Gemma 0:23
Hello, ladies and welcome to this Friday afternoon’s Work Wife Wine Time podcast, which means happy bevvy o’clock.

I hope you’ve had an amazing working week. So now, as it’s wine o’clock, it means it’s time to grab your bevvy of choice, sit down, put your feet up, and enjoy.

Now, today, you get the wonderful job on a Friday afternoon of listening to my amazing voice for the next little while, which I’m sure you’re all very excited about. And I’m here to give you some hot tips about market research, marketing research, dun dun duun.

Feeling the overwhelm already, I get it, I totally get it anything with the word research in it probably makes you want to squirm a little because you’re thinking there’s so much work involved but for myself as I’m a extremely analytical thinker, I’m someone who absolutely loves the informations, all of the informations, I love all of them. I love collecting, collating, interpreting all information. So for me, marketing research, competitor research, target audience research, SEO keyword research, hashtag research is something that is very close to my heart, but most of all, anything that encompasses marketing research, I absolutely love.

So first of all, what actually is market research? It’s there to guide you and guide your business. It gives you both short and long term planning strategies, which are required to effectively sustain your business, and grow your business. So we need it initially and we need it for long term planning strategies, and the research overall, it’s there to keep your marketing strategy right, to keep it on track. So the point, really, of market research is to then create a marketing strategy and of course, we all know how important marketing strategy is for business, especially now, as opposed to a fair few years ago, when I completed my marketing degree.

There’s so many more sections and aspects and parts to a marketing strategy. With the internet we’re encompassing now, so much more copywriting so much more content, all of the information that people need, they need to be spoken to, we have several social media platforms, websites, you have SEO strategies, there’s so many parts of marketing within a business, which means you need to have it right. Or you’re really going to hit a roadblock and you may not figure out why things aren’t working for you.

Which brings me into why do we need it? Why do we need market research? Who possibly thinks we need that? Well, pretty much if you don’t do the research, you’re already at a disadvantage. Think about how you know where to position yourself in the market. If things are changing, perhaps your positioning needs to change. How will you price your product or service? Is it still competitive? Is it not competitive? Is it underpriced? Is it overpriced? How are you going to know who your competitors are? If you’re a business that’s already established, then perhaps you have new competitors that you haven’t looked into before? How do you know who your target audience is? Who are they? Where are they? What are they doing? What are they ingesting? What are they digesting? What do they love? How do they love to be spoken to? Which brings me to my next point that marketing strategy and market research to get to that strategy, is so critical.

But one mistake I see many business owners make is that they conduct their market research once, which is absolutely baffling to me. And of course, yes, your initial research off the bat, when you’re starting out in your business will be extremely detailed, will be extremely comprehensive, right? But think about this, you need to conduct market research regularly, to see if you’re still being competitive, to see if you’re still achieving what you should be achieving. Are you hitting your goals? If not, why? Are you still being modern with your business? Are you being competitive? By conducting regular research into your marketing, it’s going to help you evolve your marketing strategy. And you need to remember that any marketplace, whatever industry you’re in, whatever marketplace you’re in, wherever your target audiences are.

The markets are constantly changing. They’re constantly shifting, they’re evolving, they’re moving, so you need to keep up and be competitive in that way. And people, of course, people are changing and wanting and needing different things, they’re ingesting information differently. They’re requiring more information. They’re conducting more of their own research, because there’s so much information out there. So you need to keep up with these modern shifts and changes and evolvements. Otherwise, again, your businesses and isn’t going to be fresh and modern and keeping up and people will start to not be interested. That’s just the reality. And think about this as well, like, you might be thinking, ‘Okay, Gemma, that’s fine but why do I need to conduct my research again?’

Think about a few problems you you may be having. For example, do you want to learn more about your target market? Right, boom research! Do you want to improve your conversions? Research needed. Do you want to improve the conversations you’re having with people? Research needed for that. Or perhaps are you thinking of changing your business model? If so, then absolutely you need to conduct more research. If you want feedback on the proposed changes, boom, magic. There you go. There’s market research in there.

It’s so important. And I’m just getting really excited about market research right now. I hope I’m engaging you. But I just need to reiterate the importance of why you need it in business, why it’s going to keep you fresh, why it’s going to give you a competitive edge, why it’s going to ensure you’re still standing out and being modern. So again, I’m just going to keep telling you why is market research so important.

So if you think about it, initially, of course, at the start, at the base level if you will, for your business, it’s going to help you understand the demand of your service, of what you’re offering, of your product. And from understanding the demand, if there is a demand for what you’re selling, it’s going to then help you understand the market demand of that. So it’s very, very critical from the start. But of course at that real deeper level, it gives you such a comprehensive understanding of your clients, your customers, of overall consumers, it helps you understand that their wants, what they want, helps you understand what they need, what motivates them, how they make decisions, the different emotions they have, which of course, ties in not just with marketing and your marketing strategy, but that’s such a critical aspect as well. of copywriting and which many, many people don’t realise that copywriters, we’re marketers. Well, not all but, you know, strategic copywriters have marketing degrees because they understand this we understand the consumer decision making process, we understand the buying process, we know psychologically what motivates people to buy certain things. And from there it evokes and helps us use the words we need to get these people to make the decisions and take the action and buy your product and buy your service or download your lead magnet, whatever it may be just to make that decision in order to come to your business.

And next I have many, many clients actually ask me as well, they say, ‘Gemma, do I need to conduct a competitor analysis?’ And, well, my answer straight up there is yes. Some people may be terrified of it, again, analysis, scary word, lots of work, overwhelmed, can’t deal. That’s okay. But don’t think of it as you’re conducting that analysis in order to copy your competitors out there. That’s not what you’re doing at all. Absolutely not. But you need to know so many aspects of your main competitors.

For example, who’s their target audience? What’s their pricing points? How are they pricing the same or similar product and service as you? Do they have lead magnets? What are their lead magnets? How are they working? What’s their point of difference? And if they have a very specific point of difference, you know, compare it with yours and make sure you’re showing your point of difference as well. How are they selling their service or their product or an offer, how are they doing that? Do they have downloadables on their website? Are they pointing people to a lead magnet, a sales page, a landing page? Are they doing things off their social media? Do they have email marketing? Sign up to their marketing lists, their email list, get the emails. How are they communicating there? How are they offering there? What are they doing there? These are all things that are a part of research. And it’s nothing wrong with that at all. How do they communicate with their target audience? What’s their social media following like?

There’s so many points here, that you need to regularly check in, with your competitors to make sure, obviously, not that you’re doing the same thing, but you’re being competitive as well. And just to ensure that what you have working for you, is working for you.

Discovering these things are really going to help you with such things as, what can you do differently? What are they doing great? What aren’t they doing great? And what can you do differently? How can you really get your point of difference out there?

So, which leads me to, How are you different? How are you different from your competitors? And I know you’re uniquely you. So make sure you get that difference and put it out there because you know that your target audience wants to see you, wants to see the real you. So be different, be real, be raw, and be you, put that difference out there. And of course what’s working for you and them, and what’s not? Maybe what’s not working for them could be working for you. What’s working for you, might not be working for them.

These are all such important aspects and things to know in your business with what your business competitors are doing. It’s really important, which leads me now on to one of my favourite parts of market research, favourite, favourite, favourite, is your target audience market research. For example, if you’re looking at seeing what’s working for you, a good way to do this is go to your target audience, find people in your audience, go to your current clients or customers and speak to them whether it’s in survey or email format, phone call, you know, it doesn’t matter. But for example, if you want to know more things, that’s going to help your business, which is going to a target audience and conducting your market research, think of such questions like, ‘What made your decision to buy from my business and not my competitor?’ It’s going to give you critical information. You know, ‘What did you consider?’ Good information as part of your search, so when they were in the search process of looking for who they wanted to buy from, what were they thinking? What other competitors did they consider before they chose you? That is such critical information and ask them straight out ‘What do you like about my business? What do you like about my product? What do you like about my service?’ It could be anything from ‘I love your branding, I love your tone of voice, I love how real you are.’ Or you know, ‘I just love what you’re offering.’ And of course be real ask them what you don’t like, what don’t they like about your product or service or business, it’s really going to help you make those improvements that you may not know you need? And, ‘Why is my business and my service or product, the best choice for you?’ You know, really jot them down ladies, get them on there!

These are such important questions and you’re asking the people who are buying from you these questions, so it’s so relevant and so helpful. I’m getting really excited about market research, goodness me.

So before I get carried away, ladies, I hope you’re enjoying your bevvy, but one key point I just want to leave you with, what does market research do for you, and your business are really, really key points here. Market research will help you feel more confident, it will help you feel more confident in your business. It will help you feel confident in your business direction. It will give you goals to work towards. It’s going to help you make more informed decisions. Absolutely. It’s going to help you act really strategically, really act in a way in which you’re positioning yourself right, you’re pricing yourself right, you’re doing the right content marketing, you’ve got the right tone of voice, your branding is on point, it’s really going to help you in that strategic way. And of course, the one thing for me that’s so important to me is it’s going to help you communicate with your target audience the right way. It’s going to help you give compelling messages, give powerful messages, entice your target audience in the right way. Get them to make an action because you’re going to understand their needs and wants and how they consume information, how they want to be spoken to. Also, if you’re conducting the regular research, it’s going to refine what what you’re doing.

Like I said earlier, things are evolving, things are changing, it’s really important to make sure that everything you’re doing is fresh, is modern, is keeping up with the trends. And it’s just amazing it’ll do your your business a world of good. So yes, that’s a little touch on market research from me. Again, I absolutely love it. If it’s something you’re struggling with at Work Wife Wine Time, of course, we’re all about being in your zone of genius in your business. If you’re in your zone of genius, then you’re doing the things in your business you should be doing, you’re going to excel, you’re going to grow, you’re going to love getting up every morning and just jumping right into it. When you’re working the way you want to be working, doing the things you want to be doing. So if this is too overwhelming, then look at outsourcing it. Outsourcing is so powerful and you know, at Work Wife Wine Time, we love outsourcing. And we love more time in our business. We love our businesses to grow. Why not give it to someone who loves doing it? And then the research is going to come back so brilliantly. It’s going to be so well done, it’s going to be thorough, it’s going to be what you need, where it wasn’t such a push and a struggle for you to do it when you’re not enjoying it. So my final thought of today is just, remember to continuously keep up your market research, don’t do it just once. Just know how vital it is and you’ll really really see the difference because all strategies, same as marketplaces and people and trends, everything evolves, which means your marketing strategy needs to evolve and needs to change year on year depending on your industry. Brilliant, ladies. That’s a wrap. And as always, all you fabulous kick-ass women, fellow work wives, and female entrepreneurs and business owners. Remember you’re not alone, because collaboration is power.