Case Study: deeg Consultancy

In the first of our many case studies we'll be bringing you over the coming weeks and months Alun Davies of deeg Consultancy provides his top tips for carrying out market research. Alun won a Shell LiveWIRE Grand Ideas Award for February of 2011.

You can read more about Alun and his company deeg Consultancy on his Alumni page.

deeg’s Top Tips for Market Research

One of the most important, and most overlooked, aspects of setting up a new business is a thorough understanding of the market you are about to enter. The more information you have available the better your chance of survival – the old adage of “forewarned is forearmed” has never been truer.  

When we won a Shell LiveWIRE Grand Ideas award in February 2011, one of the aspects of our proposal that was especially highlighted by the judging panel was the market research we had conducted, so here are our three top market research tips:

• Ensure you’re targeting your market – you need to get the feedback you’re looking for from your potential customers. If you’re selling clothes, the high street’s the place to go. If you’re selling parts for oil-rigs, the high seas may be more suitable!
• Make it worth their while - it’s always going to be difficult to get people to give up their own precious time to help you. To ensure they give you their full attention why not offer them a small reward? For example, during the early phase of deeg Consultancy we drew up a representative list of our target market and offered these companies access to our Social Media white paper in return for their responses to a questionnaire.
• Be original – we’re all familiar with the sight of a sorry individual on a high-street holding a clipboard and being studiously ignored by all. So why not think outside the box – for instance, a small payment to a web developer can get you an online form which stores all submissions to a database to be retrieved at a later date. You can then send that link via email, or access it on a Smartphone whilst you’re out and about – more interesting than a boring old clipboard any day!

So before you take the plunge, make sure you do your research, and build your business on some solid foundations.

More on Market Research

Should you wish to learn more on market research we have wealth of resources on the subject in the Shell LiveWIRE Business Library including the issues you may face when carry out market research and how to define your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

In the My Business Kit section we also have a great guide on how to carry out Market Research for the First Time.

If you have any more questions on Market Research the Shell LiveWIRE Discussion Forum is the perfect place to ask. You can get great advice from your fellow entrepreneurs, business experts and the Shell LiveWIRE staff.