Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

Good morning and happy Christmas.

You could start here: https://www.marketingprofs.com/marketing/library/27/market-research

More importantly. If you have an existing business, things are a lot easier. That is because you already have customers. I hope you are in this position because it really makes marketing easy - well it does just as long as you want to be good at what you do and serve your best customers that is.

Moriarty

Ask questions; develop intense curiosity; widen your experience horizon; think laterally, literally, vertically, and horizontally. Connect dots and create pictures where others see only chaos. Look for and identify patterns where no one else is looking for them. Ask "If I were X, what solutions would I be attracted to?" where X represents a variety of buyers seeking varying solutions.

It's interesting that there are not more ways for a novice to learn market research and analytical techniques. I used to teach a course at the MBA level called "Marketing Strategy and Market Research" and we used almost exclusively case studies, not textbooks. I think that's because the whole idea of data analysis is to force you to think about what you're trying to learn and how that knowledge is going to be applied. Several professors have written textbooks, but they're generally very academic and used only by their students in very specialized courses.

That said, we created a course in market research and analytics as part of a mentoring project several years ago. It isn't a stand-alone thing that you could just pick up and follow. It's more of a teaching aid that we used as we coached a bright marketer who was dealing with real-world problems. (The project spanned 3-4 months, and involved "lectures," homework, case studies and hands-on, real-time research needs.)

The one tangible by-product of that mentoring project is a report titled "Do-It-Yourself Market Research: Done easily. Done right." You can get it here: https://bit.ly/SstLq2

It's not a course, but it's a start. The blurb for the report includes the following:

"This report demystifies Market Research and offers a straightforward way to get the answers you need using proven tools and approaches. It identifies the 25 different categories of market research, the specific tools in each one, and how to decide when to use each one."

The best solution for you may be to find a mentor who understands market research and get them to teach you what you need. There are new approaches being developed every year, so you will need to find someone who is current. (If you need a recommendation, let me know.)