Market research is the activity of gathering information about your customer’s needs and preferences. As a start-up, market research should not be a one-time activity but ongoing as you uncover more insights into your target market. Even established companies with a large customer base still conduct market research periodically to keep tabs on changing consumer trends and behaviors.
In this topic, your first step is to determine whether there are enough potential paying customers who want your product/service. Conducting market research on your target market will determine how strong that demand is among other things. Before getting right into it, it’s helpful to introduce some key terminology.
There are 4 stages of market research you want to cover. For the individual steps within each stage, refer to the How to Research Your Market Checklist.
To download the ‘Market Research Checklist‘, please go to the ‘Materials’ section of this topic.
In the next topic, you will learn how to uncover more in-depth knowledge about your target market and begin describing them as customer avatars.