and understanding that your assumptions may be completely off. That is fine too, and doesn’t automatically mean failure, but instead can shine a light on how to solve the problem even better.
Biases
Before you rush into gathering data, you need to know about biases. Biases are the daggers that can sneak through the weak spots and kill the entire research if you aren’t careful to avoid them. There are two main biases that we as humans naturally want to ignore. We will go over these two first and then I will list a few others that you should take some time to know about as well.
Throw away the Assumptions.
The first bias that you need to be aware of is called Confirmation Bias. This is where the research is conducted with the intention to prove the hypothesis right. To avoid this, take whatever assumptions you have about the people you plan to research, and turn them into neutral questions.
Let’s take an example:
Say you think that College Students at the University of Alabama love football (most people would agree with that assumption). But that is just what you perceive and has no real data to back it. So to figure out how accurate you are, you decide to ask a bunch of College Students at the University of Alabama, “Do you love football?” Easy right?
Well the problem is that now you have geared those students to be encouraged to just say yes, whether or not they truly love football or care about it all. Pretty quickly you can start to realize that the questions you want to ask aren’t necessarily the ones you should ask.
So instead of asking the questions that directly answer our assumptions, we can ask things like:
- What sports do college students at the University of Alabama like/dislike?
- What is/are their favorite sport(s)?
- How would they rank each sport?
- What do they like about the sports they ranked in the top 5?
- How much do they like each sport (on a scale from 1–10)?
As you can see, asking these types of questions will show you a lot more about what those students really think, and in turn give you a more honest answer to whether they actually love football.
Go as random as you can.
The second main bias that you should focus on avoiding is called Selection Bias. This type of bias occurs when your sample (group that you actually research) does not accurately represent the whole population. In other words, you aren’t diversifying the people you are getting data from, and leaving out groups within that population who may have much different opinions.
Striving for diversity will prevent limiting or altering your results. You have an idea of the types of people that face this problem from the secondary research, so try to keep a broad view on that. It is tempting to go for the easiest targets, but getting real accurate data requires randomness.
Let’s use the same example as before:
If you are trying to find out whether College Students at The University of Alabama love football, then you need to get data from a random set of those students. If you were to go to the stadium and ask students attending the game you would get much different answers from students leaving Biology class, or the sorority sisters, or those in the student government office.
Surely you can see why it is important to talk to different groups of people. And this can vary with time of day, weather, location, and all kinds of things. So do what you can to research people that are unique from one another that still fit your overall parameters.
There are a lot of other biases to be aware of and try to avoid when conducting PMR. This link provides a pretty good outline of the major biases to be aware of and how to avoid them: Biases
As far as actually doing this research, we need to find a way to actually communicate with people. There are a few common practices for doing this. Each of them have their own pros and cons to the types of information you are seeking. Again, we will touch on some of the more common methods here and then provide a link for some additional methods that can be used as well.
Surveys
Surveys are the most universally used form of PMR. The biggest advantage of surveys is that they can be delivered to many people with ease. The quickest way to do this is to use some sort of software to create the survey. There are plenty of free tools online. Survey questions can be used to get quantitative data that can bring statistical insights, and also qualitative data that will shed details on what people’s thoughts and opinions are. Both of which can be very valuable. It is up to you to decide which questions and types of data are the most important for you to know. It is wise to keep these as simple and short as possible, because chances are, each second spent taking that survey is a second the surveyor would have rather spent doing something else. Get the key data quickly.
Observations
Observational research is pretty much what it sounds like. You observe people while they do something specific in a natural setting without them knowing. It is one of the more difficult forms of research for obvious reasons. You don’t have the ability to ask them anything, but can only watch and take notes on what they do. For certain circumstances, it can be very valuable to just watch the choices and reactions of people as they do things. This will show you a raw truth to how people act, rather than a reflection on how they think they acted or would act. However, it presents a lack of information for why they did something, what factors played into decisions, and how they felt about their choice.
Interviews
Interviews are less structured and can take a lot more time to get significant results from. The positive is that once you have someone who agrees to the interview, you have the opportunity to get much more detailed answers to your questions, and even additional information that you may not have been specifically looking for. Which as you may have guessed, could also work against you, so it is important to control the interview and keep the conversation on track. On top of that, note that there are some topics that someone may be more honest or less honest about when talking to a real person. Even though you should take measures to keep the identity of interviewees a mystery, they are engaging in a real conversation. Take notes, and also record interviews so that you don’t miss anything.
Focus Groups
Focus Groups are when you get together a group of people that you are researching and having them talk with one another about the topics you want to gain insights on. This setting is best done in a round table environment where each person gets the chance to share their input. The most challenging part of conducting focus groups is moderating. Much like interviews, you have the benefit of authentic conversations and the opportunity to acquire even more data than you were looking for. While you also have to be very careful to prevent tangents or heated debates that get off-topic. Again like interviews, it is best to take basic notes during the meeting, and also record it so that you don’t miss any key details.
However you decide to conduct research, you should have a plan for how you are going to compile the data and make useful insights from it. Ultimately, everything you find should help show why the problem you are trying to solve is a serious problem, that the solution you are providing is one that people want, and that there is enough value in it to merit some type of payment exchange. The reality is that it is unlikely that the data will show all of these things the first time, which is why you will probably end up having to either change your approach to researching, or alter the solution. Adaption to what people tell you is really the way you position yourself for success. The most successful businesses listen to people first and go from there, so the more you can listen and take in from your research, the more knowledge and direction you will have for how to start successfully.
The final component of researching for your business is Researching The Competition. We will go over that next week. Stay Tuned!
