Market evaluations how to do them

Market evaluations have long been a central part of all companies' and businesses' marketing campaigns and marketing plans. However, if you are the owner or the marketing director of a small business, then your approach to market evaluations needs to be drastically different than the market evaluations that are done for large companies by specialized firms. These larger companies have the money to pour into extended customer studies, surveys, and more. As the owner of a small company, you need to take a different approach to market evaluations that will allow you to change your marketing plans immediately and to react right away to changes in your customer base and customer spending habits.

How to do market evaluations for small businesses

The traditional method of studying consumer behavior and conducting market evaluations has been by pouring millions and millions of dollars into conducting surveys in order to determine what consumer behavior is and what it will be. However, the problem with conducting surveys to determine consumer behavior is twofold: 1. Wide-spread surveys, performed by professionals, are incredibly expensive and time-consuming if you are going to reach the wide range of consumers that you need in order to take your surveys. 2. The results of these surveys are becoming more and more deviant from the actual reality of consumer behavior. There are more effective, less time-consuming, and less expensive ways of approach market evaluations for your small business than the traditional survey-based and statistical approach to market evaluation.

So what is the main problem with surveys, other than the incredible cost? Well, if a consumer knows that he or she is taking a survey, then he or she will often times make up answers to make sure that they don't sound dumb. Consumers also don't really realize that a product might need to be improved or that they actually want something else. Want an expert opinion on the matter? Dorothy Leonard, a professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School, says this about consumers: "Consumers will sometimes create what we call `work-arounds' to compensate for a products deficiencies. Those consumers often aren't even aware that they want something better." In addition, running just one focus group in order to evaluate the market can cost up to $20,000, and it can take a year to get all of the numbers and data back from a widespread survey. In other words, once you get your information, the market has already changed and your market evaluation is worthless.

The best way for you to evaluate the market as a small business owner is to employ innovative techniques in which you actually go out and collect your own research. For example, actually wander around your store and look at how people shop. Are husbands forcing their wives to leave your furniture store earlier than you would like, simply because the husbands are bored? If so, then you will want to implement televisions so that husbands can watch while their wives shop. Dress like your customers so that they don't know that you're actually watching them and so that they will behave in a normal way. Also, call up some of your friends who are a part of your ideal consumer base. Then go shopping with them and see how they move around stores and what attracts them. Then you can know how to design your product, how to evaluate the market for your products and your services, and what you need to change in order to be successful within the market. Don't stop wandering around and doing your own market evaluation in this way, because consumer opinion changes rapidly and you will always need to shift and adapt your own market approach in order to ensure that you stay ahead of the game.

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