What is Market Research?
A lot of inventors learn that you can build or make almost anything. Human beings are very clever, and if you spend enough time and money on something, you can normally get it to work. But the big question is will lots of people want to buy it?

When you invent something you need to make sure that what you have invented will be wanted by enough people, in the shape, form and size that you’ve decided on, and at the price that you want to get for it.

Finding out this information is called Market Research.

Market research is very important and it’s the sort of thing you have to keep doing, again and again, as your invention develops. For example it is useful when you; have your first idea, a working model, finalising your model and when you a ready to sell it.

Market research keeps you on track and lets you know if people will actually want your invention at the price it is going to cost.

Market Research when you have a working model

You should do some market research when you are well on your way and have a working model of your invention. You need people to go ‘wow’ and be something that people will want to buy and be able to afford.

Often your product has to be so much better than other things already available because people like to stick with a brand they know and might not want to try your new idea.

Will shops be willing to sell your invention?

More market research will find out if retailers (shops) will want to sell your invention.

If your product is only as good as the competitors, or only a bit better, you will have great trouble getting retailers to display your product.

Retailers won’t re-arrange their shop floors or shelf space just because you ask them to. They’ll only do so if you can convince them that your product will sell better, or faster or easier or make more money than the products they already have.

And be aware that the companies, which now have products on the shelves, will not roll over and easily let you grab some floor-space or shelf-space. They’ll fight tooth and nail to keep you out.

And even if you get retail display space, unless your product is better, you’ll have great trouble convincing people to buy products from brands they don’t know.

Market research will confirm that you are on track and that your product will "knock people’s socks off" when they see it demonstrated.

If you can’t confidently say ``Yes, it will knock people’s socks off!’’, it might be time to re-think your invention before you spend a lot more time and money on it.

Market Research when your product is available for sale.

Once your invention is in the market, you’ll need to do more market research to find out:

• What people really think about it;
• If there are changes you need to make;
• If people are finding out that your invention exists;
• How you can increase sales;
• What people feel about products that are similar to yours (your competitors)

You can also use market research to find out what additional things you could add to your invention to make them long-term fans of your products.

This may sound like a lot of work market research will probably happen over a teo-three years as your invention develops.

Market Research doesn’t have to cost you a lot of money but it can save you a fortune in the long run.

Types of Market Research

Desk research – magazines and journals

Start reading as many industry magazines and journals as possible that relate to your invention.

You will find out lots of information that might even dramatically affect your chances of your invention getting to market or surviving. If you read about it before it happens, you could save yourself a lot of time and money.

Regularly use a search engine on the Internet to investigate other ideas and inventions that are similar to yours, and regularly visit the websites of your competitors.

Talking to people that might be interested in your product

You should do your first market research soon after you’ve come up with your invention. It is best to have a working model so people can easily see what you are talking about. But before talking to people make sure your idea is protected. You don’t want someone stealing it and making a fortune form it without you. Click here to see how to protect you ideas.

Who do you ask?

You need to ask the right people about your invention. The wrong people might be encouraging but they won’t be able to help you.

It’s a good thing if your closest friend and your brother-in-law and your Grandma all know about your invention and think it’s a "goer", but unless they themselves are the type of people that would normally buy your invention (without knowing you), they may not be able to help you get your invention to market.

You really need to ask the sort of people who might buy and use the product what they think – and preferably they’ll be strangers with no particular interest in your success or failure as an inventor.

The ideal person to ask

The ideal person to ask is someone who has the identical problem that you had, and which you sought to overcome with your invention.

They might be a different age, have a different background but they will have experienced the same problem and will be interested in a possible solution.

The more people you can ask, the more accurate your research will be.

If you have a lot of trouble finding people who have experienced the problems your invention solves, maybe there isn’t a big need for your invention and you might have to rethink it.

The Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth

Before asking any person for their opinions, it’s important that you ask them to tell you the truth… not to say something positive just to be encouraging or to be polite.

This is something you really have to watch out for, especially when getting feedback from friends or colleagues, or from random people that you might poll. There’s a great natural temptation for friends to be encouraging and supporting – after all, that’s what friends are for - and there’s a great temptation among strangers to go along with something if they have no stake in it, just to be nice.

You see this happening in restaurants. The diners may have been muttering through the meal about the quality of the food or service, but when the waiter asks, "Is everything Okay?" most people barely look up before saying, "Yes, Fine thank you."

People will respond much more honestly if you say to them: "Look, I’m going to be making some big decisions, involving a lot of time and money, and I’ll be basing those decisions on what you and other people tell me. So please be completely honest…don’t tell me what you think I want to hear, but tell me what you actually think. You’ll be doing me a big favour".

Talking To Local Retailers

No matter what type of invention you have, you should be able to find retail or wholesale outlets for your invention.

If you had a gardening tool, it would be a hardware store or garden centre; a mobile phone accessory would see you going to your nearest major phone dealer; an electrical cable clip would see you at electrical wholesalers.

Market research at the retailers’ shop

It is very beneficial to do some market research at a local shop that has products similar to your invention.

Hang around in the appropriate department of your nearest big outlet, and create opportunities to talk to their staff and to the customers who might one day buy your particular invention. This way, you can get to know the staff, who will be a gold-mine of information about:

• What customers think about your existing competition. What do people like and dislike about them;
• What customers say they want out of your product – say a saw bench;
  
• What customers generally tend to do with the products i.e. Do they build pergolas and home extensions, or just fiddle about with toys and small occasional items?
• What price sensitivities exist in the area- i.e. Do customers look for cheap and cheerful products, or high priced quality and durability?
• What do the retail staff think of your competitors, in terms of support, training, ease of dealing with them, their level of activity with in-store and advertised promotions?
• What other products in your field that have come and gone in the past, and why they failed.

Secondly, you’ll have access to the very people who might buy your invention, and they’ll be coming to you rather than you having to go to them.

Gold mining

To find out information from someone you need to build a relationship with them. This might take several visits to a shop. Before long, if you keep visiting that store, they’ll get to know you and you’ll get to know them. Keep buying bits and pieces from them – for your project or for any other household needs that you might otherwise get at a supermarket.

If you find that this relationship is not building, find experienced people who are friendlier, or find another store and start again. The worst that’ll happen is that you end up with more purchases than you need right now.

Within a month or two you could have two or three such relationships developing, and then it might be time to "come clean" with them. Tell them that you’re an inventor, and you’re working on a new product. You are guaranteed to almost immediately get their interest.

If you pick your times well you’ll probably find that the retailer will look forward to your visits because you’re helping break up the tedium of the day. And they can justify their time in talking to you, because you’re making purchases…even little ones.

Thank them often for their help, and tell them their information and opinions are very useful in your decision-making.

Asking customers what they think

When you have a good relationship with a retailer, you can then seek their permission to talk to their customers (people that buy products from their shop). You should also make sure you approach the Department Manager, explain that you’re an inventor and seek permission to come in say for a couple of hours a week, over the next few weeks.

With their permission, you can hang around the department during the busiest times, and ask questions of any customers who either have the time to answer, or who are waiting to be served.

(You’ll actually be appreciated in the store, rather than just tolerated, if you do engage some of their waiting customers in chat while the staff are busy. It makes the waiting time pass much more quickly for the otherwise-annoyed customer.)

The Right tools

Be well dressed (without being over-dressed), and have a lapel badge with your name (and company/product name on it).

Make sure your invention is ready and looks as good as you can make it, even to the extent of getting it professionally spray-painted and finished. If you don’t have a prototype, have some high quality artists impressions (or 3-D CAD modelled) produced as a glossy, colour image.

Safety in numbers

The more potential consumers that you can question, the better. Don’t even consider doing less than 10 such complete surveys to have any hope of statistical validity, but 20 – 100 such surveys will give you a reasonable idea of the market.

Make sure you don’t do all of your surveys in the same type of environment. Find other possible places – in other suburbs, or other states, or other socio-economic areas, or in a rural area, or a different type of outlet, to make sure that you’re getting a more balanced view of the potential market for your invention.

Approaching a Customer for an interview.

First smile broadly, introduce yourself and explain why you are there.

Ask them if they have time to spare to take part in a survey. You could produce a clipboard or a Dictaphone with their permission, and fire away.

Firstly, tell them that you’re local. They’ll want to help the struggling little local inventor much more than they would, say a multi-national corporation.

Then ask a couple of simple questions, to get them on-side if they look like becoming a proper respondent (some one who will answer your questions), or to end the conversation quickly if they’ll never be a serious sales prospect.

What sort of questions do you ask?

There are several types of questions you can use. All have their good and bad points.

First, you could use a simple True or False approach, to see whether survey respondents basically agree or disagree with your beliefs about your product. Or you could go one better and have five possible answers: Strongly Agree, Agree, Not Sure, Disagree. Strongly Disagree

For this sort of category selection, you could also use a weighted or scaleable system. For example, you could ask them to rank their concerns, on a scale of 1 to 7.

For the most part you will not want to ask open-ended questions, such as ‘what do you think of my invention?’. Instead, give the respondents a suggested range of answers.

For example:

Do you think beer should be green?

• Do you;
• Strongly Agree;
• Agree;
• Neither Agree of Disagree;
• Disagree; or
• Strongly disagree?

Having answers structured in this format will make it easier to study the results and give you important information about your invention.

Open-ended questions are not necessarily bad, however. The are an extremely good way of raising issues and ideas that you hadn’t considered before. But only use a few of these types of questions.

Treasure the moment

If you’re talking to somebody who is genuinely interested in your invention - ``Oh my God, a real live potential customer’’ - you should treasure the moment and get as much out of it as you can.

Your potential customers may clear and definite ideas about what they want and need. You should note any of these down. You may not be able to tabulate them in a meaningful way, but you should be able to roughly categorise them. And browsing through their answers from time to time will help ensure that your product design is keeping up with the consumers’ needs.

An Example of Market research in Action –by George Lewin, inventor of the Triton Work Bench

I came up with the idea early in 1975 because I was frustrated while trying to build a dining table – my first woodwork project since school.

I invented the Triton saw bench after giving up on trying to cut straight and square - first with a hand-saw, and then with the power saw. I modified the saw bench several times, and re-modelled it twice before I was ready to show it to any strangers.

I then invited two work colleagues to come back to my place after work one day, to find out what they thought of my invention.

Both were amateur woodworkers with back sheds. Both these people were chosen a bit randomly at the time, but in hindsight, they turned out to be perfect.

I’d selected a person who was a bit like me…a handyman with some power tools, a back shed and a desire to do more woodwork. He ended up representing my primary market … people who wanted to improve their wood-working, and who had the shed-space to do so, but who couldn’t afford or justify the big heavy machines needed to do a decent job … people who would have remained "weekend wood butchers" if the Triton saw bench or something like it hadn’t eventually come along.

The other person was also a good choice. He was a more accomplished wood-worker who’d spend about $2000 (you could buy a decent car for less back in 1975) on his radial arm saw and his rip saw bench, and had devoted most of his double garage to his hobby. He had already made the difficult sacrifices of money and garage-space, because he loved woodwork enough to do so. But he resented the cost of his machines, and more importantly, he resented the space they took up – having to be bolted down to the floor as they were. He would have gladly sold them if my saw bench turned out to be any good. He ended up becoming a perfect example of my secondary market.

After I’d sworn my two chosen people to secrecy - because I hadn’t yet filed a Patent Application - I gave them a quick run-through of my crude homemade prototype.

Before asking for their detailed opinions, I pleaded with them to tell me the truth… not to say something positive just to be encouraging or to be polite.

Both agreed that my saw bench could be "a goer", if it was well made, didn’t take a long time to change between modes of operation, and if it was reasonably accurate.

The fact that both liked it encouraged me to go to the next step of researching the idea at my local hardware store. Looking back, my only mistake back then was in limiting the process to two people. I should have asked at least 10 such potential customers, to have a statistically more relevant sample.

Find out about Confidentiality – Keeping Your idea Secret....here