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marketing-research

🔍 1. Marketing Research (For an Agile Tech Firm)​

For an agile operation, our research should prioritize speed, iteration, and continuous feedback over a single, exhaustive report. The goal is to inform our targeting and branding with real-time, actionable insights.

  • Define Objectives & Research Questions:

    • What specific assumptions about our product/service, target market, or pricing do we need to validate or invalidate? (e.g., Is there a demand for a headless CMS development service in the mid-market SaaS sector?)

  • Market Trends & Forecasting:

    • Monitor the evolution of digital platforms, new front-end technologies (e.g., React/Vue updates), and consumer behavior shifts (e.g., rise of video content, changes in data privacy regulations).

    • Analyze the overall Total Addressable Market (TAM) and Serviceable Available Market (SAM) for our offerings.

  • Data Collection (Agile Sprints):

    • Quantitative Data: Utilize web analytics, CRM data, A/B test results from simple landing pages, quick polls/surveys, and secondary industry reports.

    • Qualitative Data: Conduct short, focused discovery interviews with prospects, gather feedback from beta users or initial clients (especially for digital services), and perform continuous UX testing on our own properties or client MVPs.

  • Data Analysis & Synthesis:

    • Quickly interpret findings to create user stories and hypothesis statements that directly feed into our development and marketing sprints.

    • Use insights to refine our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and identify core pain points to solve with our tech/marketing solutions.

MARKET RESEARCH​

Market research plays a critical and foundational role in both marketing and business plans. For a business plan, market research provides the essential data to assess market viability, identify target customers, understand competitive landscapes, and project financial feasibility. It informs crucial sections like the market analysis, competitive analysis, and financial projections, ultimately demonstrating the potential for success to investors and stakeholders. In a marketing plan, market research guides the development of effective strategies by pinpointing customer needs, preferences, and behaviors, enabling the creation of targeted product, pricing, promotion, and distribution strategies. It helps to define the unique selling proposition (USP), segment the market, and tailor messaging to resonate with the intended audience, ensuring that marketing efforts are efficient and yield a strong return on investment. Without robust market research, both plans would lack the necessary data-driven insights to be comprehensive, realistic, and persuasive.

  1. SWOT Analysis
  2. Competitive Analysis
  3. Target Market Segmentation
  4. Consumer Behavior
  5. Product Development
  6. Pricing Strategies
  7. Promotional Mix
  8. Distribution Channels
  9. Financial Projections
  10. Feasibility Study

After realizing that there was an area of the general market that needed the services and expertise offered by BUILD then MARKET, we decided to do extensive market research on the subject. We looked into the market size, industry trends, industry statistics, and industry analysis to help aid us in coming up with our overall business strategy and implement our sales initiatives. According to IBISWorld, there are currently 124, 795 web design businesses that operate in the United States market. These companies employ over 220,000 employees, which constitute most of their general business expenses. The annual growth rate between 2009 and 2014 was 3.6%, exceeding annual GDP growth rate during that time. This is a strong growth rate considering this shortly followed the Great Recession of 2008. Only about $0.03 is spent on capital for every dollar that is spent on wages in this industry. This means that a large share of revenue goes into wage expenses for these companies as web designers have very specialized skills and knowledge that require good compensation.

While technology is the pinnacle of this industry, human labor and capital remains extremely important to these companies, especially during the completion process of any projects for clients. Capital expenditures, on the other hand, are relatively low as these account for computers and software, which are easily accessible and feasible in terms of price. Services that are offered by these companies include projects for individuals, business owners, corporations, and institutional clients. Other companies in this industry also provide an assortment of web design services including web graphic design, user experience design, interface design, search engine optimization, aspects of code-writing, and cross-functionality across most of the above mentioned elements.

These companies incorporate a variety of coding languages as the industry standard is not only always changing, but different languages appeal to different client needs. Many of these companies also offer mobile web design and mobile-friendly applications, which has grown immensely in the past couple years. Although these companies range from individual programmers to small teams of developers to major household-name corporations, there are no companies with a dominant market share in the web design industry. This leaves the door open for start-ups such as ours to come in and take some market share given customer satisfaction and design reliability.

The Web Design Services industry has seen tremendous and rapid growth because of the increase in broadband connections and the rise in the number of mobile internet connections. Industry demand is projected and expected to increase as more products and services will require online websites. However, in the next five years, the number of broadband connections will reach a saturation point, slowing growth in the United States. That means that companies will compete to obtain the same market share unless they either differentiate their product or find a respective niche.

Market Forces​

  • How many of their competitors are using Adwords:
  • Is their industry growing?
  • Are more of their customers moving online?

area exclusivity Formula for pre-determining a prospects likely area exclusive needs.

  • Do they have sub-contractors?
  • What is their business size?
  • How many employees do they have?

They will be asked for their preference in the meeting.

This is just so I can be prepared to use "area exclusive" temptation in my pitch

WHY NOW? You’re almost ready to pitch the “big idea.” But first, a reminder of the obvious: Nobody wants to invest time or money into an old deal that has been sitting around. This is why you need to introduce a “Why now?” frame. It’s vitally important that the target knows that your idea is new, emerging from current market op- portunities and that it’s not some relic left over from bygone days. The target needs to know that you are pitching a new idea that came to life from a pattern of forces that you recognized, seized, and are now taking advantage of. And the target needs to know that you have more knowledge about these things than anyone else.

There are unspoken questions in the target’s mind as to why your idea is relevant and important and why it should be considered as important now. By anticipat- ing these questions and definitively answering them before they are verbalized, you will tick an important checkbox in the target’s mind and put the target more at ease. Everything you say from that point forward will have context, greater meaning, and more urgency, reinforcing its scarcity.

What I have discovered over time is that in every business there are three market forces that together triangulate to answer the “Why?” question, and you can use these forces to create a strong “Why now?” frame.

Three-Market-Forces Pattern: Trendcasting When you describe your idea, project, orporopdu give it context by framing it against these three market forces or trending patterns that you be tant.

Economic forces​

Briefly describe what has changed financially in the market for your big idea. For example, are customers wealthier, is credit more available, is financial optimism higher? Increases or decreases in interest rates, inflation, and the value of the dollar are considered as prime examples of forces that have significant impact on business opportunities.

Social forces​

Highlight what emerging changes in people's behavior patterns exist for your big idea. An obvious example in the market for automobiles, concern over the environment—a social force—is driving demand for electric vehicles.

Technology forces​

Technological change can flatten existing business models and even entire industries because demand shifts from one product to another. In electronics, for example, change is rapid and constant, but in furniture manufacturing, change is more gradual.

Market Forces Example:

  • internet is new
  • google 97% revenue from Adwords
  • more people using internet to find what they need due to mobile phones