Market research is a vital component of any small SAAS company’s marketing strategy success and competitive positioning. The research could possibly involve comprehending the market and the competitive landscape before launching a new product. It may also entail comprehending what customers think about your existing product/services, a market segmentation to define a target market, or something that can help you understand where your product or service stands compared to others in the market. Other comparisons should contain what consumers want and how you can improve your product or service to cater to your consumer’s requirements and pain points.
However, despite the benefits of market research, a lot of smaller firms hesitate, fail or don’t do it at all. Here are some common marketing strategy research errors of small SAAS companies:
You think you do not possess the budget for it and that it will be too expensive. Often, market research is connected with huge CPG brands that have the marketing budget to do such research. This thinking is improper. Market research projects can range from a few thousand dollars to approximately $25,000 annually. Why not devote a few thousand dollars on market research now to find out what people think about your product/service and what you actually need as opposed to investing a lot of money on features you may at some point discover are not even needed by your consumers? The more important question is, should I hire a market research expert or do it myself? The assistance of a market research professional can be priceless, but if you feel you don’t have the funds for it, yet you are intent on teaching yourself about what it takes to do efficient research, practically nothing should stop you from doing it yourself.
You think secondary research is adequate. SAAS companies often think they can get all the information they require on the Internet. They think that because they labored in the market for a long time, they comprehend more than anyone else. This thinking can lead to disaster. Primary research is very critical and it basically entails making a few calls to validate the hypotheses you derived as a result of your secondary research. Primary research will help you comprehend the demands, attitudes, and pain points of your consumers first hand in true time.
You only ask those you know. A typical error of start-ups is to carry out research by making use of their friends and family. Friends and family constitute the worst probable choice for a “focus group”. You will come across considerable bias with this situation. To certainly understand what people think about your product, you must question real consumers, who will tell you both the pros and cons, what makes them unhappy, and what changes they would like to see come about.
You do market research, but then disregard your findings. This is worse than not doing any research at all, because by ignoring your findings, you not only lost your money in carrying out research, but you also lost your valuable time and energy which could have been spent on yet another project. A lot of young CEOs tend to neglect good research because their findings don’t support the answers they desire to see. If the findings are different from your hypotheses, they need to instead raise an alarm, and direct you to a thing you may possibly have missed.
Faria Rahman is a Market Research Analyst, responsible for carrying out marketing research assignments for OpenView Labs.