Inexpensive Techniques for Marketing Research

The importance of market research cannot be ignored. A precise and comprehensive market research has no substitute. Market research can do wonders, if carefully executed. Owing to the major part, it plays in the execution of a business process, and it cannot be ignored. There are many ways to do market research like focus groups, surveys, questionnaire etc .However sometimes due to the limitations of budget, the options available get limited. But there are many inexpensive ways to carry out market research.

There are many inexpensive ways go great miles in helping out a small entrepreneur with limited budget to make the most from his resources and get best output.

The cost efficient starts by carefully identifying the prospective potential buyers of the products and services, determine how many customers exist, what their profile is, what their buying habits are and what are their preferences and demands.

Following are a few inexpensive techniques:

1) Cross-promotion with a complementary business. If you are running two businesses, then you can promote one with another by giving free voucher for the other.

2) Make a Personalised business card: Any personal or business bills you are paying should be enclosed with your business card or flyer. It would be real good for your business if you could hand write a short note offering an introductory discount. 3) Telephonic Network: It is great idea to call current and past clients to let them know of new services, classes or products that you offer. 4) Co-operative mailing. Postage and telephonic networking can be costly; to save on postage and� gain a wider audience it’s good to join with someone else's mailing list.

5) Online Survey tools: Online survey tools are easily available to small businesses at a reasonable cost that provide survey templates that can be customised to fit your business specifically.

6) Add polling to your website: Many websites have polling windows that poll the reader about their thoughts on a specific situation. Even one question asked through these polls can provide important information to you about your customers.

7) Link to a coupon on your website. The websites can be linked with coupons. When the customer clicks on the coupon, they are linked to a brief customer survey (no more than 10-15 questions) in order to redeem the coupon; the visitors have to complete the survey. Multiple choice responses are the best option to be set up in such a survey.