Even though it has always been a costly - yet necessary - expense like medical aid or tax, pretty much every business needs to invest in market research. There are a multitude of reasons for its importance. In addition to giving you insight into your target market, research allows you to ascertain whether there is a need for the product or service you are marketing as well as to establish whether the market in which you are operating is already a saturated one. Those really are just a few of the reasons though!

Despite these arguments in favour of market research, the costs are potentially prohibitive for small businesses or start-ups. Enter the Internet (*drumroll*), a resource that has essentially revolutionised this business practice. 

You can gain useful market insight by conducting research online. (Image by Chofee under CC)

Whether you are looking to conduct primary or secondary, qualitative or quantitative research, the Internet is an exceptional resource and it doesn’t have to cost you a packet to use it. There are numerous affordable or even free alternatives available to you – all it takes is a bit of knowledge on how to use them and some lateral thinking to shift your paradigms around what information you can gather from which source. 

1). Start with what’s under your nose
Anyone with a connection to the World Wide Web is likely to know how to use a search engine. It’s not exactly rocket science. The value of search engines, like Google, as a tool for market research is often overlooked. When it comes to market research, this should be your starting point as it’s the easiest way to get a feel for your market; whether there’s a need for what you’re offering, whether the market is saturated and who’s offering the same thing as you are. As the online consumer voice is so strong, it is also likely to give you insight into what consumers think of the products or services you are planning to offer. This will highlight significant gaps in the market and possible unique selling points that will help to fill them.

2). Translate reputation monitoring into market research

Online Reputation Monitoring is a rapidly growing trend because brands are beginning to understand the importance of knowing what their customers are saying about them online. It is possible to take this one step further though. From a different angle, reputation monitoring is actually ongoing market research in a different skin (the future of the focus group?). Take BrandsEye for example: you can track phrases of your choice and BrandsEye will return mentions containing those phrases, ensuring that when someone mentions the brands you are tracking, you know about it. But you can do more than just know. A little analyses of what people are saying will reveal your company’s strengths, its weaknesses and (depending on what phrases you’re monitoring) will tell you a whole bunch about your competitors too.

3). Test, test, test

The Internet is one of the best ways to run quick, revealing and effective split test, thanks to the rapidity with which you can manipulate websites and campaigns. Manipulating calls to action, website copy, banner adverts and landing pages to assess efficacy will not only aid in the optimisation and marketing of your website – if you dig a little deeper, it will also tell you a whole lot about your target market and what they want from you.

4). Freeload

While your company may not have the capital to invest in extensive market research, there are many companies and organisations that do. Some of them, also publish their findings online where people can access them. Looking for reports from within the broad sphere of your industry will give you some valuable information despite not being centred around your specific niche market.

5). Get savvy when it comes to Social Media

People have now got their heads around using Social Media as a means to market themselves and communicate with their customers. However, there is potential for this medium to do even more than that for businesses wishing to learn more about their target markets. While there are strict regulations around what Social Media sites can and cannot reveal about their account holders, there is still a lot to learn about your customers from applications like Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace. Using Facebook as an example: by having a fan page for your company or the products or services you are offering, you have a medium through which to engage with your consumers, get their opinions about things and through this, learn a lot about them, what they like and dislike.

The bottom line is: while there is value in putting money into market research, the Internet has changed the market research landscape in many ways, providing us with many alternatives to traditional market research tactics. Whether these tactics are as effective or accurate in terms of their output is a matter for debate (please feel free to comment below) but doesn’t change the fact that, for small business with limited budgets, the Internet should be the starting point when researching the market in which you are operating.