Planning: The First Step in Market Research

A wise man once said that success doesn’t just happen, it’s planned for.

I don’t know when and how I came across with this idea. But, man, I bet it’s true. It’s so true that it comes to my mind at least once a day, especially at night when I put my laptop on my knees and make a plan for my tomorrow. But planning is not only a day-to-day activity, nor a personal thing only. You have to plan on everything if you really want to achieve success. And then you have to work your ass off in order to act upon your plan. But let’s put execution aside for a while and let’s see what planning means for market research.

I have talked quite a lot about the two types of market research: Primary Market Research and Secondary Market Research in my previous articles. And I think we should hold on there and see what planning is all about.

Planning is the first step in market research in general.

You plan not only because you like to keep things organized but also because all of us (I hope so) are mortals and we need to sketch a way to do things and to learn things.

While planning your market research project, you should go through the following phases.

Phase N1: Asking yourself smart (and sometimes not so much smart) questions

• Do people need my product or service?
• Who is going to use it for free?
• Who is going to pay for it?
• Are people going to pay for it at all?
• How am I going to convince them to pay?
• Is my pricing fair and competitive?

It’s important to be self-critical.

You will have at least three people in your life who are going to support you whatever crazy idea you have. And these are your Mom, your partner, and your best friend. But these people are not your potential customers. They just want the best for you. You need to understand this and think beyond this. Your Mom is most probably going to tell you that she will definitely buy your product and so do others. Do not take this too close to your heart. You need to keep other people in your mind when asking yourself the above questions. Your potential customers are people whom you don’t even know. So, go get to know them first!

Phase N2: Decide what kind of data you should be looking for

Based on the above questions, you can come up with a few good ideas regarding where you can start your research.

For example, if your existing users seem to be abandoning the app because of the high prices on selected Premium features, you might want to reconsider the pricing or think about adding new cool features to the packages.

But here again, you cannot rely on mere guesses. Maybe you need to survey the users, ask for their opinions, establish a conversation with them and gather insights to act on.

Phase N3: Form a hypothesis for your market research project

Before diving into surveys, interviews, and stuff like that, make sure to form a research hypothesis. It’s like predicting what the results will be. And be prepared to be astonished by the results. A lot of the times, your expectations won’t match with the actual data. And that’s perfectly OK.

Just make sure to have a few options in place. Think about plan B if something seems to be going off track.

And remember that planning is good but over-planning can have dramatic results. George Patton once said that a good plan implemented TODAY is better than a perfect plan implemented tomorrow. So, good luck with the planning, guys!

Let me know if this piece was helpful.

What else would you like me to talk about?